Flip The Script

The more I work with clients the more my heart aches I didn’t learn this skill when I was younger. The voice, on repeat, all day, in your head. It’s you. It’s the hardest thing to turn off. At 41 I still battle it, but imagine, just imagine if I had been working on this mindset skill for the last 35 years …I’d be taking names walking on sunshine, signing best sellers. We all have/had a bully, the group of girls from middle school. The boy who broke our heart and we thought it was because we were “to fat”, or ______ wasn’t ______ “enough”. We didn’t get the quarter back spot because _____. We felt shame, carried the weight of a parent’s mistakes for years. The list is endless. That script plays on repeat in our mind for years. At the time of the events and then years later when something triggers it. These are limiting beliefs that do not support us. They are so loud. What do we do with them? At some point we introduce the idea of “flipping the script”. Turn the limiting beliefs into supporting ones. For younger children this is critical. You can’t be my friend, “yet”. Or in middle school when they begin labeling one another, this skill is so important to their mental wellness. Their frontal cortex isn’t even fully developed, they will repeat those labels, those unkind words, over and over holding them to be true. Oh if only I had learned then, what I know now. I wonder why we wait until we are adults to start considering things like self talk, self awareness, the weight of mistakes, building resiliency. Things that make you go hummmmm.