Can I just be real with you? For the past few years, I’ve been stacking on the pounds. Now, the pounds did not accumulate in a short time period. They slowly accumulated over a few years. But when my husband bought us a scale earlier this year, I finally mustered up the courage to weigh myself IN SECRET–and I was devastated.
When was the last time you focused your efforts on taking care of yourself? In times of chaos and crisis, it’s easy to push yourself (yet again) to the side in an effort to care for others. But you can’t pour into others from an empty cup. Right?
Our self-talk or internal dialogue is powerful. Did you know your self-talk can actually lead to your healing? Our self-talk impacts our self-esteem, sense of worth, self-confidence and self-image. It also impacts the way we act and make decisions. I guess what I’m trying to say is that our self-talk affects every area of our lives. For the good or bad.
The voice of shame is cruel, insensitive, demeaning, degrading and destructive. It strips us of hope for a positive future and it poisons our perspective, damages our sense of power and robs us of fulfilling our potential and purpose. Shame deceives us into believing we are inherently bad, unwanted, unlovable, undesirable and unworthy of unconditional love, acceptance, and belonging.
While doing a bit of research on the mind and negative thought patterns, I came across an inner critic quiz that helps you discover your inner critic patterns so you can create a plan for how to change them. Now I won’t list the 7 types of critics revealed in the quiz (you can discover them by taking the quiz via the link below), but I do want to start this post by defining ‘inner critic’.
11 years ago on May 1st, I lost my mother to ovarian cancer. She had battled the disease for 3 years and died a few weeks after her 49th birthday. I remember my mother saying during her last few weeks of life that she had to get better because she still had a purpose to fulfill on this earth. When I heard these words, I remember saying in my heart:
“I don’t want to arrive at the end of my life believing I have yet to fulfill my God-given purpose. I want to be able to say with confidence that I have fulfilled it.”
Does the little voice in your head tell you:
“You’ll never succeed. You’re worthless. Your life is a mess. You can’t get yourself together. You’re a failure. You can’t do anything right. You’ll never do anything great or meaningful.