The voices in our heads, they very often tell us lies. 

They can be very convincing, but that’s because THEY believe what they are telling you. This is sabotaging self talk.

These voices, we all have them! The ones that say; How stupid was that? Don’t ask, they’ll just say no. Asking for help shows weakness. Why would anyone want to do that with me? Ooof you look way too fat to wear that. You know you can’t so don’t even try.  People can’t be trusted. They always leave. You’re not important enough for…

These voices come from parts of us, smaller younger parts that have formed beliefs over the years as life has unfolded.  

Their ‘truth’, as they have developed, comes from their understanding and interpretation of hurt, confusión, sadness. They make up ‘the why’s’  for people’s behaviour and circumstances. Why did they say or do that, why did that happen? 

Many times these voices have been left to make ‘sense’ of the world alone. The actual reality of what was happening was never explained to them. They were never helped to understand the why so they made up their own, and invariably, on the foundation that they were to blame, it was their fault, because xyz. 

They make the negative outcome of the scenarios about them  and they stick by that story as a basis for what follows in life. The more icky stuff they experience, the more it becomes about them, and of course it’s always because they are bad, not good enough, too this, too that. 

Sometimes, in extreme cases, these negative narratives can become so damaging and hurtful that the person will create another persona… a super person that is amazing at everything, the best looking, best at sports, best cook, knows EVERYTHING. Because the self-talk and stories that are running around in their head are soooo hurtful for them that they can no longer stand to listen, so they create new ones. With HUGE egos, and very little consideration for other people or their feelings. Maybe here you can recognize some people from this description??

But let’s get back to the negative under the surface babble that we listen to 24/7, on a daily basis. 

Let’s give an example. Here is a great place to drop love languages into this too.  Let’s say a little boy (6)  has a love language of quality time, closely followed by physical touch. There are 5 in total words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch.

He asks his dad if they can go fishing at the weekend, dad says ‘we will see’. In between his working moments, Dad checks the times and conditions and see’s that it’s not fishing weather this weekend. He forgets to communicate this to his son and goes about his week. 

Friday night, Dad has a deadline for work that has gotten out of hand and a shopping day for the son’s birthday and dinner out has been planned for him and his wife on the weekend, just the 2 of them. Quality ‘parent’ time ♡ 

Dads a bit stressed, he doesn’t want to let his wife down for their planned trip as it’s the last chance they will have together to get his sons birthday presents, he wants to get something really special for him and can’t wait to spend the day alone with his wife 

His son comes and asks if they can go fishing tomorrow.. No, dad replies, a little distracted. The son starts to ask why, but I told you I wanted to go, etc etc etc  the Dad doesn’t have time for this right now so he shortly says, not now and no we can’t go fishing this weekend. What about Sunday? No, we cant go fishing this weekend !! . Now I’ve got important work to be finished. We will talk about it later. 

Later on Dad works late to get the project finished, the explanation doesn’t come because the son is sleeping. The small boy went to sleep wondering what he had done wrong that his Dad doesn’t want to go fishing with him and didn’t look away from the computer even for a second to talk to him. (Quality time) He didn’t even give him a hug when he came home today either (physical touch). Doesn’t he want to spend time with me anymore? 

The next morning Mum and Dad have gone shopping early, no saturday morning cuddles,(physical touch) and Gran is in the house. 

He worries.. where have they gone, oh no they left me? Gran being all mysterious, says they had things to do together, it’s been a long time since they’ve had a day alone so they will be gone all day. (Without me, they are spending quality time without me)  

Gran continues that she is going to help them by getting the house sorted a little while she is here so go amuse yourself, I’ll make lunch in a few hours. (No quality time with Gran either) 

When he asks if he couldn’t have gone with them, (quality weekend time) Gran says it’s very important things they’ve gone to do ( giggling inside as it’s for his birthday) but he interprets her words as; things more important than you! 

When Mum and Dad come home they have bought him a stuffed frog. (gifts love language, NOT our boys main love language) He loves frogs but it’s late and everyone is tired. So he gets put to bed to spend quality time with the stuffed frog. Doesn’t quite hit the mark in terms of filling his love language cup. Spending 5 mins reading his favourite frog book before bed would have gone a good way to do the filling, but it was overlooked. 

This little boy gets used to feeling overlooked, not important enough and not good enough for his parents time and touch because THEY are HIS main love languages so his interpretation of their relationship is based on that. The fact that his parents adore him and love to buy him gifts (they are both very high scorers in the gift love language) but they are both so busy managing life to notice that their kids need is for something different, his boat floats differently!! 

He of course adores his parents, see’s what they do for him and how happy they are in general life, so this in turn deepens his decision process that it’s his fault he doesn’t get love the way he needs it. This he carries on into adult life… and I’m sure you can complete the rest of the story..

Now as you see there wasn’t any trauma here!

BUT

A very small boy making sense of himself and his world was left to make sense the only way he knew how. By looking at the information he had in front of him, how he felt, how he ‘sensed’ everything. No adult explained to him, they probably don’t even know themselves!!!

This is the basis of where our negative self talk comes from. 

I have clients that struggle to get to grips because they say I’m so selfish my parents were good parents, they gave me everything. Or my parents spent lots of time with us but we never got cuddles. They can often  feel bad bridging these things up because it’s like they are speaking ill of their parents. But the key point here is, we are all just humans doing the best we can with what we have access to.

So the next time your little voices pipe up with some surface babble, take a moment..and see if you can understand where that talk is coming from, what beliefs, what perceptions.. 

Reach out because we can clear through these out of date, out of context perceptions without too much bother!!