The Reasons I Won’t Let Me

Others will think I’m weak, ignorant, unaware…

She will lose her temper and hell will break lose.

I’ll inconvenience everyone.

I’ll have to deal with their unreasonable reactions,

they could leave, and take my freedom too.

I move too slowly.

I’ll lose control.

I believed a person in the know who said I wasn’t good at it.

The poem above is my own negative self-talk. Every line is a thought that has held me back. I am a confident person and, until a week ago or so, I didn’t think I had negative self talk come up that often.

I was listening to a podcast (click on the word for the link) I started to ask myself, “What do I think about before I make a decision to take/not take action?” That is where the poem came from. I always thought of negative self talk as a set of buzz words that someone had to overtly speak to me and, because of that, I brushed the idea aside.

The thing is, many of the negative thoughts I inherited about myself were unspoken ideas. I learned I was inconveniencing people when they huffed or rolled their eyes or sighed if I wanted to, say, get into my storage locker. no one said, “You’re such a bother,” but their body language did.

And I unconsciously chose to belief ideas like that, I didn’t have to. I am almost 32, and I’ve missed out on many opportunities because I stopped myself out of fear. I will face this struggle in the future too. Because I am human. I am always growing and can only learn life lessons in my own emotional language and when I am ready to hear them.

What do you usually thing before turning something down or, for that matter, accepting an opportunity?