[00:00:00] Welcome to the average nineties Gal podcast. Join me as I share my own journeys through life, how I got and continue to get through them, as well as real stories from real people in this crazy world. Let's get through it together.
Hello. Welcome to the average nineties Gal podcast. Meredith here, of course, as always. So quick check-in first before we get into the episode. How are you, and I'm asking this because I have to be honest and tell you that lately I have been in a bit of a brain fog and brain funk. Just not feeling like myself or feeling like doing much of anything at all.
Does anyone else feel like that right now? [00:01:00] So I am 49. I am clearly on the road to full blown menopause, and I think a shift is happening for sure after probably almost three years in perimenopause. Oh boy. Is it fun? Fun, fun, fun. Life feels just forced. I think that's the perfect word for it. I feel like I am forcing everything.
Nothing is easy, nothing is happening with ease, so I am just trying to give myself some grace and space and rest to help me figure out what I need. When I need to switch up and change in my life because things just are not feeling right. Anyway, that's where I am right now. So if you are feeling this way at all or [00:02:00] have felt this way at all, just know that I hear you.
I see ya. I feel ya. I totally get it. And if anyone has any. Ideas or thoughts or anything you wanna share with me or anything that has worked for you during this in perimenopause industry menopause phase? I am all ears. Please let me know. I will even do an episode about it and share anything that anyone.
Sends me because it is quite the trial to figure it out. Anyway, hello. I hope you are doing well. Okay, so today we are going to go into how we speak to ourselves. If you are anything like me, you have gone through almost an entire life of negative self-talk. I, [00:03:00] and I don't know if this is a woman thing, a girl thing, probably not, but I was brought up in a way where you just did not talk about being strong or saying good things to yourself and motivating yourself.
You really, at least I was brought up really. And as a child and teen and into adulthood, that it's outside validation that matters. How I spoke to myself did not matter as much as how much others spoke to me, and of course that is something that I have been dealing with a lot as an adult and I have been working through as well, but.
Anyway, growing up, I was never taught to speak to yourself in a strong way or to [00:04:00] say, you know, you are strong, you were amazing. You can do anything and or anything like that. I wasn't treated badly or anything growing up. That was just how society was, how when your parents are of a certain age, maybe no one taught you that.
And therefore it really turned me into someone who became very nitpicky about myself, about my body, about, you know, how others see, see me, um, making sure I'm doing and saying the right things, never stepping on anyone's toes, walking on eggshells around people, and never causing any kind of issues. And a lot of that, I don't think we realize leads to how we speak to ourselves internally, what is happening on the outside and how we deal with it really [00:05:00] portrays how we speak to ourselves on the inside if people are not telling us.
You are amazing and you don't need to worry about how you look, and you don't have to be perfect. Stop worrying about your weight. You are gorgeous, and instead. I not hearing any of that at all. You then take what you see in magazines, on TV shows in society, in the world in general, and you feed that to yourself.
And then of course that leads to how you speak to yourself as an adult. So I have really gone through. Even since childhood. But of course when you have things happen in your life too, when you are cheated on, when you. Are going through a divorce and a separation and you really do not feel like yourself, then you [00:06:00] really are going to speak to yourself badly.
So even though it happens throughout your whole life, there are. Times in your life that make it even more so. And the, the magnifying glass is put on it big time and those negative thoughts get worse and worse and worse and more and more frequent. So I am going to talk about that because I have experienced that and I do know that many others experience that as well.
And. I have learned throughout these years that how we speak to ourselves informs how we live our lives. It informs our every day, and it informs how others do treat us. If we are going to be negative to ourselves, then we are projecting that negativity out into the world. Then it's a mirror up to nature and it's being projected back to [00:07:00] us.
So if we are speaking to ourselves in a negative way, everything around us is going to be negative because it is coming from within. We are going to have this negative bubble around ourselves, and we are doing it to ourselves and sabotaging ourselves without even realizing it. Sometimes it's just autopilot that we just hold this in and.
We carry this little black rain cloud like poo bear or EOR over us. And just like Wayne Dyer has said, I'm not quoting him completely, but changing your thoughts changes your life. You change your thoughts, you change your life. He has also said you cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.
And that is so true. If you don't know Wayne Dyer, look him up and look up. You know, [00:08:00] he's has a million books and there are a million videos and you on YouTube with everything that he has said. I remember watching him on PBS for the very first time, years and years and years ago. And it really had an impact on me of just waking up and noticing how I spoke to myself.
Also, for any, if you want to know about anyone else who speaks to this, I mean, there are a ton of people out there who speak to this, but Louise Hay, she is another amazing person who, and wrote, you can Heal Your Life. I. And she's really big on affirmations and power empowering messages and quotes. And I remember one of them was the thoughts we choose to think are the tools we use to paint the canvas of our lives.
And another one is, every thought we [00:09:00] think is creating our future. She's very big on mantras and you know, and affirmations. I'm not huge on those, but I just love those quotes as well. So, but if you wanna look into Louise Hay, she's really wonderful as well in terms of helping you get out of those negative thought patterns and negative self-talk.
And what made me think of this? Was when I thought back, and I still have these issues, by the way. I still have issues with speaking negatively to myself. It isn't as if I suddenly came out of it completely, but I have come out of a pattern and I. One day, this is where it really started, where I started to catch myself.
And this is what I'm gonna share with you of how I started to get out of this pattern and change this. And I remember [00:10:00] finding a journal that I wrote during some of the darkest times of my life and. The journal made. It made me cry. I started bawling my eyes out. Actually when I found the journal, it was when I was packing up in Brooklyn to move and getting rid of as many things as I possibly could, but going through everything, of course, and I found this journal, and all through this one section of the journal, all I did was talk about how fat and ugly I was.
And how fat and ugly I felt and how, no wonder he didn't want me. No. The, you know, I'm not shocked now why he wouldn't want me, because look at me. I'm fat and ugly. I,
once again, I started crying, just [00:11:00] reading it because of. Oh, I felt for her so much that version of myself, that thought that way about herself and spoke to her herself that way. I, oh, just felt for her and remembered being in that place and it was horrible. And I actually threw that journal in the garbage, which was very cathartic.
And by the way, anything that brings back. Negative feelings or anything where you are saying and speaking negatively to yourself. Throw it in the garbage or recycling however you know if you can. It is the best feeling. I threw away so many things that brought back and made me feel horrible. I threw it in the garbage, then took that garbage outta the garbage can [00:12:00] and dumped it in the garbage can outside, and it was the best feeling.
I suggest that anyone who is going through anything right now, and you really need a reset and a redo of. Your thoughts and your feelings and about yourself are about anything going on in your life. It is a wonderful feeling if you can burn things, of course, that is a wonderful ritual to do, but if you can't toss it and then get it out of your actual physical space.
I cannot express enough how wonderful that feels. It doesn't change everything, but it is a start. It is a place to start, and it is wonderful. So I still, of course, once again have these negative thoughts about myself, but now I stop myself and I literally [00:13:00] speak out loud. I say, stop Meredith. Why did you just say that to yourself?
You do not feel that way. You are a strong person and you know what you need to do. So I catch myself. I stop myself, and then I squash it. I squash that negative thought like a fucking bug, and then I turn it into a positive thought. So I catch it. So perfect example, because this still happens. I'll look in the mirror after, you know, putting something on and checking it out, and I'll look at my stomach and go, Ugh, ugh.
You look at your stomach, you look so fat. And then I go up, I catch myself and I [00:14:00] say, stop it, Meredith. Stop. You know why you have this stomach and you know what to do. You are not gross. You are not fat, and you're doing what you need to do about it. So, see, I caught it. I stopped it, I squashed it, and I turned it into a positive.
Then you actually have more energy leaving that. Thought process. I then have the, yes, I do know what I need to do about it. Uh, you now have the action. You have the action that then says, okay, I. Y yes, I had this negative thought. And the faster that you catch yourself, by the way, the faster the thought goes away.
And the more often you do that, the more often that you catch your, your negative thought, [00:15:00] you squash it like the fucking bug it is, and you turn it into a positive that then catapults you into action. The more you do that and the the, it becomes less and less and less. As long as you catch yourself quickly.
If you keep going down that horrible spiral of the negative talk, it is going to take longer to get out of it. So if you catch yourself faster, turn it into a positive action faster than you've got it. You know, Mel Robbins does the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It's kind of the same idea, right? It's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Do it go. And it doesn't mean like, oh, I know what I need to do.
I need to, you know, eat more fiber and make sure I'm not drinking and that I'm moving more. It doesn't mean you take that action right then, like walk five miles, but it changes your entire attitude in the moment and around [00:16:00] yourself. And I will say for the rest of the day. It is amazing what it does, and speaking out loud to yourself is also huge.
You may feel stupid and maybe if you don't want to speak out loud to yourself. Go onto your phone and go into the Notes app and speak into the Notes app, speak into a text message to yourself. Speak into the voice memo 'cause saying it out loud has a huge impact. You could say it to yourself if you feel silly or if there are other people around, but I have got to tell you.
Saying it out loud, getting it out of your body is amazing. It has a different kind of impact. So please try it. And once again, just catch yourself. Catch yourself, catch, stop, squash, and then positive. [00:17:00] I've just turned it into a little mantra. Right?
And the last thing I wanna say is something else that I have done that I believe really helps me, I. Is changing when into will, and when I say that is, how often do you say to yourself, I will do that when I will go to the gym, when I make enough money to pay for it, I will go on a walk. When I have the time, I will start dating.
When I lose 20 pounds, I will lose 20 pounds when I teach myself how to cook. Or do you do [00:18:00] that thought process where you're basically asking the universe or you're just putting it out there in your head when it, you're just saying, when will my soulmate come? When will I lose the weight? When will my spouse start treating me with respect?
When will I catch a break? When will I have enough money? When will my boss treat me? Well, how often do you do that? I know I. Have done that a lot, but what I have started doing that works. And if you can just write out how often you say these things to yourself or visually, just visualize this right now, cross [00:19:00] out when and then see what happens.
So for instance, when will I find someone cross that win? Move the I I will find someone. When will my life change cross out? When my life will change. When can I catch a break? Cross out. When I will catch a break. I will quit my job when I have the time to look for a new one. Cross out win. I will quit my job and then you can add to those.
I will quit my job because I'm going to do A, B, and C to do it. I will lose 20 pounds because I am now [00:20:00] going to do A, B, and C to get there. I will find someone. Because I am going to do A, b, and C to get there. You see how it changes when, when you put when in front of everything or I will do this when that means you are waiting, you are asking the universe to do it for you.
You are waiting for a certain thing to happen or a certain time to come, or a certain person to show up. You are just waiting and you are not taking the action that needs to happen and the action that you know that needs to happen instead, you are waiting. And once again, I'm saying all of this out of, um, personal experience.
I was [00:21:00] waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for everything for an outside source to happen, but it is not going to happen. You know? I was waiting for a sign. I was waiting for my prince to come. Well, your prince is not going to fucking come. Your perfect job is not going to show up. None of that is going to happen until you take the action to get there.
And I know it is a lot easier said than done, trust me, because I am still doing it now. I am still in the process of taking all of that action. And I have to say too, I mean, I'm single and I have been single for a very long time and part of it yes, is fear. Part of it is. I am [00:22:00] not feeling totally ready to take the action, but nothing is going to come to me.
Nothing is going to save me. I need to do it, and I am getting there. So that's the other thing that I catch myself. If I catch myself doing the, oh, I'll do this when, oh, I'll start eating really well. When Monday comes along, how often do we do that? Oh my God, I have said that so many times. But that is where you need to catch yourself.
Or if you catch yourself asking the universe, when will my prince come? Ah, catch yourself. Stop yourself. Squash it. Turn it into I will, but don't just end it with a period [00:23:00] say, I will find this person when I do this, and for a lot of us, if that sentence means something to you, mine is when I love myself enough and am confident in myself.
When I am confident in myself, I am radiating and putting it out there into the universe, I will find someone because that means I am ready to receive that person. I'm ready to meet that person.
So I hope this has helped you. All of this has helped me throughout the years and still helps me every single day. I hope that when you are finding yourself [00:24:00] speaking to yourself negatively, that once again you stop it or catch it, stop it, squash it, and then make it a positive, and then tell yourself what action you're going to take.
Thank you so much. I'm so glad you were here with me and once again, I am on Instagram at the Real Meredith b and hopefully I can find you there. Send me any kind of messages, let me know what you're up to, and I will talk to you on Sunday.
