Overcoming negative self-talk by stealing a technique from meditation

Here’s something that meditators all over the world use: when your mind wanders, you become aware of it, you let it go, and you come back to your breath.

It’s a cycle universally accepted in meditation circles.

That can happen as many times as necessary, because it’s part of the process of improving your mediation practice and reaping the rewards from it.

Use this idea to overcome negative self-talk.

Many people suffer from internal negative self-talk, telling ourselves how we’re not worthy or not good enough. I do too.

Some people battle with this much more than others. Some find it quite crippling. Some find it devastating for their self-worth and can’t seem to get out of that hole when they’re stuck on the cycle.

Many of us go to psychologists and psychiatrists to try to find where is it that this voice comes from, and who is to blame for its existence.

My suggestion is – do reps of letting go. Next time you’re having negative self-talk, simply become aware of it, say “that’s not true”, and come back to your life.

Without the need to unpack it and the need to find which of your childhood traumas is the origin of your current problems.

Just see it, release it, and come back to your other activities. That’s one rep.

You might constantly have to do this because your negative thoughts don’t go away. That’s okay. When you’re starting to meditate, your mind also wanders all the time. And that’s also okay.

You might say: but I still have these negative thoughts and need to keep doing it all the time.

That’s okay – no meditator ever reached Nirvana after a few sessions.

Hell, almost no meditator has ever reached Nirvana.

But for some reason they still reap the benefits of regular practice.