Repeat after me. I am not my past mistakes. I am worthy of change. I deserve to change and to move forward. I can change. I will change. I deserve to be happy and at peace with myself. I deserve to love myself. Repeat as many times as necessary.
If you want to move forward in your life, you cannot allow your past mistakes to prevent you from moving forward. Because they will. They will tie you down and eat you from the inside out. Time and time again, I have seen individuals engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, because they believe that they do not deserve to move forward, they do not deserve to change for the better, they do not deserve to be happy, because of the mistakes they have made in the past.
The person you were when you made those mistakes is not the person that is reading this today. Even if the mistake you made happened yesterday, or even an hour ago. We all have the ability to tell ourselves that we are not going to be that person any longer, and we can change.
Sometimes people believe that they do not deserve to change, not because of the mistakes they have made, but because someone told them that they were bad and it became internalized. When we internalize something, it becomes a part of who we are, a part of our identity. Growing up, my family was poor and domestic abuse was the norm. When I was 7 or 8 years old, my mother told me to never rely on anyone for anything. To make my own way so I would never have to depend on anyone.
Of course my mother said that with the best intentions. She didn’t want me to end up in a position like her, where she did not have choices. My mother couldn’t leave the situation she was in. She had 3 children, no job, and no family in the state. She was stuck. She wanted more for me than that. How my 7 or 8-year-old self interpreted it, however, was that people cannot be trusted, and you can only trust yourself. I internalized that.
I didn’t have many close friends for a long time because of that. I did not cry in front of others; I did not allow myself to be vulnerable with others. I did not ask others for help. I did things my way, because I could not trust the ways of others. The abuse I endured during my childhood, also had me believing that I was worthless, that I would never amount to anything, that I was stupid, a loser, etc. The list goes on.
Anytime I started to grow close to someone, I would sabotage it. Because I believed that I did not deserve to be treated kindly. I believed that I was a bad person. I destroyed relationships with others and this fed into the belief that I was a bad person. I was a bad person, who did not deserve to have good relationships because of the bad things I did to my relationships. This came from internalizing the words my mother told me, and also stemmed from the abuse I endure as a child.
So how does one move forward from this type of cycle? If left alone, this cycle leads to a very lonely life. In my experience, if you want to change this cycle, you need to change the way you think. You have to tell yourself that you don’t want to be that person anymore. You have to actively work to correct your negative thoughts that tell you otherwise; you have to go against your natural instincts to not engage in the behaviors you typically would engage. Typically, we want to sabotage because we begin to feel uncomfortable. We feel uncomfortable because the way we are behaving, or the things that are being said to us, are the opposite of everything we have experienced and have been told thus far.
I find that positive self-talk is the best way to start healing from this. Changing negative self-talk and sabotaging behaviors is a process, so we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves and take on too much, too soon; that is a fast way to sabotaging. I challenge my clients by encouraging them to give themselves positive self-affirmations. Example: Negative thought-I am stupid at Math. Correction-I am intelligent and am learning how to do Math in a new way.
Next I encourage my clients to practice accepting the kind things people say about them and then flip the statement into a self-affirmation. Example: You did a good job on that project. I-Statement-I did a good job on that project. When my clients find themselves not believing what someone has said about them, I ask them ‘why?’. Has this individual given them a reason not to believe what was said? Why would they lie? Why would they say something, at random, if it were not true? You don’t get to decide the good things that others are able to see in you, just because you are not able to see them yet.
You may have heard that when we hear something negative about ourselved enough times, we begin to believe it. The same thing goes for the positive. If you or others tell yourself something positive enough times, you will begin to believe it to be true. When I first began my career, I was filled with self-doubts. I did not think that I was capable of helping others, and did not think that I was able to convey what I wanted to say in a way that would be understood by my clients. My supervisor and clinical director gave me words of encouragement and I would always follow up with my doubts, despite the kind words they said to me about my capabilities. Finally, my supervisor asked me if I thought that my supervisor and clinical directors were liars. I was shocked. Of course I didn’t think they were liars. She asked me then why I didn’t believe them when they told me I was capable. I was unable to give her an answer. It was a big eye opener for me and it showed me just how powerful negative thinking can be.
You have the power and ability to stop this cycle. You are not your past mistakes. You are not a bad person. You are worthy of change. You deserve to change. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be at peace. You can change. You will change. You will become the person you want to be. Changing a negative mindset is not something that happens overnight. It is okay if you don’t achieve this immediately. This isn’t about doing an exercise correctly. It is about learning to love yourself. Learning to love yourself is not easy; so go easy on yourself, and be kind to yourself. I wish you well on this journey of self-love.
Exercise: Give yourself a positive affirmation (something you like about yourself) everytime you see your reflection in the bathroom mirror. It should not be a physical characteristic. It should be something that you like about the person you are.
Exercise: Keep a journal and write down any negative thoughts that you have about yourself, or anything negative anyone says to you about you, throughout the day. At the end of the day, go back and correct all the negative thoughts and replace with them with positive I-Statements.
Recovery Focus 