Do you beat yourself up and say things to yourself that you wouldn't say to your worst enemy?
If so,
You're not alone.
And I don't want you to beat yourself up for beating yourself up.
My name is Melissa Max.
I'm a certified mindfulness coach and life coach.
And yes,
Mindfulness can help you stop treating yourself like a punching bag.
The thing we have to realize is that voice in our head,
Some people call it the inner critic,
That's not actually our own voice.
Although it sounds like us,
It's actually the voices of other people,
Of our caretakers,
Of our friends,
Of our peer groups,
Of our culture,
Of society that were implanted in us without us even realizing.
When we were children and trying to make sense of the world and trying to make sense of ourselves.
And our place in the world.
Now that we're adults in an adult body.
We're living on autopilot and that voice just kicks in automatically.
And we don't really ever take the time to question it.
Is what it's saying real?
Is it helpful?
Is it productive?
Or is it destructive?
Is this going to take me closer to my goal?
Or is it going to take me further away?
Mindfulness is an interruption tool.
So it's about waking up to what's happening right here and right now.
In here before we take it out there.
We've got to start paying attention to our inner monologue.
Our limiting beliefs.
Our autopilot automatic assumptions and behaviors based on those assumptions,
Not to judge ourselves even more,
But to become empowered and realize we have a choice.
We're the boss of us and we can be good motivating bosses or we can be mean taskmasters who keep us from living up to our own potential.
What we're doing when we practice mindfulness is we're catching ourselves in real time.
We have a thought negative thought about ourselves,
And instead of reacting right away,
We notice it.
We take a little tiny pause,
A fraction of a second,
And in that pause,
That's where the magic happens.
This is where we start changing our lives.
This is where we become proactive rather than reactive.
This is where we take our power back.
Instead of automatically reacting harshly out of self-blame and self-judgment,
You get to decide.
Is that how you wish to proceed?
So I'm going to share one small micro practice with you right now that you can use whenever you want.
There are three steps to it.
Notice,
Name,
And return.
So the next time you feel yourself triggered,
Something happens,
You disappoint yourself,
And you start turning it around.
I want you to stop.
And notice,
Notice that you're having a negative thought about yourself.
But don't chase it.
Next,
I want you to name it.
So you're just gonna say something like,
Ooh,
Negative self-talk,
Or ooh,
Self-loathing.
And the third thing you're gonna do is you're not gonna feed it,
As I said,
You're gonna return.
You're going to return to the present moment,
Not what's happening in here,
But what's happening out here.
So you may want to focus on your breath.
You may want to focus on some sounds.
If you're sitting down,
You may want to focus on what your butt feels like on the chair,
But you want to take yourself out of your head.
And into your life,
Into the current moment.
And it's a practice.
You're going to have to do this over and over and over again,
But each and every time.
It gets easier and quicker.
And soon that will be your default mode rather than the self-blame and self-loathing that you've just been obeying blindly and listening to for years.
So notice.
And return.
It works,
I promise.
