You can have all the astrological fortune in the world but if you talk to yourself harshly you are going to ruin every advantage that's lined up for you. As a result all the people who are aligned with you will get turned off.
Having navigated through an extended period of negative self-talk in my own life, I have myself dived deep into this subject to understand the complexities of the topic. Motivated by personal experience, this article is an attempt to shed light on the intricacies of negative self-talk and provides actionable steps for overcoming it, ultimately positioning you for success and the next promotion in your workplace. Let’s understand more about this topic!
What is Negative Self-talk?
Negative self-talk is a cycle of multiplying your negative critical talk. If you go on continuously criticising yourself out of fear or low confidence or may be out of failure, then that’s Negative self-talk. Negative self-talk happens when you lack knowledge and so you start criticising yourself. When you do so, you release a hormone in your brain, which gives you a comforting sense of security, shielding you from the perceived dangers that aren’t real.
What causes Negative Self-talk?
There has to be a negative seed to have a negative self-talk. For example when I was in school my teacher told me I was not among the brilliant minds in the class. I was just an average. So my brain programmed this seed and I always felt I am just an average brain and wasn’t good enough to be the best brains in the school.
This internal dialogue continued in all walks of my life. Whenever I failed I took it as ‘I am not amongst the brilliant ones’ and never excelled in the process. I always procrastinate and never put in those efforts, which was required to excel. This affected my career also to a greater extent. I lost out on making the right decisions for my career and landed up in financial stress.
Where can this negative seed come from? It can come from anywhere. It can come from your family, from friends, from teachers, from the society whom we look up to. It can also come from people whom you idolise. If they say something negative it goes deep into your thoughts and you might be affected. Does everyone have a seed for himself or herself? Yes, everyone has a seed for themselves as per their circumstances.
Examples of Negative Self-talk
Negative self-talk can be on self-image, or it may be to demean your happiness, or to criticize your potential, your confidence, your body, your health, and numerous other things.
Some examples of negative self-talk you might be familiar with thoughts like ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am too old to be healthy’, ‘I don’t look good, I am ugly’, ‘I am not intelligent to start a business’, ‘I am never good at anything’, ‘Others are better than me’, ‘ No one loves me’, ‘ I am horrible at maintaining relationships’, ‘ Who am I to speak up’, ‘ I am not smart enough’.
These and many such internal dialogues keep popping up in our lives when we move out in the society or at our workplace or in the family, sometimes while around with friends and peers! Comment below if you related with any of the thoughts or if you had any other such negative thoughts.
Negative Self-talk keeps you away from being happy.
Negative self-talk not only fills you with anxiety and frustration but also makes you unhealthy. It can make you depressed and isolated. You develop that inferiority complex with your colleagues and even with your family. I was my greatest critic and I thought it helped me to be productive. But I was wrong because the persistent procrastinations and self-criticism were only leaking out my energy and I was far away from being happy.
My immunity was compromised for the longest period of my life as I continued to leak energy. We know that our body spends energy daily on various things such as walking, talking, eating, breathing, thinking, carrying out the physiological process within and many other countless activities. So for every little action, energy is spent. Even the emotions whether it’s a positive or negative expends energy! When you consume energy in negative self-talks, you are left with little energy for the positive things in life.
Lack of energy keeps you always irritated, confused and with dwindling emotions, the hormones go topsy-turvy. Since emotions have a great impact on our lives it leads to various physical ailments. (To read about Emotional Dependence click here)
So I never understood why I feel sick so often. Gulping medicines were the order of the day. But one ailment led to another. I was always cribbing about my bad health; my workplace and the negativities were piling day by day. I was disgusted with my persistent problems and that led to a strong desire to get physically and emotionally stronger. I tried taking help from people who were my well-wishers.
From getting a promotion I was demoted, finally losing my job and settling with jobs that were much inferior to my academic qualifications. Now when I look back I can understand why their feedback and lectures had little impact on me. After having gone through the churn I understand that all those people weren’t best at what I was seeking from them. So I failed when I heeded their advice. It was when I followed expert’s advice on my specific problems; I could get rid of my problems.
Why do you have Negative Self-talk and how to stop them?
Negative self-talk can come from negative feedback from a person who is not qualified to criticise or comment on you. They may be from friends, family, peers, neighbours or self.
Consider a situation where you want to learn music. Will you go to a Scientist to know about his opinion on your music skills or will you go to a really good and trained singer who has already achieved what you want to achieve? I would be happy to listen to a mentor or maybe a criticism from a person who is qualified and whom I can trust. Have you ever noticed that you are not happy to listen when it doesn’t come from a mentor or anybody who is externally criticising!
But at times criticism comes from a person whom you respect and who is concerned about you. But should you accept this? No, because you haven’t given them the place of a mentor. If you do so the mind will be confused as to whom to listen and whom to ignore because everyone will be sitting in the same place, your father, Guru, uncle, neighbor, everyone who advises you.
To know how to find a Guru or a mentor, click the link. So it is very important to have an exclusive place for your mentor, your Guru who is an expert in a variety of things, and all those people whom you think are qualified to criticize you.
Negative self-talk can also come from within you. If you are criticising yourself, it means you are not an expert. If you are bumbling, you are not sharp in what you are doing and that’s the reason you are not doing well in the first place. So the last thing you need is criticism.
It is absolutely unintelligent to accept your own criticism about something you don’t know. So look at all your criticism and write down what are the thoughts that you use to criticise yourself. At every negative criticism, ask yourself, am I an expert in it or am I best at it? If the answer is ‘No’, then stop. Because it just doesn’t make any sense if you have not achieved anything in something that you criticise.
So what you need is encouragement to go and ask for the same thing from a mentor-who is best at it. If you don’t have a mentor then go and seek help from the world’s best. You will be finding them on social media sites talking about their areas of expertise.
Listen to them, and if you’re impressed by someone, get connected with them and if they are offering a course you can learn and upgrade your skills and get out of that ‘lacking’ which created your negative irritating thoughts.
The Yogic way of stopping your Negative self-talk!
Did you know that the little negative self-talk that we do on a day-to-day basis pile up to become bigger ones? It’s never too late to learn how to overcome your negative thoughts! By following simple techniques we can get rid of these energy leakages and develop tremendous amounts of mental and emotional strength.
One simple technique is explained here. Sit facing towards the north and think of all the negative thoughts or bad thoughts that come to your mind and turn your face towards your right/left and throw them to the backside.
As you keep doing this every time a negative thought pops up you will notice that negative thoughts are vanishing. This is just a simple technique to start with the yogic lifestyle! The next step would be to have the capabilities to outperform both at your workplace and beyond.
You should be able to analyse your current framework and also know where you have to reach. You cannot be mediocre and expect elite results. To know more on how to stop being mediocre and become elite click here to watch the lesson by Guru Pashupati Ji. So once you have your purpose and have the necessary tools to reach your goals, nothing should be able to pull you down.
Summary
In conclusion, to stop negative thoughts, we have to acknowledge that the problem exists and be ready to learn the solutions to overcome this problem. The main points that we can emphasise on getting rid of our negative thoughts can be detailed as
- A negative seed initiates a negative talk
- Remember you are not an expert for yourself
- Negative self-talk is detrimental to your mental, physical and emotional health
- Learn from an expert by whom you are impressed
- Find a Guru who is an expert and can guide you through your problems
To learn Yoga to build a healthy body, mind and a strong energy field, please get started by watching the video “How to Stop Being Mediocre and Start Being Elite“.
You can follow Guru Pashupati on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/@gurupashupati) and Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/gurupashupati/) for more learnings from the Guru himself.
Wonderful explanation