How's your self talk?

You know, what we tell ourselves is so important. There's a saying that "perception is reality," and I have found that to be so true. My perception of myself becomes my reality.

Too many times in the past I've beaten myself up with words .... I've verbally bruised and battered myself and said things to me and about me that I would not say to my worst enemy. I've found this to be especially true in my eating and what I have said to myself about my eating. If I -- as humans are apt to do -- "stray" and eat something that is "forbidden" to me, it's a struggle to keep from saying, "Jeez, Patty, what is wrong with you? Why can you not get and keep control??" and worse ... much worse.

I think that many times, we are harder on ourselves than we would be on anyone else. I'll never forget the time many years ago that I was going off about something stupid I had done, and a dear friend stopped me in my tracks and said, "Wait. What would you say to me if I had done that?" I immediately re-framed my thoughts (it was automatic -- I didn't have to even think about it). I started giving her kind affirmations that "a mistake does not define you" ... that "you are a wonderful, giving, awesome person, and you have so much worth and value" ... and on and on. And I meant it; it wasn't just words. She stopped me again and asked me how it was that I could be so generous with her and so stingy and hateful to myself. Whoa ... that was the first time I'd thought of it like that.

So now, I try very hard to be a friend to myself. To be forgiving and loving and willing to say, "You know what, Patty? It's okay. You're human." To say the sort of things to myself that I would say to a friend.