It was a warm summer morning, and I was eight years old, riding in the back seat of Aunt Shirley’s cool classic car with my cousin Pam.
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As a child, I idolized Aunt Shirley because she was gorgeous and kind hearted. She also ran a successful business and seemed to live a beautiful life. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.
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As we continued to make our way through traffic, we started talking about an upcoming children’s fashion show that my cousin Pam and I were going to be modeling in. I told my aunt that I was pretty nervous about being in the fashion show and she asked me, “Why?” I went on to say, “Because I am so stupid, I will probably trip on the stage and fall down in front of everybody.” She quickly replied, “Shelle, you need to learn that we never, ever say anything bad about ourselves, to ourselves.” As with everything Aunt Shirley said, I listened intently and hung onto every word. I remember that day like it was yesterday and it has been forever etched in my mind. She had no idea what a beautiful gift she had just given me on that short car ride downtown.
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Since it was my goal to be just like my beautiful aunt, I took her advice to heart and I learned to catch myself whenever I had any negative self-talk going on in my young mind. It became a lifelong habit, the value of which I may never fully appreciate, but I can honestly say that I learned to love myself at a tender young age. I can’t say that I don’t ever have self-degrading thoughts, but I have learned how to catch myself and skip over the negative thought as if it is a piece of junk mail that I can toss in the trash.
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Let’s fast forward now to my present life. I love working as a Life Coach and being able to help people claim their power, yet I can honestly say that one of the biggest struggles that clients wrestle with is learning to become aware of their negative self-talk. It can be a challenge to break a habit that you may have been doing your entire life, but it is not impossible. The damage that negative self-talk does to one’s self esteem is monumental. In addition, it has been proven that the inner critic quite often produces feelings of shame, deficiency and depression.
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The take away from all of this is… that it is not only a great habit, but an essential one, to learn to monitor your thoughts. We spend enough time and energy berating and labeling ourselves. Make the choice to be kind to yourself. If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, then please don’t say it to yourself! When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is that much easier.
I’ve only been working with Shelle, my life coach, for a short time and I have to say my negative thinking and opinions of myself have changed dramatically. My self esteem and “can do” attitude has escalated along with focusing more on my faith and beliefs of a higher power guiding me every step of the way through my journey.
Shelle gives me the tools and insight for managing my daily life with a positive attitude and meeting challenges with “nothing is impossible”!
Of course not every day is easy, and it takes time to habitually think positive. But with Shelle’s daily guidance and the ritual of writing in my daily gratitude’s journal (highly recommended by Shelle) has given me a better understanding of the importance to blocking out negative thoughts and how the power of positive thinking allows us to achieve goals, dreams and happiness.
I look forward to continuing my life coach relationship with Shelle and truly believe it will only take me to better places, while loving and taking care of myself.