Beliefs
We all have a critic and a cheerleader within us.
Hopefully, your cheerleader is getting louder, cheering you on this process.
Woohooo! You should be proud of yourself - you are on Week 11!
The thing to watch out for is when the critic is more vocal and louder than the cheerleader. When we let our inner critic take over, we focus on the negative. We all know by now what that does to our mindset and vibrational energy.
Spend time writing down on the BELIEFS page of your Sober Journal what both sides say to you. It might help to give them names and characters so that you can connect to them, feeding the cheerleader and starving the critic of attention.
Here’s my critic and cheerleader for some inspiration. I can now stop Negative Nancy in her tracks before her words stop me from doing something that I know I want to do. I encourage Positive Pamela to step forwards and to say all of the words of encouragement that I need to move forwards positively.
Next time you feel negative towards yourself, try stopping and replacing the narrative with a positive.
You wouldn’t dream of speaking to a good friend (anyone actually) like that, so why do you think it’s ok to do it to yourself? Each time you talk to yourself in that way, it impacts how you feel about yourself. Think about it.
The more positive you are, consistently, even if you don’t mean it at first, the more you will start to believe it, and the better you will feel about yourself; this won’t change overnight; it will take time and practice. The daily affirmations and gratitude lists should have gone some way to putting you in a more positive mindset.
You might like to refer back to the MINDSET Prompt from Week 3 and the ‘Thought Monitoring Exercise.’
If you don’t start now, then when? What have you got to lose? (A horrible inner critic, that’s what!) Changing these destructive thought patterns is a game-changer.