A friend of mine admits he tells himself he’s a bad father.
Jane Austen wrote that she was “the most unlearned and uninformed woman who ever dared to be an authoress.”
The message is bad. We tell ourselves crap.
I do it too, faster than the speed of light. I can’t hear myself say it. All I can tell is that I feel rotten. Then I know I’ve been telling myself bad messages.
The thing is that when we tell ourselves crap, we believe it.
I don’t know what Jane Austen did to get herself out of feeling rotten. My friend is still working on it. But here’s what I do: I tell myself good messages. Deliberately.
Call them affirmations if you will and call them hokey if you want. My messages are stupid, silly, childish. Stuff like “I’m a good writer.”
Do they work? Only if I use them. And when I do, I feel better.
Sometimes it’s the simple things that are the best.
So what do you tell yourself?
Thanks to the The Unemployed Philosophers Guild for making the Jane Austen doll.