Overcoming Negative Self-Talk
I consider my main job as a life coach to help people take bold and brave actions they've never taken before.
That's pretty brave of me as a coach to challenge myself to help people with these kinds of things given that they've potentially been stuck on for months, years, or even a lifetime. Can you imagine?
As human beings, we're very complex and nuanced creatures. We have minds that perform mental gymnastics on us in order to avoid harm and humiliation.
Who am I to dare challenge someone in that way?
Well, hello there. I'm Leigh Cambre. I'm a Certified Life Coach and I not only have confidence that I can help you change, but I have seen first-hand the results and impact of overcoming your energy blocks. It’s incredible.
There are various energy blocks we all face, but, for this article, I want to talk about the most personal, most persuasive, and most powerful energy block of all. It's what I call
THE GREMLIN
So what is the gremlin you may ask?
The gremlin is that voice inside of you that says you're not good enough in every possible way imaginable. It is not only manipulative and conniving in its messaging, but also slyly disguises itself within other messages. For example, it may disguise itself as the message of ‘you hate the dating process’ when really, the message is that ‘You’re not worthy of being loved’. Yuck. Also, if it feels believable, you may not even have clocked it.
Consistently, all the gremlin does is sow internal doubt, fuel self-hatred, and do whatever it can to hold you back. It makes all the effort it can to extinguish your light. As Rick Carson describes in his book, Taming Your Gremlin:
Your gremlin is not your negative thoughts - it is the source of them. It is not your less-than-positive past experiences - it uses them. It is not your fears - it taunts you with them by creating the horror movie about your future that you sometimes watch.
In total, your gremlin is a stupid SOB. It is cunning AF. It disguises itself as a form of protection but, it has more sinister goals. As long as you're miserable, it has done its job.
In short, the gremlin is not your friend.
What does the gremlin say?
For every person, this is a unique answer. And it is worth discovering. Consistently, the gremlin speaks in an incredibly personal way, starting most insults with “you”. They also tend to be versions of the phrase: “You are not good enough.”
Here are some examples:
You're not worthy of anyone's attention.
You're fat and ugly.
You're never going to amount to anything.
You're stupid and everyone knows it.
You're going to be homeless any moment now.
Evil, right? That’s the gremlin for you.
Any of these strike a chord within you? If so, you're on the right track to labeling your own. Trust me, when working on eliminating the gremlin’s voice, you'll know when you've uncovered it when you feel that inner pang inside of you.
If you're tearing up 😢, that's it.
Why should I tackle the gremlin?
As you travel down the road of self-mastery, there's always going to be challenges and opportunities that show up. In those times when you find yourself stopping, freezing, or taking a turn you wish you hadn’t, guess what? The source of those pauses are often rooted in your irritating gremlin. Ugggggh! Life is precious! Why let something so dumb (and so easily fixable) get in the way?
This is why it is crucial to identify and overcome the gremlin. I find that most of my clients have gremlin issues and benefit from us tackling it together. Working through this discomfort allows for huge growth and unexpected new confidence and achievements. Seems magical, right? Well, I've learned to expect that the journey of self-mastery is highly rewarding and impactful in ways you would never initially imagine.
The question really is, are you worth investing in yourself in this way?
Truly, I'm asking you right now. Are you worth that investment?
I'm pausing here so that you will also pause and just ponder that question for 5 seconds.
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So what’s the answer for you? Are you worth that investment? What came up for you? Did you hear any negative voices saying you’re not worth it? Voices that said you couldn't afford it? Voices that said you're not worth the time? Voices that said that there are other things that are more important at this time?
Well, well, well. Sounds like we're already starting to identify that gremlin voice, aren't we? 😉
Overcoming the gremlin
I personally believe that facing the negativity the gremlin brings head on is worth the effort tenfold because you become a superhero on the other side. There are many ways to do this work, but because it is so personal, so deep, and so transformational, I don't recommend doing it without assistance. That said, I never want to leave anyone hanging, so if you would like to dive deep on your gremlin, please reach out to me, comment below, or read the book on the topic. The gremlin voice might be loud, but it doesn't have to overrun your life.
How willing are you to overcome your gremlin?
