No More Negative Thinking

I once read an article that talked about how the majority of women think abusive thoughts about themselves daily.  Things such as, "I'm too fat," or "I'm so ugly," or even "I'm so stupid."  Few of us would allow another person to speak to us this way, yet we are so quick to allow our inner dialogue be incredibly hateful and toxic.  Some people allow this to pervade their thoughts so much, that they start saying it out loud in everyday conversation.  Forgetting that nobody really wants to hear another person's negativity toward themselves.

I think we are all a little guilty of this at times.  I know I am.  My daily inner dialogue toward myself isn't always very nice-- sometimes it's downright hateful.  There are days I'm way too hard on myself, and instead of being proud of how far I've come, I think of how far I haven't gone... how I've failed in this or that area.  I criticize my appearance, how I should be thinner, or wish I had a longer waist, how I wish I were funnier or more outgoing, or any other number of "flaws" I see about myself.

And how petty.  I hung out with a few friends last night, and we discussed how our lives are so easy compared to so many other people in the world.  And because of that, I think we look for so many other things to be unhappy about that really aren't that important.  I think it's what we jokingly refer to as "first world problems."  Not to diminish how difficult it is to be a woman dealing with body image in our society (I know as well as any of you, that is NOT easy).  But aren't there more important things to worry about?

Of course, I would love it if I had lost an additional 10 pounds by now.  But that doesn't mean I have to be unhappy and feel sorry for myself, paralyzed by my own self-loathing.  It doesn't mean I can't do something today to make someone else happy.  It doesn't mean my family and friends love me any less.  It doesn't make my life less happy, less fulfilled.  It doesn't diminish any of the blessings that I have, yet I allow it to.  I allow my own selfish, hateful thoughts toward myself to crowd out so many other wonderful things in life!  I'm determined to stop that today.  I'm going to work on that, and I hope you will too.

Because really, though life is hard and we do deal with a lot of difficulties along the way, I also believe that there is so much good out there that we don't tap into or we allow it to be tainted because we're so self-focused. (how many of you, upon remembering a wonderful vacation with family or friends, also remember how fat you felt during that time?)  I don't want to down-play what so many women, myself included, go through on a daily basis with photo-shopped images telling us what we should look like.  But I do want to stop allowing any of that negative thinking to play such a huge role in my life.  That's got to stop.