Changing negative self-talk to positive self-care

After publishing my first post about choosing to use this year to reset my relationship with my (postmenopausal) physical body, I received a message from someone who asked me, “how are you going to do this, where will you start?” I have been pondering these very questions myself and so in this post, I'm going to outline my starting point for learning to love my body my postmenopausal body. Maybe you’ll embark on this journey too?

I see menopause as an invitation to explore and decide how one can work with the power of this transition to shape life moving forward. I decided that I wanted to use this power to nurture both my inner world and my physical body, which to be honest I have kind of ignored over the past decade in particular.

I have decided that my approach to learning to love my physical body has these four aspects as its foundation:

·        First of all, I need to change the way I feel emotionally about my body. I don't believe I'll have any real success in dedicating time to for fitness, flexibility and strength without actually digging underneath all of that and changing the way I talk to myself about my body.

·        Secondly, I want data to help me see in objective terms how my physical body operates. So I have invested in a Samsung smartwatch (I have to confess I quite like gadgets!). This gadget talks to my phone and monitors my physical being and provides data such as how many steps I've taken heart rate, and a lot of information about sleep.

·        Then I need to decide how I can gradually gain fitness flexibility and strength in ways that work for me, for my lifestyle and my work commitments.

·        And finally, given this body of mine is the home for my creative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life, I plan to weave a sense of the sacred into everything mentioned above.

This could boil down to: Be Kind. Be Informed. Be Patient.

This week I was chatting to a friend who owns a women’s clothing store. I told her about this project of mine and she said that most of the women who come into the store say terrible things to themselves about how they look, how big or small they are, how ugly they are, how hopeless the process of trying to buy clothes is. Some look in the mirror at the garment they’ve tried on and smile, some cry. Some refuse to try on a larger size that will fit them well because they can’t bear the reality of buying an item of clothing with an L, XL or XXL sewn into it. As I listened to her, I related to those women, as I find buying clothes (especially trousers!) a trial for all those reasons of changing shape and paucity of self-love and confidence.

The pervasiveness of negative self-talk seemed like the right place to start building the foundation for this year of self-care. I want to identify the things I say to myself and then turn them on their head from negative to positive. Why not try it too and see what happens? I recommend getting a journal to keep this work in as there will be much to capture throughout the year.

I want to identify the things I say to myself and then turn them on their head from negative to positive.

Exercise: Rewriting the contracts we live by aka changing our self-talk

Find a moment of quiet, uninterrupted time and write down all the negative things you tell yourself about your body. Just write anything that comes to mind down.

When you've written down as much as you can for now, look back over the list of things you've written and one at a time read them out and then ask yourself ‘why?’. Write down your explanation of why you feel each of these things.

When I read my list of things back to myself, I was saddened by it. It’s not until words are laid down in front of one that their weight (no pun intended!) can be observed. I imagined hearing a friend talk in this way about her body and how I would counter it by telling her all the things that make her beautiful in every sense of the word. I would feel distressed hearing her speak about herself in this way. So why is it OK for me, for us, to speak in this way to ourselves? Surely our own bodies deserve kindness too? After all, those little words of self-sabotage can build up into lifetime contracts that we live by.

When I was studying shamanism, we talked about the idea of identifying and then rewriting the negative contracts that we live our life by. This can be an incredibly powerful exercise. By naming and identifying negative self-talk and then exploring the ‘why’ behind each statement, one can start to lay the groundwork to rewrite those contracts into something positive and affirming.

By naming and identifying negative self-talk and then exploring the ‘why’ behind each statement, one can start to lay the groundwork to rewrite those contracts into something positive and affirming.

Here’s one example from my own rather lengthy list:

Nothing fits – why? - because I have lost tone and put on weight over the past few years. What else? Because I dedicated all my time to trying to be there for my parents and my partner and trying to establish my business. And I was going through menopause and I got so tired. There seemed to be no space or energy for regular exercise. I just wanted to collapse on the sofa at the end of the day.  

Negative contract: I should ignore my own wellbeing for the sake of others. My wellbeing is not important.

Positive contract: It is now time for me to care for myself as I care for other parts of my life. In doing this, I will have more energy for all aspects of my life. Clothes fitting better is just one way of showing me that I am succeeding in this goal.

Here’s another example:

At times when I look at myself I feel depressed – why? Because I’m such a lump. What else? I know I could look and feel better than I do and that I only have myself to blame for being like this.

Negative contract: I’m a failure.

Positive contract: When I look at myself, I see someone whose time has come for kindness and care and I am going to give myself that every single day from now on.

As I worked through this exercise, I found my attitude toward myself softening. I even began to smile (after a few tears!). It felt good to write those positive contracts and say them out loud. This process also creates a resource to return to when things get a bit bent out of shape as they inevitably will at times.

It can be difficult to set up good habits around self-care if the self-talk remains in its negative patterns. So first up, I want to take this ‘softening voice’ and start to weave it into my everyday life - one simple statement at a time. In various spiritual paths, there is this idea of blessing everything. You wake up in the morning and you bless the day. You bless your first cup of coffee. You bless the food you eat. You even bless the act of going to the loo! I love this sense of joyful gratitude in simple everyday things and so I decided that in creating my foundation for this year of learning to love my body, I am going to bless it with a ‘softening voice’ first thing every morning.

I am going to bless it with a ‘softening voice’ first thing every morning.

I wrote this blessing below to get me started on this journey. What would your blessing be? You would be very welcome to share it in the comments below so that you may inspire and encourage other women to go on this journey too.

Dear Body of mine
I thank you for all that you are
And how you enable me to experience life
with each of my senses.
Today I shall speak to you with kindness
and give moments of time
to care for you in ways that help you grow fitter,
more flexible and strong
so that together we create a healthy place
for my creative, intellectual, emotional,
spiritual and compassionate self
to thrive.

 

I think the act of rewriting the contracts we live by and the idea of blessing with a ‘softening voice’ can be worked into a simple form of ceremony to help lift these actions and make them sacred. I look forward to writing more about that too. But for now, in the next blog in this series, I will look at data and how I see its role in creating a foundation for resetting my relationship with my physical self.

Go well and gently. xx

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How Data and an Old Bra become agents of change

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A year of learning to love my (post-menopausal) body