The road to a healthy self-image is not always a forward moving journey. At times you may have to take a step or two backward to gain perspective on an area of struggle. To take even one thought and replace it with one that helps you carry forward, is a victory. Life is hard enough out there without your own brain working against you too. Shaping the voice, you hear most often, your internal voice provides the opportunity to live out a healthier mental journey.
What You Think is What You Get
How you see yourself affects not only how you interact with the world around you, but how the world reacts to you. The things you tell yourself cause you to grab, or pass, what life has to offer. Beliefs about your abilities or your worthiness can lead you down paths that build up your self-image or have you running away. Unlike magnets that need the opposite charges to attach, an internal voice that is negative actually attracts more negative thoughts resulting in a less than favorable outlook on life. Whereas, the positive self-talk and affirmations build self-confidence that the outside world responses to often, in kind.
Gaining Some Perspective
When you catch yourself coloring your world with the darkest of colors, elevate the contents of what you are telling yourself. Often these messages are based on a negative experience or learned response. Sometimes asking yourself may not be the best way to identify these thought patterns. You may need the perspective of a trusted friend or family member. Seeking out a mental health professional can lead to helpful insights that you may not have been aware of before. Once you have identified unhealthy thought patterns, you are now able to replace those with a tone and message that can help you see life differently.
Build a Better Habit
Putting a new tone to your inner voice will take effort and practice. You may want to write out some of those new messages to have them handy when you need to reinforce the new way of talking to yourself. You can also print out those things that keep you focused on where you desire this new perspective to take you. Steering your mental attitude when life throws you a curveball is a curial aspect of building a healthy inner voice.
Try this; put up an affirmation where you can see it several times during the day and encourage your inner voice along the way.