Get Rid of Your Ghosts!

I read Bill's post yesterday evening quite late, and woke up this morning thinking about ghosts - not the ones that hang around in damp, derelict, and lonely mansions (and you'd certainly need to be dead to live in any of those, because I never saw one that had a bathroom) but our own particular ghosts - the shades of the past that can come back to haunt us sometimes.

Anyway, round about half past six or so after I'd fed the cat, put out the rubbish and was well into my second cup of tea, I came to the conclusion that the person who coined the phrase 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' was a certifiable lunatic.

Bones mend in the end, you see, but words can create abrasions and bruises in secret and invisible places, and they sometimes never really quite heal up.

The worst thing, of course, is that we often adopt those harsh, unkind - and actually untrue and ridiculously inappropriate - words and phrases to castigate ourselves without realising it, simply because the wounds they create haven't healed up. It certainly took me a long time to stop saying "God, Ems! You're so f*****g stupid"every time I dropped a cup or forgot to do something - but then it took me a long time to realise why I was saying it, or even that I was saying it at all.

There are a lot of people - parents, teachers, coaches, line managers, peer groups (you name it actually!) - who should really carry a Government Health Warning. They use hurtful and damaging words and phrases like: 'You're Stupid', 'You'll never amount to anything', 'That was dumb', 'Why can't you think?', 'Are you deaf?', or 'Why are you always so clumsy?'. Some of them don't intend to do any permanent damage but, sadly, some of them do.

The fact that words or phrases like that were aimed at you doesn't make them true - and the fact that someone else applied them you doesn't mean that you have to apply them to yourself.

Watch how you speak to yourself about yourself. Try to use words positively. 'I could have handled that better' for example, is certainly an admission that you made a mistake, but's it's also a statement of belief in yourself and your own ability to 'handle things better'.

'I f*****d that up' , on the other hand, is not a positive remark!

All part of of not shooting yourself in the foot!

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com