Negative Self-Talk Chipping Away at my Resolve

Fear of Failure - Back Chat

I heard a quote similar to this (title) the other day. Actually it was “backchat chipping away at your resolve micro piece by micro piece,” (BP) and it hit me. Something clicked within me with regards to the nature of back chat, of my back chat and of what it is doing to me and in my life. I have been noticing that as I get closer to the end of my stay in my hometown, and to the end of my semester at school, I’ve been feeling more and more defeated. I’ve been feeling like I can’t handle the pressure, like events in my life are ‘bigger than me’, and like I’ll never get through the end of the semester. It’s a really shitty feeling. I feel plagued with self-doubt and I feel like I’m in this endless battle with myself to just continue applying myself as I have been doing.

My husband calls this the ‘home stretch’, and he’s saying don’t give up now, and I agree. But what’s missing is my resolve. The only thing is, which is kind of funny to me, is that it’s not being replaced with a giving up or a stopping. It’s like, I’ve already proven to myself that I can do this; I absolutely will not quit; stopping is simply not an option…. So I’m just kind of in this limbo. And this is where my understanding of back chat really clicked.

            I have understood the concept of back chat (inner voices or negative self-talk… Ive also heard it called self-defeating thoughts) for a long time, but it never really clicked where I could see it clearly in my own life. It’s partly because for me it’s not clear voices with words, it more like feelings and images, like ‘scenes’ which are accompanied by feelings and emotions. Like for the thought ‘what if I fail at school’ or ‘I fear failing at school’, I don’t get that sentence or even any words, it’s more like this picture of me in my life, and then the faces of all the people I feel I would disappoint, and then I imagine the feeling of telling them I failed.

I have been having lots of thoughts along these lines, and it has been chipping away at my resolve, so it’s time to rein them in and start deleting them.

Deleting Backchat:

Failure: (school)

I fear failing

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect failure with fear, so I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my own fear.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to charge the thought of failure with fear energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing because I think/believe/perceive I will be exposed as a fraud.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that I am smart/intelligent/bright, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want/need/desire those around me to think/believe/perceive this of me as well.

            If I feel I need others to think/believe/perceive this about me then it means I don’t really think/believe/perceive it about myself because I require the validation of ‘others’ outside of me. So I have separated myself from being smart/intelligent/bright.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect being smart/intelligent/bright with acceptance by the group.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want/need/desire the validation of others in order for me to feel smart/intelligent/bright.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from being smart/intelligent/bright by wanting/needing/desiring these qualities and thinking/believing/perceiving them as something to obtain outside of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want/need/desire to be seen as smart/intelligent/bright, thus separating myself from being smart/intelligent/bright and then creating the belief that I am not smart/intelligent/bright and thus manifesting the fear that ‘’people’ will ‘find out’ that I’m not smart/intelligent/bright.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as dumb/unintelligent/dull.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that I am dumb/unintelligent/dull.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being dumb/unintelligent/dull.

This is bringing up a memory, one from second grade, where I was placed into some kind of special class for ‘slow learners’. At some point all the students would leave one classroom to go to another one, and instead of going with them, I would go the other way to my special class. I remember some students looking at me and in that moment I felt singled out. In that moment I thought the other students were either wondering where I was going, or if they knew that I was in this special class, and then I reflected self-judgment off of them that I was not as smart/intelligent/bright as them.

The relevant points within this memory are:

- the fact that I felt singled out and different from the other students.

-I felt less-than (not as smart/intelligent/bright as the ‘regular’ students)

-I defined myself by this memory (as dumb/unintelligent/dull)

I hold on to this memory because

-          it was a moment in my life where I allowed myself to be diminished my thoughts, feelings and emotions instead of taking responsibility for them.

-          I let myself think these negative things about myself and then I believed them and carried them with me, and allowed them to affect me in many other situations in my life. So I used this memory to define myself.

-          I allowed myself to use this memory as an excuse in many situations where I could have faced me and pushed myself, but I instead withdrew and gave up because I believed it to be real and true.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect thinking/perceiving/believing myself to be dumb/unintelligent/dull to the memory of going to my special class in second grade.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the memory of going a separate way to a special class to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the memory of who I believed I was and the experience of myself as being different, singled out and less than, within going a separate way to a special class to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing a memory of myself as dumb/unintelligent/dull to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing a memory of defining myself in one moment as different and less-than, and as dumb/unintelligent/dull, to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing a memory of self-judgment and the fear or perception of judgment of others towards me asa being dumb/unintelligent/dull to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to a memory of going a separate way to a special class, feeling less-than and fearing the judgment of others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to the memory of how I experienced myself as I walked away from the group and went a separate way, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that memory and feeling to be real or to be who I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to the memory of defining or labeling myself as different and less-than the other students from my class.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to the memory of experiencing self-pity because I felt singled out and different.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect going to a special class to self-pity and feeling less-than.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to this memory because I could use it to sabotage myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to this memory because it confirmed the backchat that I was having at the time that I was different and less than because school was hard for me and I felt all the other students were having a good time and it was easy for them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to this memory because it allowed me to pity myself instead of standing up from within my own back chat.

Connection to the Thought:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the fear of failing to the feeling of being singled out and different than others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the fear of failing to the emotional experience of feeling ‘less-than’ others, and believing them to be normal or regular and myself to be different or not as good.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the fear of failing to the belief that I am dumb/unintelligent/dull- as I have defined myself by memories.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by memories.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the fear of failure to self-diminishing thoughts and the power I allow them to have within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give my power away to my thoughts by believing them to be real and to be who I am.

I realize the fear of failure is not real, and all it does is cause distress within me. This affects my work and is completely unnecessary as I take longer and am less focused when I am working within a fear of failure.

I realize I have held on to a memory that I have used to define myself as not as capable as others, and I have used this memory and definition as an excuse, justification and reason to give up and fail in my life. This just creates a vicious circle because then I juge myself and confirm the memory and self-definition I created from it.

I do not allow myself to continue to hold on the memory of an experience I had in second grade.

I do not accept or allow myself to hold on to this self-created definition of myself a dumb/unintelligent/dull.

I do not allow myself to try to be seen as smart/intelligent/bright as a reaction to my self-definition.

I do not accept or allow myself to fear failing because it is not who I am. So I do not accept or allow myself to believe that if I fail it will change or prove or confirm anything.

I understand why and how I have created this back chat, and I see how I have utilized it in my life to diminish myself, and I no longer accept or allow this self-diminishing behavior, I see it for what it is and I do not allow it.

I bring myself back Here, out of my mind and in to my living reality, and I allow myself to take my work one step at a time and to do each step the best I can.

When I feel the thoughts coming up that I am ‘less-than’ or not ‘smart enough’ to do my work cause there’s ‘something different/wrong with me’ I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back Here and delete these thoughts within the understanding that they are not real and they do not serve me.