When we talk about toxicity we need to evaluate all the places it is coming from. Are you contributing to the toxic atmosphere in your world? You may be and not even realize it.
I recently had the honor of addressing a group of women at a health and wellness retreat. I was there to speak about living your best life. There was a lot of urging from me to start praising yourself. Because we women are so darn hard on ourselves. We never give ourselves a break. We hold ourselves to impossible standards and then berate ourselves when we inevitably fall short. And when we do achieve something great we typically poo-poo it and don't even celebrate. Have you been there?
One of the things I was talking about was author and life coach Mel Robbins high-5 habit. She came up with this idea one morning while picking herself apart in the bathroom mirror. She said she got fed up with starting everyday pointing out all her flaws to herself and she just decided to give herself a high-5 in the mirror. She said it changed her whole outlook for the day. Instead of feeling shame and low self-worth she felt encouraged and cheered on. Because that is the feeling a high-5 represents and it still worked when she did it for herself.
As women we don't praise ourselves very often. Even when we do something great we will often downplay it and say we got lucky or something like that. I really want to stop this. I want to make it normal for us to praise ourselves. Because we are allowed, even expected, to praise our spouse, kids, friends and co-workers but when we have the nerve to say something good about ourselves we typically get an odd look. Why is that? Because we have been conditioned to not speak about ourselves in a positive way. It's what we've been taught. We've been told that people who do praise themselves are self-centered, conceited and arrogant. No, that stops right here. Because here's the thing...If I say something good about myself it has absolutely no impact on anyone else's life but my own. So why are we still holding on so hard to this idea that we can't praise ourselves?
Part of the reason is because we are still judging others for doing it. When we see someone who says something nice about themselves we typically think, "huh, well they certainly think highly of themselves". And then you like them a little bit less than before they said it. It's what we've been conditioned to do. But think about this, why is it we can berate ourselves say and a bevy of negative things and that's considered okay. We all relate to that because we've all done and probably still do on a regular basis.
We need to stop the negative self talk. We will never shame ourselves into the behavior we would like to see. We will by using kindness and grace. By letting ourselves off the hook. By giving ourselves the encouragement we need and the credit when we deserve it. But in order for that to become normal for you you have to feel comfortable doing it. And you won't as long as you still judge other women for doing it. We should be encouraging our fellow women to say the absolute best thing about themselves. We need to stop looking to others for our self-worth and only look to ourselves. We have all the tools we need to cheer ourselves on. But we have to do it without fear of being seen as a bad person. So the next time you start to feel a little judgement if you hear someone say something nice about themselves, flip the scrip and agree with them. Tell them...Oh, shell yeah. You got girl. You've got this. Because there is nothing better than a woman who knows her own worth. And that woman should be you.
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Now go on out there and be badass this week. I'm always here cheering you on.
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