Negative Messages
Every day we hear people in many different ways talk badly of themselves. They may verbally share how bad they are, or they may hurt themselves, deny themselves opportunities, or show in many different ways with their actions that they feel negative about themselves. Nearly all of us in some fashion or another have ways of putting ourselves down.
What is interesting is that we are born with no negative messages; they have all been taught to us in some fashion or another. We may have been told directly, indirectly, unintentionally, with a cold shoulder, a glance or glare or some other form of body language, that we are bad in some fashion or another. Negative messages tend to focus in certain areas such as intelligence, looks, behaviors, abilities, and feelings.
Here are just a few examples of the many negative messages we might hear:
- Around intelligence: stupid, idiot, dummy, retard, dumbass.
- Around looks: ugly, fat, big ears, big lips, big feet, basically any part of the body that may be seen by others as different.
- Around behaviors: you’re lazy, you’re slow, you’re too loud, you’re obnoxious; once again, anything that can label us as different.
- Around abilities: you will never amount to anything, you can’t do anything, you’ll never be good at anything, etc.
- Around feelings: you are too sensitive, whiner, cry baby, scaredy cat, etc.
We are not born with any of these messages, and all of these messages are not true because they do not connect with our true selves. The core of our true selves are always respectful of ourselves and others, while the negative messages are disrespectful of ourselves and others. Since these messages are not part of our natural being, they were taught to us.
Many people share that they believe these messages are who they really are because they have no recollection of ever being taught these messages by anyone. Many of these messages have been taught to us in the first 1800 days of our lives. They have been a common part of our lives ever since, to the point that many times we are not even aware we are embracing these negative messages.
When we take the time to realize that all the negative messages we tell ourselves every day were taught to us and that they are all lies, we can recognize that we also have an option to unlearn these negative messages and embrace the true messages about ourselves. The truthful messages set us free. They are always respectful of ourselves, others, our feelings, and things around us.
When we embrace the negative messages, we live in lies and create dishonesty and pain, making life less desirable. When we are able to embrace our truth, we are able to be more creative, see more options in our lives, accomplish more, and enjoy life more fully.
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