Rewriting negative self talk takes years - believe me I know. I was looking through some old boxes of photos and came across these: family summer holiday - maybe 7 years ago. These photos represent a massive personal victory for me. I know, on the face of it, it may look like I’m just jumping off a pontoon into the sea, but this event was monumental in my little world.
As a child I didn’t learn to swim tiI I was 13, which is pretty late. I had eczema top to toe so swimming in a chlorinated pool aggravated my skin beyond belief, and swimming in the sea stung way too much, though it was widely regarded that salt water was good for eczema. My mother also doesn’t know how to swim and is quite fearful of water so it was never on the list of things to do. So whilst I learnt to swim in my teenage years - I wasn’t super comfortable doing it.
The thing about self talk is, it’s really powerful. And sadly, a vast majority of us are wired in a way that means self talk often manifests itself as negative. That little voice cutting you down. It may only be a whisper in the depths of your brain but the consistent stream of verbal cues we give ourselves take root, getting stronger as the years roll by. With great power, comes great responsibility (yes, I am quoting the Spiderman film - who is btw my favourite superhero) - so surely it serves us well to turn that voice into our superhero rather than our arch nemesis?
The reality is, I wasn’t brought up thinking “I can” or “just have a go”. The prospect of “having a go” came with a raft of caveats so I ended up creating a bunch of unfounded beliefs that all led down the road of “I can’t”.
Fast forward to becoming a mother and the relevance of the photos (!) Firstly - as soon as my kids were toddlers I enrolled them in swimming classes. I certainly didn’t want to saddle my kids with my nervousness around water - besides which I feel swimming is a really important life skill. Anyway, after years of summer holidays it became apparent to my kids that I rarely venture into the sea if we were on a beach, certainly not more than ankle depth.
Now, I couldn’t tell you if it was a “their personality” thing, a generational thing or a parenting thing - probably a bit of all three. But even if there was some initial resistance, my children were always open to trying new things and having a go - something I found admirable, but unusual. So my lack of “sea antics” became glaringly obvious.
We were lucky enough to go to Crete on summer holidays and there was this pontoon in the sea, by the hotel we were staying at. It became my kids’ life mission to get me to swim to the pontoon. The thing about my kids, or most kids in fact, is that they can be ridiculously persistent. So they wouldn’t stop till I said yes. But the thought was pretty nerve wracking to me. The negative self talk was out in force - “you can’t swim very well”, “you’re not sporty”, “you look like an idiot when you swim”. I could go on. But my kids and their badgering won.
Although it really wasn’t far from the beach, it was like me swimming The Channel. It is hard, even now, to verbalise, the sense of achievement when I managed to step onto that pontoon. I then realised I’d been hoodwinked. There was a set of steps to get up and down from the water but my children wanted me to jump off and swim back to the beach.
I can honestly say, up until then I had never jumped off anything into the open sea. “Are you out of your mind?” was my overriding thought. But again, my kids’ persistence excelled - I suppose if I were feeling kind - I would say they were tenacious.
Now this is where self talk gets interesting. In amongst the meleé of negative voices in my head, there was the tiniest murmur that said “why not have a go?”....
I do not know why I chose to listen to that voice that afternoon, but after a lot of coaching. I jumped. And it was really fun. I mean - I had to put visions of me jumping in so deep that I cracked my skull on a rock out of my head - but it was exhilarating, and I did it several times.
My point is this - sometimes there is very little substance to the banks of negative self talk we build up. Some of it is of our own making, some gets stored because someone made a passing comment once and yes, sometimes people want to be negative, they want to put seeds of doubt in our brains, or they can’t see the detrimental effect their words have. But we have a choice - we get to choose whether those seeds sprout or not.
And on a personal note, not knowing how to do something does not make us weaker, or ignorant and it certainly does not make us lesser - if anything it provides us with the opportunity to learn and grow and experience new things.
This period of lockdown has caused me to really think about how I live my life - and I welcome introspection. The whole range of challenges we are traversing through including #blacklivesmatter and Coronavirus are far from straightforward. Though sometimes it is crystal clear what is right or wrong. But I am hopeful that this time of sometimes uncomfortable reflection and growth will bring positive, lasting change.
And on a personal level that starts with each of us, the way we conduct ourselves and our self talk. We are allowed to close off the negative self talk, we are allowed to change our beliefs - and whilst sometimes the changes in self talk may be small, they can be profound - and it’s never too late.
I really hope that I get to jump into the sea from a pontoon this year, though I don’t know how likely that will be - hell maybe I’ll upgrade to jumping off a rock ....
