How To Change Your Inner Voice & Be Kinder To Yourself

Sometimes we can be our own worst critic and beat ourselves up or put ourselves down. This critical inner dialogue can create a lot of anxiety, so it is important you change your inner dialogue and start to be kinder to yourself.

Key Takeaways

1. Harsh inner dialogue can be common but can create anxiety, tension and heartache
2. Destructive thought processes diminish motivation and initiative where kindness and self-compassion increase them
3. Being kinder to yourself makes you more productive and more resilient to stress

We usually make an effort in our relationships with others to be positive and supportive but when it comes to ourselves this can often be a neglected area.

Many of us push ourselves in a belief we need a critical inner dialogue to motivate ourselves. We push our mind and body to extremes and often experience feelings of unworthiness as we put ourselves down.

The Benefits of Being Kind

Research actually shows that this kind of negative thought process can actually diminish motivation and having more self-compassion can actually increase motivation and initiative. When we are kinder to ourselves it can actually make us more resilient to stress and improve productivity. It can also help you overcome bad habits and have better relationships with others.

So how can you start to learn to be kinder to yourself?

Ways To Change Your Inner Voice

Learn To Forgive Yourself

We all make mistakes and you need to learn to stop punishing yourself for mistakes. No-one is perfect and when we are confronted with our shortcomings we need to be gentle with ourselves. If you make mistakes you should forgive yourself, grow from it if you can and then learn to let it go.

Change Your Inner Voice

The voice inside our head can often have a harsh tone, especially in situations where we feel we have done something wrong. You can actually control that voice so why not change the tone to something kind and friendly. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to someone you care about when they are having a hard time.

It might help to talk to yourself in third person as this can trick the brain into becoming a detached observer. Studies show that this “external self-talk” can make you less anxious and more successful. This can help you go from seeing a situation as something you should be blamed for, to simply a problem that needs to be resolved.

Practice Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness has a positive impact on self-compassion and can lessen self-judgement. Allow your thoughts and feelings to have their moment but then let it go, without attachment. You can be mindful of difficult emotions as they arise but learn to leave them in the moment and move on.

Remember Your Worth

We are all worthy of love. You do not need to be or act a certain way to be worthy of love and others love you for who you are, not because you are faultless. Learn to accept yourself for who you are remember you are deserving of the good things in your life. We are all just doing the best we can and you should never let other people change the way you see yourself.

References

Neff, Kristin D., Kristin L. Kirkpatrick, and Stephanie S. Rude. “Self-compassion and adaptive psychological functioning.” Journal of research in personality 41.1 (2007): 139–154.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. “Mindfulness-based stress reduction.” Mindful Living Programs website: http://www. mindfullivingprograms. com/whatMBSR. php (2014).

Leitner, Jordan B., et al. “Self-distancing improves interpersonal perceptions and behavior by decreasing medial prefrontal cortex activity during the provision of criticism.” Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 12.4 (2017): 534–543.