Balance Baby

S1E2 Transforming Self-Talk: Crafting Joyful Self-Perception

• Harkaren • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Have you ever caught yourself in a whirlwind of self-doubt, only to wish you could intercept those thoughts with the grace of a seasoned quarterback? That's precisely what I grappled with until I stumbled upon the game-changing practice of positive self-talk and cognitive restructuring. Join me, Harkaren, as I bare my soul about my battle with a negative inner monologue and guide you through the transformational process of crafting an internal narrative that lifts you up instead of weighing you down. Discover the secrets behind neuroplasticity and how a personal mantra can not only soothe your psyche but also align your life's experiences with your deepest desires.

It's time to celebrate our quirks and embrace the perfectly imperfect beings that we are! In this episode, I dive into the power of acceptance and the beauty that blooms from understanding there's no cookie-cutter version of a perfect life. Through tales of my own chronic tardiness and a nail-biting flight from Madeira to Lisbon, I unfold how adopting a positive lens can turn potential anxiety into a serene stroll in the park. Let's ignite that spark together, inspiring one another and building a community that champions joy, seeks balance, and encourages others to join on this uplifting journey. Share this message with friends who are ready to revolutionize their self-perception and walk alongside us in this celebration of life's symphony.

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Harkaren:

Hello everyone and welcome to Balance Baby, the podcast designed to help you consistently show up as the best version of yourself. My name is Harkaren and I'll be your host. I'll be here every week sharing stories and teaching you techniques to prioritize the only thing we have any control over in this world Ourselves. In the last episode, we discovered that our journey towards our most authentic self starts with our thoughts. I hope you've started taking an interest in your thoughts and maybe you've started to write them down. Have you been noticing the thoughts that create your inner monologue? Did you experience any thoughts of self-doubt and did you notice the way you talked to yourself? Many of us don't default to positive self-talk, especially if we didn't grow up hearing positive things about ourselves. So what exactly do you do when you notice negative thought patterns? The goal is to shift the thoughts in a more positive direction and to practice quieting the mind. Today, we'll focus on shifting the thoughts in a more positive direction. One of the ways you can do this is through cognitive restructuring. This is a technique where you consciously change your thoughts to be more useful and more positive. With some practice, you'll get really good at doing this. As you start making the shift, you'll notice yourself becoming more optimistic.

Harkaren:

I remember a time where I was with my sister and I was saying how I'm so unlucky I never went anything. Whenever I had that thought, my brain would look for examples where I was unlucky or where I could have won something, but didn't. Without hesitation, my sister said to me you always win things. Then proceeded to list three different instances where I had won a big prize of some sort. That made me realize, oh yeah, I had forgotten about all those times. Those wins held more weight than the times I didn't win. So the next time I had the thought that I was unlucky or that I never win anything, I was able to remind myself that I am lucky and of all the times I had won. Slowly the thought became less frequent and eventually I stopped believing it completely. So I stopped having the thought. There was a time when self-delta became my default.

Harkaren:

I used to excessively criticize myself, which led to a lot of negative self-talk Growing up. I wasn't used to hearing nice things about myself, so I didn't believe nice things about myself. I wasn't told I'm proud of you, or you're doing a good job, or you're so smart. The lack of reassurance distorted my self-image and made me feel inadequate. I formed a belief that I couldn't do anything right and I would be so mean to myself every time I felt I did something even slightly wrong. I would never talk to my friends or family the way I was talking to myself, and that's ultimately how I overcame my negative self-talk. I started talking to myself like I would talk to my friend. I gave myself the same compassion and empathy that I give others. Instead of saying, why would you even try that? Of course you were going to fail, I started telling myself I'm proud of you for trying something new.

Harkaren:

Gradually, over time, I was able to start replacing my negative self-talk with positive self-talk. I'm not saying that I never have a negative thought about myself anymore, but it's reasonable as humans that these thoughts will creep in from time to time. The important thing is to find a way to show yourself more compassion and see yourself as the perfectly imperfect human being that you are. It's important to mindfully focus on good thoughts so the good thoughts become your new habitual responses. As you begin questioning and reframing your negative thoughts, neuroplasticity will come into play. This is the brain's ability to reorganize itself and allow for formation of new positive neural connections. By continuously redirecting your thoughts towards more constructive and optimistic perspectives, you initiate a process of rewiring neural pathways. Over time, this practice reinforces positive thinking patterns and decreases the strength of negative neural connections.

Harkaren:

Another technique I used to shift my thoughts was by reciting a mantra. A mantra is just a phrase that you repeat frequently. My mantra is everything is always working out for me. I repeat this phrase constantly, like literally all day long, whenever I remember to. So if something is causing me to worry, I remind myself that everything is always working out for me, and my brain will bring me examples of when things worked out for me. And, on the flip side, if I'm feeling really grateful for something and something amazing is happening, I remind myself that everything is always working out for me and that amplifies the gratitude that I'm feeling. And again my brain will find scenarios where everything worked out for me, and then I get to relive those happy moments and memories. This is a powerful method for reprogramming your subconscious mind, because you're forcing your dominant thought to be everything is always working out for me. Mindfulness is key when reprogramming your subconscious mind. If you've never tried this before, I encourage you to give it a shot, because it really made drastic changes in my life. Over the next three days, try to catch yourself Every time your mind wanders to any thought at all. Bring yourself back to the mantra that everything is always working out for you. Keep doing this for every single thought that comes to your mind for the next three days. Make note of how you feel and note what you see unfolding in the world around you when you're driving or walking around. Repeat to yourself silently in your head everything is always working out for me. If that mantra doesn't resonate with you, try to find a positive affirmation that does.

Harkaren:

As we know, our thoughts affect our emotions, which influence our behaviors and the energy we put out into the world. By consistently challenging and altering our negative thoughts, we begin to increase our vibrations and invite better experiences into our lives. In essence, the process of altering our thought patterns becomes a catalyst for a positive feedback loop. As we consciously choose uplifting thoughts, our emotions, behaviors and the energy we emit becomes aligned with the experiences we desire. This is the basis of the law of attraction.

Harkaren:

Something I want you to understand is that there is no answer key to life. No one person has all the answers or can tell you all the correct steps to take to have a perfect life. There is no such thing as a perfect life. What's perfect for you may not be perfect for me. What makes you happy may sound dreadful to me. For example, I love to sleep in. In a perfect world, I would happily sleep 12 plus hours every single day, but for some people they can't and won't stay in bed that long. They need to be up and out and about. Maybe what makes them happy is a 10 kilometer run at 6am. That's a hard pass for me, but to each their own. Do what makes you happy and do it unapologetically. The only rule here is that what makes you happy should not cause harm to others.

Harkaren:

It's important to start supporting yourself in the decisions that you've made, even when your decisions haven't been the wisest. Give yourself compassion. You are allowed to make mistakes. In fact, you should make mistakes and you should learn from them. This is how you build resilience and grow. When you're confident in the decisions you're making, you are prepared to handle whatever consequences might come.

Harkaren:

So what do I mean by that? Well, let's say that you're chronically late for work and, no matter how hard you've tried, you still end up leaving your house 20 minutes later than you should, you can start berating yourself and putting yourself down about how you never make it to work on time and how you're going to lose your job. You can spend your whole commute to work stressing and worrying about the fact that you're running late, wondering whether your boss has noticed or whether there's an urgent email waiting for you. Worrying about being late doesn't change the fact that you're already late. It won't change the outcome of whatever consequence might be waiting for you. All it will do is push you towards a negative feedback loop where your negative thoughts cause more anxiety and your anxiety fuels more negative thoughts.

Harkaren:

A better use of your energy would be to accept the moment for what it is and then be ready to face whatever consequences may come. So what does that look like? It means while you're driving to work, instead of going off on yourself, you accept that, okay. Well, at this point I'm already late and I'm not going to rush to get there, because I want to get there safely. So I'm not going to cut anyone off and I'm not going to drive erratically. I'm just going to take my time, even though I know I'm already late. Tomorrow I'll try to plan my time better so I don't feel rushed in the morning, but today I'm just going to have to accept that I'm already late. Maybe your solution focused and you decide you're going to make up the missed time during your break or at the end of your shift.

Harkaren:

Changing your inner dialogue creates a completely different energy frequency. Instead of a low vibration where you're worrying and stressed out, you've now created a sense of calm and peace and open-mindedness of accepting whatever may come. I've had so many situations where I thought, oh no, I'm running late, or I should have done this earlier, or I should have picked that thing up from the store yesterday. But somehow everything always works out Like maybe that item wasn't available yesterday and it would have been a waste of my time to go to the store, or maybe, because I was running late, I got to bypass the traffic from an accident that was being cleared up. Something amazing happens in the world around you when you start accepting the present moment for what it is rather than what you think it should be.

Harkaren:

Recently I was on Madera Island in Portugal and I had an upcoming flight to Lisbon. From Lisbon, I was going to be catching a flight to Porto. While I was in Madera, I got an email that my flight from Lisbon to Porto was cancelled. The airline gave me two other options to consider booking One was going to result with a seven hour layover at Lisbon Airport, and the other would leave me with a short turnaround of about two hours. Normally I don't like to book layovers that are two hours or below, just in case there's any delays, but I didn't really want to waste half a day sitting at Lisbon Airport either, so I decided that, since I only had a backpack, I would go ahead and try my chances with the short two hour layover. So I changed my flight and enjoyed the rest of my time on the island.

Harkaren:

Now the day had come where it was time to catch my flight. I made it to Madera Airport with lots of time to spare. My flight to Lisbon boarded on time and it looked like everything was going alright. Suddenly, the pilot comes on overhead and says that we're being delayed about 25 minutes because of air traffic control. So now, the super zen morning, I had started to feel a bit panicky. I was already unsure about the short layover, and now I had just lost another 25 minutes. So I only had an hour and a half left to catch my next flight. That meant I needed to de-board, pick up my backpack from baggage, find the check-in counter to drop off my backpack for the next flight, go through security, find my new gate and board all before the final boarding call. It wasn't impossible, but even on a perfect day I would be cutting it close.

Harkaren:

On top of that, I was starting to get hangry. My mind immediately started to worry. I was panicking and I started to look up new flights to Porto. I was sitting buckled into my seat waiting to take off and had barely any internet connection. I was frantically searching for alternative flight options, but everything was super expensive. There was nothing under 300 euro by that point. And then I took a deep breath and I reminded myself that everything is always working out for me. I repeated it a few times and then I reminded myself that if I miss my flight, I will figure it out, but I don't need to proactively figure it out, because so far I'm on the plane, I'm about to take off and I'm going to land and I'm going to make it onto my next flight. I was reaffirming that everything was going to work out and I was reassuring myself that if I missed that flight, I would still figure out how to get to Porto one way or another. So really it's a non-issue. Even if I have to spend more money, even if I have to take more time, it's still going to work out.

Harkaren:

So what happened? Well, I landed in Lisbon and my bag was the second one out on the conveyor belt. I picked it up and found my way to the check-in counter. I was able to auto-check in, so there was no lineup. I put a tag on my bag, dropped it on the conveyor belt and off it went. I got to security and there was a little bit of a lineup, but it went by fairly quickly. In fact, I still had 25 minutes to spare before final boarding, so I grabbed myself a snack and I made it onto my flight no problem.

Harkaren:

Imagine if I had spent the whole hour and a half flight worrying and stressing that I was going to miss my connecting flight. What would my energy have felt like? What would my experience have been when I landed at Lisbon Airport? Maybe I would have been frantic and panicking and running into unhelpful people, but instead my bag came out right away, I got through security right away and everything worked out perfectly. Time and time again. I've had experiences like this in my life and that's why I believe so deeply that everything is always working out for me. If you start believing it and you start paying attention to the world around you, you will notice that everything is always working out for you too.

Harkaren:

All living things have instincts that guide them in life, including humans. For every living being, the ultimate goal is to stay alive and to continue living. But to live means something different to an animal than it does to a human. For animals, the goals are simple food, shelter and safety. The goal is to survive and to procreate, to ensure the survival of the species. Even plants have evolved to ensure their survival and reproduction. They demonstrate the ability to adapt to their environments, like learning to move towards the sunlight and growing their roots towards water sources. This ensures that they fulfill their basic needs for survival and reproduction. Birds know which way to fly to get to their destination. They follow their instincts. They don't need any GPS system. They instinctively know how to build nests, just like squirrels instinctively know to store nuts, even if it's their first winter.

Harkaren:

As humans, the unique gift of imagination sets us apart from all other living beings. Creative imagination is a powerful tool for shaping our perceptions and experiences. Our imagination allows us to contemplate possibilities, to create and to innovate. However, this incredible blessing can sometimes be misused. Ideally, we should use our creative imagination to construct mental images of the life we aspire to lead. Unfortunately, the tendency for many people is to misuse their imagination. Instead of focusing on envisioning a future of success and fulfillment, many find themselves caught in a cycle of replaying past scenarios or worrying about potential future hardships. Understanding and redirecting our creative imagination towards constructive and positive mental rehearsal can significantly impact our self-image. For humans, our life goal goes beyond just survival and procreation. In order to live a fulfilling life, our emotional and spiritual needs also need to be met. In order to fulfill these needs, we need to use our creative imagination.

Harkaren:

In the book Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, the author emphasizes that the subconscious mind is a goal-striving mechanism that wants to work towards a clear goal. Maltz argues that our self-image acts as a mental blueprint shaping our thoughts, behaviors and overall experiences. Drawing on his experiences as a plastic surgeon, maltz observes how altering physical appearances doesn't always result in a corresponding change in self-image. He introduces the idea that every individual possesses an internal system or mechanism that propels them towards success. This mechanism functions as a goal-seeking device, automatically adjusting thoughts and actions to align with the individual's self-image. The mechanism subtly influences daily decisions and responses, steering individuals towards the realization of their goals. You can think of this like your instincts. This is why I'm placing such a heavy emphasis on getting control of our thoughts. The other steps we will take on our journey together cannot be as successful unless we control our thoughts.

Harkaren:

Your life is supposed to feel good to you. You're meant to have fun while you're here. Stop taking everything so seriously. When you make a mistake, laugh it off. It's not meant to be so serious. Somewhere along the way, we got lost and we started to believe that life is hard and we have to work hard to achieve our goals and to live the life we want. But in reality, life itself wants to help us reach our goals. We just need to stop sabotaging the progress. Just like animals and plants, we can trust our instincts to guide us towards success. The problem is that people can't tell the difference between their instincts and their ego. This is why we start by analyzing and reframing the thoughts we're having, letting go of negative and limiting beliefs, cultivating a positive and resilient mindset and eventually getting to a place where we can feel our instincts guiding us.

Harkaren:

Once again, thank you so much for tuning in to my second episode. I am so grateful that you're here and that you're committed to feeling more joy and fulfillment in your life. The goal of this episode was to ignite a spark within you, inspire the initiation of positive change, with a deep knowing that life itself wants to support you on this journey. I invite you to take it a step further in spreading the inspiration. If the content resonated with you and if you found it uplifting and empowering, I encourage you to share it with three people in your life who might benefit from the message. Be sincere, tell them why you enjoyed the episode and why you think they might enjoy it too. We are learning how to show up as our best selves, and a huge part of that is learning how to help others. Together, here we're creating a community of beautiful souls ready to uplift each other, ready to experience all the joy that this life has to offer us. Don't forget life is all about balance, baby.