There have been so many occasions over the past few days that if I had allowed myself I could have gone down the slippery slope of Inner Chatter dictating my day with tales that I don’t matter. Do you ever have these feelings and give in to the voice? 

I use to give in at times even before I knew I was. The thoughts would start and the voice would just take over. Most days now I can see it coming. Typically for me, it starts with a sense of isolation. The first thoughts for me are typically, why am I the one that always has to reach out. You can tell you are stuck when you are asking yourself why questions. Why questions don’t allow us to move forward. They hold in the spot of the why. Next, if I don’t shut things down the thoughts turn to no one cares, I don’t matter, blah, blah, blah. So how do we move from the why questions in our inner chatter to questions that move us forward?

First thing is to start recognizing that the why questions are happening and that your inner chatter is taking over. Once you practice this you can recognize it as it starts. Oh, trust me there might be times when you recognize it but you get caught up in it. Needless to say, when this happens don’t push too hard and start beating yourself up that you should know better or (my personal favourite) aren’t you done with this yet. You see when you do that it just adds fuel to the fire. Instead, try taking a breath and then make a choice to do something else. This will interrupt the inner chatter.

Second, and I find this one helpful, reach out to a friend and have a chat. You don’t even have to talk about what’s going on but when you engage with someone else your inner chatter dissipates because it doesn’t have your full attention. Your inner chatter really needs to be front and centre to consume you and your day.

Third, and this to me is the most important one of all. Do something every day that feeds you and reminds you that you are important and you do matter. For me, when I was going through this recently, a couple of friends gave me some suggestions and I put them into practice. The first one was to every morning when you walk up, tell yourself that you love you. You may think this is a little strange but seriously think about it. You tell other people in your life that you love them. I know I do daily. But I never thought of telling myself that I love me. What a great reminder of how much you matter when you care about yourself as you care about others. For the last few days, I have started my morning by saying to myself … Good Morning, Angela, I love you. These are very similar words that I say to my husband every morning and now I remind myself that I love me and I matter. It starts my day with a smile. Try it and see what impact it has on your day. The second suggestion made was to ask the Universe to show me evidence that I matter. Again, I’m always game to see where things might take me so I started adding this into my daily routine as well. Since doing it I have been having some great conversations with people and I’ve seen how I’ve impacted those around me and how they have impacted me.

So I will end with this thought. You truly need to make it a practice to remind yourself that you matter. If you push you to the side, of course, it will feel like others are as well. After all, how can anyone value you if I don’t value yourself? If I remind myself every day that I love me and I matter it shows to the people around me and the interactions seem so much more wonderful. Try it and see what happens for you. At the very least I bet you start the day with a smile which is pretty awesome.