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.

Resentment and Hate

Victor: ''In relation to this self-forgiveness line: I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my impact on others.

How is it that you fear impacting upon others? What is that you fear your impact will create in others, or in your world? Do you feel like you can impact others in a good way, but also in a bad way? And in that case, do you fear impacing others in a bad way? And what does it mean to be bad then?

Some questions that might help you to further open your self-forgiveness''

Thanks Victor. I will explore this.

The first biggie that's really revealing to me is the fact that I fear others will resent me if I demand sef-responsibility from them, so I hardly ever do it. I just let things go and grow frustrted that nobody in my world, not one person, is self-responsible. So when I flip that around and bring it back to myself I can see thay I fear resenting myself, or I resent myself for not taking self-responsibiility, and therefore I 'let things go', and let myself get away with things like habbits and patterns and participation in the mind.

When I first got married I was 23, and I had never really had any responsibilities in life. The ones I did have, like shool, I quit, I just gave up on things or avoided things that were 'too much work' or 'too hard', 'too diffficult' for me to handle. My husband did not accept this behaviour and placed expectations on me that I was not used to, and he made me accountable for my actions whereas I was used to always being let off the hook by myself and others. For this I felt at times extreme resentment and hatred towards him (hell hath no fury as a woman scorned), but as time passed I began to respect him.

But the resentment and hatred I felt for him when he would call me out on something or make me be responsible for something is what I fear others feeling towards me. Especially because it was also in my personality to depend on being liked by everyone.
But now it's time to make myself accountable, self-responsible, and to call myself out on the things I had been letting slip by. And so this entails dealing with my own resentment and hatred, which is the resentment and hatred of my mind as I change from within it, thus threatening its very existance and survival.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project the resentment and hatred I create, as a mind, in response to being held accountable and self-responsible, on to those closest to me in my world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to depend on those closest to me to be responsible for me, as if I were a child still dependant on its mother, instead of growing up within mysef and taking self-responsibility and accountability for myself, and so I forgive myself for accepting and alllowing myself to then participate in the emotions of resentment and hatred towards those people when they do in fact hold me responsible or accountable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that anybody but myself can hold me accountible or 'make' me self-responsible, only I can direct me in every breath, as only I know when I am being self-dishonest or abdicating my self-responsibility.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid pushing myself to take self-responsibility because of fear the resentment and hate that I know my mind is capable of.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear hating and resenting myself because I don't take respnsibility in every moment.

Here what is interesting to me is the fact that if I take responsibility I will hate and resent myself for making myself do such a difficult thing, but if I don't take responsibility I will hate and resent myself for not pushing myself. The reason is because taking self-responsibility is being Here as Life, and not in the mind living out time loops and energy-creating polarity, therefor, the resentments and hatred my own mind manifests within me is due to the fact that I am essentially eradicating my mind and my egoic delusions that I have been living as. Persuing this despite these 'bad' or 'negative' feelings will eventually lead to self-respect and self-trust, stability etc... Whereas NOT pushing myself to take self-responsibility leads me to project my resentment and hatred on to others in my world, beause an irresposnible person needs to be taken care of, and others will eventually make some demands because it is impossible to entirely take care of another being without them taking some kind of responsibility for themselves.

Also, not taking responsibility leads to self-judgment, self-loathing, resentment and hatred within me because I now know better, so when I don't take responsibility it is a choice to not live and to give up on myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing hate and resentment to exist within and as me, these are emotions I am capable of and I take responsibility for, they are not Life, they are not of oneness and equality, they are manifestations of the mind which I do not allow myself to participate within and as.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to attach resentment and hate to whatever it is that is pushing me to give up my addiction to energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see that the emotions of resentment and hate are not real, but rather only withdrawl 'symptoms' or reactions to my cessation of the constant feeding of energy within my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear experiencing what my mind is capable of, threrfore I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my own mind, my own creation.

If I fear my own creation I am essentially making it bigger than who I really am, giving it power over me, abdicating myself to it, allowing it to live thus enslaving myself to it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project my resentment and frustration on to my husband instead of taking responsibility for it, thus separating myself from it, allwoing it to grow as if I had no control over it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my husband as a point of release and self-abdication within separation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my husband as a point of blame and thus as an excuse for me to not move and direct myself within my own life and process.

I accept and allow myself to live without fearing taking self-responsibility.

I accept and allow myself to apply myself within my own process, stating clearly and publicly what I will and will not stand for, desptie whatever reactions might come up from others.

I allow myself to take full self-resonsibility for myself, and to remain accountible to myself within the understanding that each is in their own process and only I can influence me.

I am Here. I Stand. I breathe.