What do you tell yourself when you’re doing something hard?
Things like “This is so hard, I don’t think I can do this”?
Or “I need to be more _______ to be able to get through this”?
Or “How did so and so do it but I’m having such a hard time?”
Our self talk matters!
This became super clear to me recently when I was doing my favorite thing in the world: rock climbing.
My climbing partner wanted to do a climb that we have both done many times before, I have even led the pitch, which is much harder than following it, but the last time I climbed it, following him, a couple of years ago, I struggled hard.
There were points of the climb that I could not find foot and hand holds to make my way up. I was hanging on the side of a rock, burning out my muscles and fearing that I’m not going to be able to get up.
I grunted and struggled and tried and cursed and, not very gracefully, inched my way up the rock. ?
So when he wanted to do that one, I brought up that experience and said there were some points that I really struggled on it last time. His response was: I remember. ?
So, knowing that I can do the climb, that I have done it before, AND that it’s still a challenging climb, I decided to change my self talk from the get-go this time.
Even when I got to the places that I knew were hard for me before, I still took a deep breath and repeated to myself “this is not the hard part, you can do this.”
And while it was still a solid effort, my eyes found the places to put my feet and the holds to grab on the rock, and I trusted my ability and climbed those hard parts with grace and ease.
All the way to the top. ?️
My climbing partner said “wow, you cruised that!” And I knew that I had. I credit it entirely to my self talk. I used my vagus nerve tools too! Humming, singing, breathing, lip trills…(And I also had a very pretty new rope to climb on. Your tools matter too. ?)
OUR WORDS ARE POWERFUL!
They are energy. They create our outcome.
When we put thoughts and words out into the universe, with whom we are constantly creating whether we’re aware of it or not, speaking (out loud or in our heads) words that keep us calm, standing in our power, and brave—
That opens our eyes ? and primes our sight to see what will help us get to our goal with grace instead of an ugly curse word filled grunt fest.
Getting to the mountain top requires climbing that mountain.
Some parts of the climb are harder than others.
And sometimes unforeseen obstacles present themselves along our way.
How we respond, how we get back to our empowered state, and the words we tell ourselves determine the time it will take and the amount of pain we will endure to reach our next level.
Climbing is being in a true flow state. It’s just you, your rope, and the rock. When you are in that moment of deciding your next move and going for it, or which piece of gear is going to protect your life in that moment— that’s ALL you can think of. There is no other thought in your brain.
That’s why remembering certain places on climbs or what piece of gear you placed is so easy to recall—it created a deep and profound neural pathway that you won’t soon forget.
Life is like that too. When something big happens, maybe life-threatening, or maybe just feels like it could be life-threatening, especially as a young child who doesn’t have the emotional intelligence or emotionally mature parents or caretakers to guide us through, it makes a profound and lasting belief/pattern/neural pathway when we make meaning out of it.
When things feel like too much, or they are accompanied by an emotion that is uncomfortable, or we’re told not to feel, we fragment that part of ourselves off and shove it down into our subconscious who protects it until we’re ready to face it and resolve it. Desperate to not feel the pain, we learn to cut ourselves off from that compass and guide that flows with the energy of life itself, and is connected to Source/God/Spirit—our heart and our intuition. We stay in our conscious mind.
We search the outside world looking for worth and meaning. We experience suffering from fear, scarcity, numbing out, feeling lost and alone. We allow the light of who we are to become dulled and dimmed. We know there is more to life.
It takes A LOT of energy to keep those beliefs and patterns shoved down. These parts accumulate and cause dissonance, disconnect, anxiousness. The great news is, this is all learned. We did not come into the world this way. This is beautiful because it means we can unlearn it. We get to choose love or pain. We will experience both; we get to choose how we learn from the suffering, embrace our humanness, and reopen our hearts to the love and joy that have been there all along.
We can choose to free up that energy holding up our shields and open up to curiosity, and use that energy as momentum toward more love, joy, freedom. As Sarah Blondin says in her book Heart Minded, “Stop bracing against life and start living it.”
The quality of the questions you ask yourself determines the quality of your outcome.
What question do you ask yourself the most every day?
And what’s the answer that you give yourself?
How can you edit that question to make it even more effective and empowering for you to reach your next goal?
We have to quiet our intellect, our conscious, busy mind, and feel our way back to our hearts. Only if you are brave and ready to reclaim your freedom and wholeness, reach out to Beth Rose at Tranquil Flame. Love, joy, and abundance are your birthright. We just have to unmuddy the waters to get clear.
I am committed to loving fiercely in my time on earth. It’s a climb. I’m learning better ways every day, and I would love to bring you with me on this journey.
Climb on!
Beth Rose