Happy Self-Love Day!
In case you need the reminder, here it is. Loving others starts with loving ourselves.
Many of us struggle with diminished self-image, fueled by our struggles with ADHD. The reasons for this include social expectations centred around unrealistic gender roles, rampant perfectionism, unrealized potential, and a harsh inner critic cultivated along the way.
Day in and day out, we are engaged in a vicious cycle of comparing ourselves against some fictitious gold standard and then beat ourselves up when we fall short. Of course, this negative self-talk only makes us feel worse. Over a lifetime, it may feel more familiar to be hard on ourselves than to be kind. Many of us don't feel we are deserving of self-kindness. Our brains can be cruel to us, far more than anyone else.
“The bottom line is that we are all worthy of self-love.”
Steps & Strategies for Circuit-Breaking Negative Self-Talk
Learning to speak to yourself with the same kindness and compassion you offer others is one of the most effective ways to increase internal sense of well-being, and it doesn't cost a thing. Some may know this as #radical seeselflove.
You might be thinking, "That's great and all, Krista, but how do I bring that into practice in my life?"
Step 1 - Intention-Setting
For many, the biggest challenge is to catch negative self-talk in the first place. Learning to recognize when it's happening will likely be challenging because it's reflexive, almost automatic at this point. In your busy ADHD brain, it will probably take many attempts even to remember that you're trying to implement this new practice of being kind to yourself (an annoying but characteristic trait of our non-neurotypical brain).
One strategy that works for ADHD brains is to speak your intention out loud. "I commit to catching negative self-talk and replacing it with self-love." Yes, this might feel weird at first, and that's ok. Repeat this affirmation as often as you need until it sticks in your brain.
Step 2 - Catch and Replace Negative Self-Talk
The next step is to catch the negative self-talk when it's happening. Once you notice yourself engaging in negative self-talk, immediately tell yourself, "Self, I'm doing my best here!" (or whatever phrase works for you - just remember to keep it compassionate!)
You may find it helpful to say your chosen phrase aloud as if you're talking to someone else. Let's call this process "externalizing". The aim is to create distance between our negative self-talk and us as inherently awesome people who are totally worthy of self-love. Not only that but, by speaking our positive self-talk phrase out loud, we engage multiple senses (speech and hearing) in the process, and this increases the chances of cementing this practice amongst the noise.
Repeat Steps 1 and 2 as many times as needed.
Step 3 - Practice and Patience
Here's the rub. As much as you may crave change at a deep soul love, implementing a new practice takes time. Seasons may pass. You may entirely forget entirely about this practice for awhile. That's ok, and even to be expected in our busy brains. Patience is a toughie for those of us with ADHD but we can do this.
Recognize and avoid perfectionism-fueled thinking traps like "If I don't catch negative self-talk every time then I've failed". Sorry brain, we're not doing that anymore.
Remember that it has taken a lifetime to get to this point; anticipate it will take some time to reprogram your brain too. Your desire to change this pattern is far more important in the long run than how long it takes you to change.
If you stick with it, you may find positive self-talk actually becomes more intuitive than negative self-talk. And self-love is a radical act indeed!