Self-talk.  The topic keeps rolling around in my head.  Over the past week, I have been mulling thoughts about self-talk.  Why?  Our Strongest You mindset exercise for this week has been to think about the power of our words.

I am realizing how much power I have to control how I think about myself.  Bottom line?  Whether or not I fully embrace it, I have ALL of the power.

I have always been comfortable being alone.   I am not exactly sure where that started, as I grew up in a very active household, with a regular connection to a huge extended family.  I have always loved to read, getting lost in a story.  I love to wander in the woods, just listening to the world around me.  Even now, when I drive solo in the car, I am usually riding in silence.  No radio.  No audio book.  No podcast.  It is just my thoughts and me.

I realize as I think about the power of words this week, I have become an expert at talking myself into ideas about myself that are not necessarily true. 

As a girl, I remember thinking “You are too tall.”  “Getting good grades is nerdy.”  “You don’t fit in.”  I wore hand-me-down clothes, or those made by my awesome mother.  I carried my lunch to school, often with homemade bread for a sandwich.  I looked around at kids I thought were “cool” or “popular” and they were shorter than I, wearing name-brand clothing, and buying lunch… and later, going to the cool-kid parties, driving cars (I was most always a passenger), and the list goes on.

Somewhere along the way, I just figured I did not fit in.  Anywhere.  Being alone became a place of comfort.  I enjoyed spending time with the oldsters in my neighborhood (Carl & Edna Snyder taught me the fine art of playing cribbage and baking amazing raisin-filled cookies) and the oldsters in my family, more than I did with kids my own age.  I felt like I somehow “fit” with the oldsters.  It made me happy.

The messages I practiced evolved into new messages as I grew up and grew older.   Mind you, this was all self-taught.   I recognize that.  I grew up safe and loved.  I was formulating opinions about myself all on my own.  I honed my skills.

Today, I recognize that my self-talk is much improved.  I have embraced that I am intelligent, and have great problem-solving skills.  I value that I am comfortable enough with “me” to just be with “me”, and enjoying alone time does not make me an outcast.  My time spent years ago with my oldsters has allowed me to appreciate more every decade of life as valuable and know I will always have worth.

Despite getting better, my self-talk is still not always flowing with positive words.  “You are getting older so you will never be as active as you once were.”  “You are in menopause so your metabolism is doomed.” “You are too tall and heavy to ever do a pull up.”  As I get caught up in the swirling negative messages, I start to struggle with feeling my sense of purpose.

As I work through these exercises in Strongest You, I realize that this is not about losing weight, or improving fitness.  This is about learning about me.  This is about breaking through walls that have been built and taking a walk around to see what I have packed away in the past.  This is about learning to accept that I am an amazing woman… I am unique… And I deserve to be as awesome as I can possibly be and shout that from a mountaintop.

I am learning more about myself than I anticipated. 

I am not shouting from the mountaintop…yet. 

I will, however, praise myself for starting with a whisper.