Speak over yourself.

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I’m a big fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Albert Ellis is my homeboy.

For me the notion of life’s problems stemming from faulty thoughts (cognition)/behaviors not only makes sense–it’s comforting.

CBT teaches if we shift beliefs/actions toward healthy and productive goals, our lives become easy peasy (Carla-term not CBT-term).

In addition, CBT stresses the importance of feeling our fears and reminds us the more we fearface the more skilled at vanquishing it we become.

fear

Basically when we struggle with anydamnthing involving thoughts/actions CBT can help.

Which brings me to a phrase a fellow CBT-lover/faith-based therapist shared with me:

Speak over yourself.

I loved. I googled. I found very little.

I reached out to StillSisterinLaw, my guru on all things Christianity, and inquired if the sentiment was based in that.

She didn’t know.

I still loved. I still searched. I concluded I needed to make it my own.

Wherever the phrase originated–it suited me.

I have conversations.

I get excited.

I interrupt. A lot.

It’s not my best trait, but could I harness its power and transform it ala CBT into a fear-facing, helpful one?

Perhaps…

Re-frame negative.

I’m drawn to CBT because it focuses on what and how and not why. This approach to cognition both feels action oriented to me and seems as though it’s a move forward. I needed a move forward.

Perhaps through speaking over myself I could re-frame/smash my cycle of ‘I can’t’ thinking?

From the benign (I have no sense of style–wanna help decorate my condo?) to the serious (I possess zero tangible job skills. What offline-positions might I even apply for?) I needed to train my brain to view my world through a new light.

Is this new light accurate? Quite frankly it doesn’t matter. This new perspective is necessary if I’m going to thrive in my current circumstances.

It’s incumbent upon me to re-frame my thoughts through ‘interrupting myself’ if I hope to create a self-fulfilled prophesy.

Return to catchphrase.

Mantra, chant, drishti. However we refer words/places upon which we direct our focus–I’d lost mine.

Somewhere along the way I’d forgotten the inspirational snippet I intuitively told myself and in its place acquired a not so healthy mantra (I’m a baby chick).

And yet I still believed the Universe doesn’t necessarily provide us what we want, but delivers what we need.

I’ve chosen to believe Speak over yourself was sent as a mantra of sorts. A 3 word reminder of the fact  I’m not always able to see things as they really are.

Be less kind.

I’m not ‘most women.’

I’m not someone who needs to be instructed to be gentle to herself. I’m not a woman whom friends need admonish ‘treat yourself as you would a BFF!‘ I happily, unapologetically and consistently cut myself huge amounts of that proverbial slack.

Spoiler alert: This is not always a good thing.

I can be too quick to ‘meet myself where I am‘ (It’s OK, Carla, if you’re feeling ____ and need to sit with the emotion for a while) and realized in doing so I unwittingly give myself permission to remain stuck.

It’s incumbent upon me to be far less benevolent…to me.

Framed in this fashion, Speaking over myself offered a perfect partner/counterbalance to manifestation journaling.

In the latter I write the reality I long to create and in the former I refuse to listen to myself with regards to the myriad imagined reasons my my second life wont unfold as planned.

Research indicates we humans have approximately 70,000 thoughts per day with 80% of these musings being negative or self-damaging (!).

In writing and in speech I’m speaking over myself.

And you?

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Comments

  2. Whoa – that last tidbit about 80% of our thoughts being negative??? What?? Wow. I need to be on my best behavior 🙂 Honestly, I will be thinking a lot more about that while I desperately try to not talk over people and interrupt – LOL!!

  3. You know I”m the interrupter, right? So let’s see if I can do this to myself. I’m pretty good at being hard on myself, so that shouldn’t be a problem!!

    It’s the old mind over matter. Let’s do it.

  4. I’m guilty of the first part for sure, and trying to focus on self-talk so this concept could work for me. In fact, last week at the dentist I self-spoke over all the miserable talk with “Carla loves the dentist”. I wasn’t totally convinced that it’s just a matter of perspective — in fact I convinced myself that you must have a more gentle hygienist — but it got me through.

  5. Very thought-provoking. I have this same bad habit and definitely have to negative self-thoughts. Keep us in the loop, I’m learning as you’re learning.

  6. While i never called it this, i do try to change my thought patterns or “speak over myself” when i find myself dwelling on negatives. One way i do it is thinking of a reason to be grateful even in a less than perfect situation.

  7. I love this! I love thinking, let me interrupt this thought and go to something else please, to myself! Will do it and giggle doing it because it is kind of funny.

  8. Motivational exchange- controls ALL behavior.
    No fear here- I do what I set out to do, as I go into the “worst case scenario” and see that it’s not bad at all so I forge ahead.

  9. There’s so much here to digest. I fall on the side of “listener” and “observer”. I notice people who race and interrupt with their thoughts. Like you, I “err” on the side of cutting myself too much slack…and getting stuck.

  10. Whoa…I love this concept. Kinda goes along with my “be un-you” post.

    I give m doubting/critical voice way too much power, so I could definitely stand to “speak over myself” more.

    Also, that 80% statistic? Ugh…

  12. I like this. One of my goals for 2018 is to plan appropriately and then execute on the damn plan instead of dreaming big and then cutting myself too much slack. I used to err on the side of being too obsessesd with being perfect but I think I may have swung too far the other way in some instances…

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