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What if the way you talk to yourself isn't just reflecting how you feel, but actively shaping it? Let's talk about it. You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hey friends, welcome or welcome back to Relish. I'm Elysia and this podcast is about stepping off that hamster wheel of fixing and striving and self- judgment and coming back into presence and clarity and compassion. And today we are
talking about words, the power of words and how those words impact us, especially the way we talk to ourselves in moments of struggle. I've touched on this idea before briefly in the lost versus disconnected quickbite, but today I want to slow it down. I want to get a little deeper and specifically get into self-talk and why words matter more than we tend to realize. Words can reinforce shame, but they can also create space for relief depending on the words we're using. And the language that we use impacts what's happening inside and is actively shaping the relationship that you have with yourself. But first, before we dive in, if this podcast has been supporting you, I so appreciate you
taking a quick moment to follow the show, download the episode, leave a little fivestar rating, review. It really helps us reach more people. And if you find this episode valuable, please share it with someone. Okay. Thanks. So most of us think about self-t talk as uh thoughts kind of background noise something that's happening in our heads that we don't actively question. But self-t talk is not some kind of neutral commentary on your life. It is a reflection on the relationship you have with yourself. And like any relationship in your life, the tone that you engage with that being matters. The words you use internally shape how safe you feel in your body. Uh shapes how willing you
are to stay present if things are challenging. And it also shapes how much shame you carry. We recently did a deep dive into shame in that series and that will be relevant here. So, I do encourage you to check it out if you haven't gotten a chance to yet. This isn't about being positive. It's about whether your internal language is punitive or permissive. If it's got a contracted energy to it or a spacious one. Something important about the brain is that it is constantly filtering reality. Your brain is processing a massive amount of information. I think it's something like 11 million bits of information per second. But your conscious mind can only handle about 40
to 50 bits, which means the vast majority of your mental activity is happening subconsciously. There is just far too much information coming in. So the brain has to prioritize what it thinks is relevant, what's emotionally charged, what's tied to identity, what's tied to threat. Attention and salience systems in the brain. Often that's kind of loosely referred to as the reticular activating system helps to decide what gets put into the foreground of your attention and what can fade into the background. And the [snorts] language that we use helps your brain determine what matters. So if your inner dialogue sounds like, "I'm broken. I always mess this up.
What's wrong with me?" Your brain is not stopping to evaluate whether that's fair or true. It's just taking it as a cue. It starts scanning for evidence. And it's not because you're weak or it's true or you're doing anything wrong. It's because the brain is that prediction machine. and words are shaping prediction. This is why certain phrases can have a bigger impact than we might expect. I've talked before about something that can be seemingly benign, something like, "I fell off the wagon." We hear that all the time in the personal growth world. On the surface, it sounds harmless. But embedded implicitly into that phrase
is a rigid binary. I'm either on the wagon which equates to good or I'm off the wagon which equates to bad. So once someone believes they are off, shame can often follow because being off is bad and we internalize it then as I am bad. Shame narrows our perception. It pulls us into all oro thinking and urgency and self-lame. It is extremely uncomfortable and most often it's going to lead to us checking out, disengaging, trying to get away from it. If someone says, "I've lost myself," it can feel final. It implies something's been, you know, something's gone. But if you contrast that with just a little word shift, instead of I lost, I disconnected. That one word disconnected can change the entire tone.
It implies impermanence movement and this possibility of reconnection. So it's the same behavior but it's a totally different self-t talk and that can lead to a different internal experience. I want to share a couple of studies that are pretty striking. One set of experiment involved plants and in these experiments plants were kept under the same conditions. So they got the same light, the same water, the same environment. The only variable was the language or the tone that they were exposed to. And I know this going to sound a little bizarre. The setup involved speaking actual words to the plants. Okay? So some were spoken to with words of care,
appreciation, encouragement. Others were spoken to harshly, with criticism, anger, contempt. And what the researchers observed was that the plants that were exposed to kinder, more supportive language tended to thrive more, while the plants exposed to harsher language, they tended to wilt or decline more quickly. even though all the physical conditions otherwise were the same. So that raises an interesting question. If living systems respond differently to the quality of what they're exposed to, what might that mean for us? There's a similar curiosity around water. There were these experiments where water was exposed to different words, music and intentions and afterward the water was frozen and researchers photographed the crystallin
structures that formed and the water exposed to words like love, gratitude, peace. They appeared more symmetrical and harmonious and created these like mandalashshaped patterns. The water exposed to words like hate, anger, contempt, that kind of energy appeared in the crystal structures more chaotic and disordered. Now, I do want to name these studies. Some people might name them as controversial. It's not because they have been disproven, but because they don't meet standards required to make strong scientific claims, you know, per modern science standards. They're difficult to control.
They're difficult to replicate, difficult to measure in the way that modern science prefers. But what makes them interesting to me isn't what they prove. It's the questions they raise. If I think about the fact that humans are made up of mostly water, we are living systems. We are responsive, sensitive, adaptive. And whether or not water crystals behave this way under a microscope, we already know something very real. Humans do. Here is what psychology and neuroscience are constantly showing us. Words shape our meaning. Meaning shapes our emotional response. Emotional response shapes our physiology. Physiology shapes our behavior.
We know that harsh judgmental self-t talk activates threat and stress responses. Shamebased language increases rigidity and avoidance. More compassionate or neutral language on the other hand supports regulation and learning and flexibility. So whether we're talking about plants or water or people, words matter and the words that you use with yourself are shaping the internal environment you live inside. This is one reason I believe mindfulness meditation is so powerful and also misunderstood. Meditation is not about stopping the thoughts. It's not about calming the mind or relieving anxiety.
Uh a lot of people say, you know, I can't meditate. I have too many thoughts racing around. That's not the problem. That's actually the point in many ways. That's the practice. At its core, mindfulness is non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. And with mindfulness meditation, you sit down, you pay attention to an anchor. That's something anchoring you to the present moment. Often practices use the breath. And when you pay attention to your breath or whatever the anchor is, for most people at some point, the mind wanders away. That's expected in the practice. And a part of the practice is bringing attention back to that anger again and again. It's like a rep. But the way that we do that is also really important as a part of the
practice. So remember that non-judgmental piece. Mindfulness is not just an awareness but a non-judgmental awareness. When the mind wanders away, can we not judge ourselves for it and bring ourselves back to the anchor kindly? And a big part of the practice for many people becomes noticing that tone that follows. I'm bad at this. I can't do anything right. My mind wanders too much. So, I can't meditate. You know, instead, can we meet it like, oh, huh, wandering. There it is. No problem. And that moment repeated again and again. It trains a new relationship with yourself. It's literally rewiring your brain in real time. I almost think about that moment like, can I meet myself?
Almost like I'd meet a puppy. You know, that puppy that you're training is innocent and they're not going to listen and is screaming at them, you know, stop it. You're so stupid. Is that going to help? most of us recognize is not going to land. You know, no, the way we meet a puppy is we go, "Oh, no, sweet girl. Come on back here. Come on back. It's not with judgment. It's with kindness and allowance." And that tone also creates space and room to stay present with what's here. So, I've included a dessert practice alongside this episode to guide you through that if you want to try it out. This isn't about forcing affirmations that you don't believe in.
It's about reducing the unnecessary harm that we cause ourselves. The absolutist words, the fixed language like always, never, everyone, no one, right, wrong, on, off, can, can't. These binaries are very limiting. So something practical that you can try is swapping those, softening that fixed hard language. I can't can become I'm not there yet. I'm lost could be I'm disconnected. [snorts] I failed could be that didn't work this time. I always messed this up can be I'm still learning at this. I didn't get it this time.
It has to be perfect. Could be it could be good enough. What's wrong with me? could be what's happening right now. These shifts do not have to deny reality. They actually widen it. Can you hear how there's more possibility? I'm not there yet implies that I can maybe and one day I will that didn't work this time implies there's learning to be had and it can be done. It's possible. Asking what's happening right now brings me back to reality and truth and presence as opposed to getting lost in the lie that I'm going to spiral into that is rooted in me believing I'm broken.
These give your nervous system more space to respond instead of react and collapse. Another shift out of binary and rigid language is going from either or to both and. Both and thinking in language. So either or is very black or white. It's rigid. I'm either good or bad. I'm happy or sad. Instead, I can actually be both happy and sad. I can be anxious and I can also be excited. two things can be true at once. This insight, this concept alone can really be an awakening to some people. Our brain's default until we train it otherwise will be binary, rigid, negative. It is the nature of the brain which was designed to protect you and help you survive. But we can
intentionally train it to relax and soften and be more curious. You can actually try this for yourself. I'd love it if in your home environment if it's safe right now you could even close your eyes just let's just do this brief embodied practice in real time okay this will be short so just take a breath feel yourself present sitting and bring to mind a mistake that you made recently something you messed up something you're being hard on yourself for maybe you're feeling some guilt or shame around it maybe you're beating yourself up and say something somewhat harsh to yourself. Maybe something that's not so different than you normally would. Gh, I'm so stupid. I'm an idiot. I can't do anything right. I always it up. No
one likes you. That negative self-t talk. And as you say that, just notice what happens in your body. Notice the sensations. Notice is there any tightness or contraction. This is your sympathetic nervous system dialing up. So notice that discomfort and then take a breath and actually shake that out. Okay? Shake it out. And with your eyes still closed, stay connected to that mistake or whatever it is that you're being hard on yourself for. And this time, imagine you were with your best friend. Your best friend came to you and said all these things about themsel. What would you say to them?
I'm so sorry that happened. You're not stupid. You're smart. You made a mistake. You're human. You do so many things right. You're a great mom. You're a great friend. You're so thoughtful. Whatever that might be. Just say those things to yourself and notice the body sensations. What is different? Is there any less tension or rigidity? For me, I attend to notice some openness or spaciousness. Emotionally, notice any shifts. Feel in that space what's possible. Get a felt sense of what's different and possible when you're meeting yourself with kindness as opposed to judgment.
Okay? So, you can open your eyes if you close them. There's not a right experience there. But for many of us, when we beat ourselves up, we tend to close up, shut down. But when we soften our tone, we are encouraged to stay present. We're more resilient. We're able to keep going. So just continue to reflect for yourself. We do need to become aware of the language that we're using at the very least before we can change it. When we don't pay attention to selft talk, we get lost living inside of stories. Stories that feel like facts and we start to have this lens on. I talked about this in the shame series. That lens limits our perspective. It limits our view. stories that reinforce shame. They narrow our choice, our agency. And these stories are
exhausting. Now, I'm not saying that the words are everything, but they're not nothing either. They are not neutral. They have an impact. The way that you talk to yourself is shaping what you notice, how safe you feel, how willing you are to stay present with your life. You don't need to be perfect with your language either. You just need to start with awareness and have an intention to stop judging your experience and yourself so much. And as I mentioned earlier, a practical way you can do that is mindfulness meditation. I've got a dessert practice alongside this one. It focuses more on tone and invites you to in real time notice the self-t talk and your relationship to it. Because once
you notice the words, then you're back. you're present and you regain choice. Okay, so that's the power of words. If this episode resonated, please share it with someone, maybe someone who's hard on themselves. Maybe share it on your social media. Please [snorts] do not forget to follow download so that you get notified of upcoming episodes. Give us a little fivestar rating and review. It really helps support the work. We've got a goal. We're trying to get to a thousand reviews this year. Can we do it? Only with your help. So, if you have taken anything from these episodes, you taking just 30 seconds to do that makes
a huge difference for us being able to share this content with more people. I appreciate you. I hope more importantly that you appreciate you. Be kind to yourself and I will see you next time.
