Ep. 66 – Self -Talk

Hey, my beautiful friends, and how are you? We’re gonna talk about an interesting and different subject. Today we’re gonna talk about internal self-talk, the language and words that we use ourself when we talk to ourselves, and it’s a very powerful tool to be aware of this. To create the results you want in your life.

So if you are ready, let’s get started.

Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaa and Jeff Wilson, and we are here to give you the strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you. And desire as partners, both in marriage and coaching. We use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter.

Hey everybody, how are you? And Jeff, how are you? Good. How are you? I’m okay. Let’s see what’s going on in our life, what’s going on in our lives. Going out on the boat tonight. Yeah. Okay. We’re going out on the boat, but trying to understand things are, are going well and getting ready for the holidays. Yes.

And your, your mom’s recovering from her surgery. She is. My mom had knee surgery, knee replacement 83. And I have to say, you realize how. Strong people are when they go through adversity. You know, my mom, who’s 83, she lives alone. Mm-hmm. Her name is Susan, and she had this knee replacement. She has to have both knees done, but she made a decision.

She could either basically be incapacitated because her knees are so bad that she could just. Just, you know, walk from here to there and do what she had to do in her house, but she was really immobile or to have this surgery and to go through the adversity of the surgery in order to. Look forward to and have better results.

And isn’t that true, what our listeners are going through? Yeah. And it’s, uh, she’s gonna have to go through it again in a, in a few months with the other knee. But what I’m saying is it was interesting that she made a decision to have this involved surgery and as an elderly person living alone, Knowing that she was gonna be in pain, and obviously you are in pain after surgery, knee replacement.

And she did it and she’s really strong. I was watching her even the day of the surgery, they get you up and out of the bed. And I was like, you go mom. Yeah, I was, we were very proud of her. Anyhow, look, we hope that you’re, uh, you’re understanding as listeners out there that divorce. An adverse time and that you can use the situation to propel yourself forward and to make the best of your new life, right?

Sometimes it takes adverse situations to kind of wake us up, right? Because we tend to be on this automatic pilot where we’re just like, Living day in and day out without really thinking about it. And sometimes it takes that to put to stop you in your tracks, as they say. Right? Put everything into perspective.

Well, it put it, it hits you right in the face, right? Yeah, it does. It hits you right in the face. And when you’re going through divorce and whether you wanted it or you didn’t want it, or it was mutual, this is an opportunity to take that adverse situation and make the life you want. So today we’re gonna talk about, um, internal self-talk.

And what that means is really what it sounds like, right? Yes. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. No. Because how many times do you ever think about what you’re saying to yourself? You know, you may think about how you speak to others, or you may recognize that when you speak to someone, well, maybe that wasn’t the best way of approaching it because the other person communicated back some adversity, right?

So you communicate to that person and then they’re like, well, wait a second. You know, blah, blah, blah. And so maybe you second guess what you said, like second you think about it. But what about the way you think about yourself and the way you talk to yourself? How many times do you really think about that?

Yeah. I think you get away with a little bit more when you’re talking to yourself. You do like, you kind of blow it off, right? Right. But remember, the most important person in your life has to be. Has to be you and I know that many of you out there have children and family members and employees and other commitments, but if you don’t take care of yourself first.

What do they say? Put that mask on first in the airplane. Right? Right. So the, the reason you put it on first is cuz you gotta be okay before you can now put the mask on your child or on somebody that you love. So taking care of yourself is really, really important and I wanna give you all permission to do that.

So, not that you need my permission. So when we talk about, um, inter internal self-talk, what we mean is that the. You use influence your decision making. The words you use can give you power, or it can take your power away. So when you eliminate disempowering words from your vocabulary, it can be quite transformative and it can really make a difference in your life, especially after.

Right, exactly. And we wanted to do this podcast because even though it’s, it’s a very subtle, uh, way that we talk to ourselves and the results are huge. Yeah, they are. They are. So I think that, um, I. A lot of people when they go through divorce, you know, I know when I was going through my divorce and after my divorce, and Jeff, maybe you can chime in how you, how, how it was for you.

I had a lot of self negative talk or, um, you know, internal self-talk that. Wasn’t good, right? Like I was thinking, I’m a failure, I’ll never find love again. Um, how could I do this to my children? I’m a bad mom. Like all this stuff that I was thinking about, um, internally, and I think that divorce is ripe for that because.

A lot of people think about divorce as a failure, and I, I think I did a episode on that, but, you know, I wanna suggest that you had beautiful times together and you may have had children together, and how could that be a failure? Right, right. So, did you have negative self-talk when you went through your divorce?

I, I wouldn’t say, uh, because of the divorce, but, uh, definitely my goals after the divorce and some of the things that I wanted to accomplish, I did catch myself. Uh, doubting myself or, or talking to myself in a negative way. So let’s, let’s go ahead and talk about some examples. You know, you may not realize that the words you think yourself to yourself can be destructive and unproductive, you know, such as saying, I’ll never find love again.

Right. You know, let’s say you’re on a horrible date and, and after the date you see, I’ll never find love again, and you’ll probably not find love again. Right? I, I think you’re, what you’re saying is that, Um, having that thought in advance of actually trying to get to your result of, I’ll never find love again.

Or another example is I’ll never lose weight. Right? A lot of people can relate to that when something happens, such as when you go on a bad date, your thoughts go back to you. I was right. I was right. I’m never gonna find love again because you had that one bad date as opposed to a. A self thought of, well, it might be difficult to find love and I might have to take my time to find love, but I know that it’s possible I could find love.

And then when you go on that date and it’s bad, your thought would be not playing into, I’ll never find love, but it’s like, okay, well that’s one guy that’s not for me. Right? So, you know, I would look at that as well. That’s one further over there, like that’s one negative one. So now I’m closer to that. I’m closer to the below.

You know, another example is the weight example. Mm-hmm. You know, how many times do we say what, I’m never gonna lose weight. I can’t keep this weight off. Right? And so maybe you’ve been trying for a few weeks, you really feel like you’ve put the effort in, you know you’re dieting, meaning that you’re eating well and you’re exercising, doing the things you know you need to do and you get on the scale.

I’m sure so many people can relate to this, cuz I know I can. You get on the scale and you’re like, wait a second. I have been good for like three weeks, right? I have really honestly been good. This is me talking to myself, right? And you get on the scale and you lost like a half a pound and you’re like, oh my gosh.

See, I’m never gonna lose weight. And you just give up. Right. Or you go by another scale that’s working. No, seriously. No. Yeah, you definitely, it, it’s very discouraging because of what you’re saying to yourself, right? As opposed to having that self-talk. That might be before you even start the, the, the journey on trying to lose the weight is, yeah.

You know, it might be a little challenging for me to lose weight, but I know I can, and I need to just be patient. Then when you get on the scale and you’re lost a half a pound, well, you might be. Disappointed cuz of course you want the scale to go down. Your mind won’t go to see, I can never lose weight.

And like you give up, it’ll go to, okay, well it’s a half a pound and the scale did go down. The scale did go, I just gotta keep doing it. Right. Okay. That’s good. Those are good examples. I hope everybody understands that. And this all plays into the foundation of, um, what we preach or teach, um, as life coaches, which is what, uh, the model, which is what?

Well, the model, uh, talks about your circumstance and from the circumstance you’re gonna have your thoughts, which leads to your feelings and actions or inactions. And then of course, that’s gonna drive your results. And when you have negative self-thought, where does that fit into the model? Well, your negative self, uh, talk is, is just your thoughts, right?

That’s what, that’s what a thought is. It’s your self-talk, uh, your self-talk. Um, it’s a conversation with yourself that when you’re thinking something negative, that’s gonna lead to usually negative feelings. Which are gonna lead to either mostly inactions or negative actions, which, you know, are you gonna end up with the results that you don’t want?

Let’s give an example. I know this is going back to some of our fundamental beginnings. Mm-hmm. Um, and if you look at the episodes, there is an episode that deals with the model. More in detail, but for our new listeners or even people that just need a refresher, let’s take an example. So let’s, let’s talk about the example.

The example of having that thought. I’ll never find love again. Okay, so the circumstance is that you’re not in love, right? The circumstance is that you don’t have anybody in your life. Right. That’s a circumstance. Yeah. Fresh, maybe. Fresh out of a divorce. Well, and you don’t have anybody, right? So that’s a reality.

That’s a reality. That’s a circumstance. The circumstance is always based on something factual. So if you don’t have that special love in your life, that person, that’s a reality. Okay. It’s a reality. Then your thought could be a negative self-thought. Which or self? Um, dialogue. Self talk dialogue. Yeah, dialogue, self-talk, which could be I’ll never find love again.

That’s your thought. Your feeling from that might be something like what? When you think that you’re sad, you’re, you’re concerned. You’re worried. Okay, you’re right. So let’s just take one. You’re sad. Let’s take you’re sad, and when. Sad. So you have the thought, I’ll never find love. The feeling is you’re sad, you’re kind of like, you know, not feeling good about that.

Then what might be your action? Well, you’re definitely not gonna put yourself out there. I was gonna say, you’re gonna hide, right? Yeah. You’re gonna hide. Yeah. And then the result is, yeah, you might buffer. No. The result is you’re never gonna find love again. Well, yeah. If you’re not at, if you’re sitting at home watching TV by yourself, you’re not gonna find love.

Yeah. So let’s just go through that again. Right. Okay. So we’ve got the circumstances. You’re not, you don’t have anybody special in your life. You’re single. You’re single. That’s good. The thought is I’ll never find love again. Right. That negative. Self-talk. Mm-hmm. Your feeling is sadness. You know you’re sad.

Your action is, maybe you are going to just not put yourself out there because you’re sad. And who wants to put themselves out in the world when they’re sad? They wanna probably curl up, eat a bag of chips and watch Netflix. Yeah. Or maybe drink a bottle of Chardonnay, I don’t know. That’s called buffering.

And then the result is you’re not out there finding your potential. Right. That’s the model. That’s the model. All right, so little foundation on that. Just to, to go back in time a little bit. So now I wanna talk about. Ne about negative self-talk and about the opposite of that, which is seeing yourself projecting yourself as your future self.

That is already somebody that has, we’re using the example, lost weight or found love, right? So if you think of yourself, let’s take the example of someone who will find love. Now, imagine yourself meeting people that you really like, right? Your future self, putting yourself out there and really meeting people, right?

Some are gonna be good candidates, some are not gonna be good ones, right? It’s just the way it works. So I want you to imagine yourself in a relationship with someone who really meets your criteria that you feel you can really have a good relationship with. What would you be thinking today? If you were in that mental state, meaning, does that make sense?

Sure. Can you help me with that? Of course. Um, well, it brings me to a book I once read, and it’s one of my favorite books by Stephen Covey. It’s called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And one of my favorite habits is Begin with the End in Mind. That’s true. So if you start out, think. The results that you want, the results are gonna happen, right?

And you know, it’s putting yourself in that mentality, meaning kind of like living it. I’m gonna use the example of money for for a minute because I think that’s something that I can relate to a lot. Meaning being a businesswoman person, entrepreneur, um, you know, when you are trying to, to run a business and you have a service or product to get out there in the world.

You could think of that as, who’s gonna want this? And you know, nobody may want it. Or you can think of it as this is gonna be really successful, this is gonna help, like our life coaching, this is gonna help a lot of people out there in the world. And so we know that. And when we think that, we know that we can attract.

Our clients because we’re living by way of even the example of this podcast as people that just know how valuable it is. Right? Right. And so when we know that we put ourselves out there in the world, we have a podcast in which we hopefully engage with you on a level that will bring you to our website, and we’ll also maybe potentially bring you in as a client.

But it could easily be that we could be sitting there saying, well, who’s gonna hear us? Who’s gonna really understand this? Et cetera. And then we wouldn’t put ourselves out there. Does that make sense? Sure. Yeah. A lot of people, oh, this is hokey and this is, you know, They don’t get it. And uh, some people are opening up their minds to it and we know that they’ll get it.

Correct. Correct. Yeah. You know, and, and life coaching. I think everyone in the world should have a life co coach. I’m sorry. Um, I even have, you know, I have. My own life coach, and I do that because I like having somebody in my team, on my team that can help me to be accountable. I’m good with that. Like I like having a trainer when I go to the gym because I know that there’s that accountability factor.

I like having a life coach because helps me to stay on point and to be focused. Same with my business coach. Correct? Correct. Keeps me accountable in my business. So let’s talk. Some of the common words also that are used, that are examples of things that people say that they really should reconsider. Can we do that?

Yeah. I can give you an example of that. Uh, the words, uh, I can’t, for an example, uh, when you say I can’t, you’re, you’re kind of admitting that you have a low self. Uh, you’re also giving away control and, uh, you lack the choice because you can’t do something. If you use the word, I won’t. Instead it gives you more power and it’s more decisive.

For an example, uh, I can’t lose weight. You’re telling yourself that you can’t do something and you’re, you’re helpless. Mm-hmm. If you said, I won’t be overweight, Or I won’t be out of shape. You are being a little bit more assertive in your confidence and you’re also taking control of the, of your goal.

Yeah, I think that’s a great example. Um, another couple words that I think are good examples. You hear people say this often and I think it’s more common in when people are arguing, but it’s that always and never. You always act like that, or you always do this or you never, um, whatever it is, blah, blah, blah.

Right. As opposed to using the words sometimes or off or seldom, you know, something like this, like sometimes I don’t know what, what’s an example of that? As opposed to always, um, well, sometimes I get upset with you versus I always get upset with you. Right. That, that’s true. You know, some things like that.

Cuz when you’re saying always and never, you’re, you’re definitely trying to prove a point. Well, and they’re, they seem to me to be like, Absolutes. Yeah, because always and never, if you look up the definitions in the Google world always and never are very definitive. It’s always means there’s no room for anything different.

And never means it’s never possible and rarely. Rarely in life is there an always and a never. Exactly. You know, another example, going back to, uh, self-talk and, uh, the language that you use to, to tell yourself things is, uh, I’ll try. And when you say, I’ll try, you sound very unsure about things. Well, unsure of yourself.

Yeah. Unsure of yourself. Unsure that you can even do it. Um, and another, uh, kind of the, the better word for that, that I like is, It. You know, when you say com, I commit, that means you’re pledging action. Right? It’s a little bit more affirmative in your, in your confidence. You know, it’s interesting you say that cuz I just had a conversation with one of our clients and uh, you know, she was telling me that she’s, um, basically, Trying to do something.

Okay. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna say too much, but she goes, okay, well, you know, I’ll, I’ll definitely give that a try. And, and I said, well, um, you know, how are you gonna try that? And we kind of went through that and we worked through that. And she gave me some ways in which she was gonna try to accomplish her goal, which we’re all.

Sound and good ways of getting there, right? And I said, well, you have great ideas on how you’re gonna accomplish this goal, and you have a roadmap now to get there. I said, that’s amazing. That’s, that’s what we worked for through in the coaching with her. And I said, I just wanna ask you to change one thing.

And she was, she thought like she was doing so good. She’s like, what? Like, and I go, no, no, no. You’ve got like a real roadmap to getting to your goal, but let’s change that word cuz you keep saying, I’m gonna try this. Can you use the word, I’m gonna commit to doing those four things that you outlined you’re gonna do.

Mm-hmm. And she was like, of course I can commit. And I was like, do you get the difference between saying, I’ll try, I’ll try. Is kind of like, well, maybe I’ll try it, maybe I won’t. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Where when she said, I’ll commit to it, it was like she was gonna just make it happen. When you were saying that I was gonna also add.

Even the way people say it, you know the word, try and then commit. You know, I’m committed. You know, you, it energizes you. Yeah. And even the word try kind of de-energize you. It’s I’ll try it. It’s like you’re already knowing that you’re gonna defeat yourself. Yeah. Right. That’s why it rhymes Would cry. I’m gonna try, you know, so I can cry later when I cry later.

But I’m gonna commit. Well, let’s wrap it up by giving, um, a couple strategies on how to help our listeners to maybe look at their self negative talk and turn it into successful positive self-talk. What do, what should they do? Well, the first one is be aware. Right. You know, kind of be aware of your thoughts and, and kind of do a checkup from the neck up, they say.

And always be aware of what you’re saying to yourself. Exactly. Like always and never. If you catch yourself saying, well, you never, oh, yep. I’ll remind you that. Thank you. Of that. No, just kidding. Just kidding. No, but awareness is, Awareness is key. Right? And that’s what we do in our coaching is it’s all about awareness.

Awareness of your thoughts, because the thoughts are gonna create the results in your life. So we want you to be aware is the first thing. The second thing is practice. Practice. What do we mean by that? Well, you know, everything. Well, I guess that’s a, that’s a bad word too. Everything. Not everything. Yeah.

And they couldn’t be in everything. Yeah. I, I always say that and I hope I said always. Now, um, things become habit. You know, and, and, and practice, you practice using your positive self-talk. Uh, it will become a habit. And one thing I I like to do is affirmations, positive affirmations. Every morning, you know, this is a great day.

Uh, the sun is shining, right? It’s beautiful out. And just those positive affirmations are gonna make it a habit. So going back to our examples of maybe every morning, if somebody’s looking for love, they can say something like, As a positive affirmation, I love myself and I will find love again. I will find love again.

Or if we’re trying to lose weight, a positive affirmation might be every day. Yeah, every day I’m losing weight. I’m, I’m feeling lighter already. And I can do this. I can do this. Right. What’s the, so the next one is what? So we’ve got, the first one was aware, was awareness. The second one was practice.

Practice. And then the third is, is called, Shift. What does that mean? Yeah. It’s almost like, have you ever heard the word paradigm shift? Yes, of course. It’s kind of like, it’s an aha moment. It’s an aha moment. It’s where you kind of change, uh, what you want to do. So if you, you know, you’re working on eliminating certain words, like catch yourself.

I use this word a lot, right? And I prefer to use this word. May maybe make a list of words that you want to eliminate from your vocabulary. Oh, I like that. Yeah. And then make a list of words that you want to starting. Replace. Replace, replace ’em with. Yeah. So focusing on certain words you would like to eliminate from your vocabulary and focus on the empowering ones.

You would like to add? Yeah, and I would write ’em down. I would write ’em down. Oh, for sure. I always recommend that after you listen to our episodes and if it resonates with you, um, and you think that you could be helped by it, you know, like write down some notes, go back and see what you can do. And here you can take these strategies that we’re talking about and like really like write ’em down and start to, to outline them for yourself.

Right? So what’s the next one that we have? Cause I think this is really the most important. Well, when, when you have a goal, you always have to have an empowering reason. And I think number four is, is kind of that reason, is the focus on the benefits of having a, uh, positive self-talk. It’s gonna make you feel healthier, it’s going to get, have you more accepting of yourself, and then there’s just so many benefits that that’s what you should focus on and it’s gonna help you accomplish your goals.

Great, great. So we had awareness. Practice the shift and focus on the benefits. Focus on the benefit. Yeah. So anyhow, I think it was a good, a great episode today. I hope everybody enjoyed it. We want to always just, uh, bring you, you know, different topics. If you have any topics that you would like us to explore, um, or you have any thoughts on things that you want us to discuss on any level, feel free.

To email us where? Well, my email is Jeff, l a d. That stands for Life after Divorce. Yeah. Dash Coaching. Dot com and mine is the same thing with Doreen at the beginning. D o r e e n. Yes. At l a d dash coaching coaching.com. And I would love to hear some ex, uh, some of your feedback from the, the podcast, the episodes, and, uh, let me know what some of your goals are.

And I would also just ask, since we’re in the asking mode, if anybody could leave a review. Um, it would be really, really appreciated. We know that your time is valuable, but we also know that reaching out and re and leaving reviews can help another person that is dealing with divorce. And hopefully we’ve helped you on some level with our podcast and the reviews are helpful.

So when people are looking for things in their. Because they’re suffering from divorce. Um, seeing your, your reviews can help them to hopefully get involved in the podcast as well and bring them some, some relief and some future focus on how their life can be better after divorce. Because as we say, yes, you can what have an amazing life after divorce.

All right, everybody, listen, have an amazing day. Love yourself. Love each other, and. Oh wait, I forgot about one thing of good news. What? Our website is now live. Yay. Yay. So they can go to the l a d.coaching.com, I mean-coaching.com to learn more and, and check out the new, uh, website. Yeah, we’d love some feedback from you.

And don’t you, we also have there they can have a complimentary consultation if you want. Absolutely. All right guys, listen, we took enough of your time this morning. Hope you, or whenever you’re listening, hope you have an amazing week, and we’ll talk to you next week. Bye bye. Bye everybody.

You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching visit, At L A d-coaching.com, that’s l a d as in life after divorce-coaching.com. Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day.

And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after after divorce course.