Do you ever catch yourself having conversations with a voice inside your head? I don’t think you are crazy, because this can be a good thing if you will choose which voice to listen to.
Do you remember when you were little watching cartoons? A cartoon character would have a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. It was a battle for making a good choice or a bad choice. In real life the voices are part of you, in your mind. You are not stuck in the middle of this conversation; you are actually a part of it with only one of the parties.
Let’s say you want to eat a dozen donuts. It is you who has tempted you with the donuts. Then it is the voice of reason who is telling you why you should not eat the whole box of donuts. You have a choice to eat them or not to eat them. You get to make the ultimate decision.
When you recognize that you are actually having the conversation is the beginning of your journey. The next big step is realizing who that voice in your head really belongs to! Those voices don’t just talk about donuts. They tell you how big your thighs are and they beat you up!
When you are FLYing you deserve to be treated nicely, and it starts with telling those voices to go away! You don’t have to listen to those negative voices that say ugly things. Instead of them berating you over your dress size, they can love you into not eating twelve donuts by saying how much better you will feel if you don’t eat the whole thing. They can give you a reward for being kind to your body. Do you see that just recognizing the voices for what they are is such a huge step!
When you replace those negative voices with a voice that is kind and gentle, you will start to see a change in your attitude. We don’t have to feel put down and punished or resort to rebellion when we love ourselves. When we are FLYing, we won’t do anything that hurts us.
My friend Pam Young has come up with a good way to teach us how to join in the conversation. We can use her Get Out of Debt Book to learn to be nice to ourselves. When we first heard those hurtful words, we were young children. All we have to do is treat ourselves as if we were children and show that little child the same love and kindness we show our very own children.
This takes a little practice; I know you can do it! Join the conversation! Don’t hide behind the dozen donuts and feel sad and defeated. Use the donuts as a way of reinforce doing good things for yourself. You don’t have to eat them all when you eat only one or share one! You know in your heart that you could have eaten the whole box. Ask yourself why you want them, why you bought them? Then celebrate your success at eating only one and not the whole box! You won’t feel deprived or guilty! You can find joy in talking to yourself about this! I’ll bet you can even tell yourself just how proud you are for only eating one when you wanted a dozen. I think you deserve points. I know I did yesterday when I went to McFarland’s Bakery to pick up a birthday cake! I’ll take points any place I can get them!
For more help getting rid of your CHAOS, check out Marla Cilley’s website and join her free mentoring group at www.FlyLady.net, listen to her www.blogtalkradio.com/flylady show, or read her books, Sink Reflections, published by Bantam, and her New York Times bestselling book, Body Clutter, published by Fireside. Copyright 2008 Marla Cilley. Used by permission in this publication.
Share
Contributors
