If you read any type of training manual, exercise book, inevitably in the first five chapters there will be one on mental Negative Talk – and how not to do it.
I’d flip through the chapter briefly, nod my head and go on with the rest. It wasn’t that I didn’t think fighting against negative talk was incorrect. I knew that in survival will power is the largest percentage. But I just never thought it would be that relevant to me. After all, when was I going to become an athlete long enough to worry about negative talk? I was trying to finally get one or two moves into my daily routine.
Well, funny thing that I found out about negative talk is that it is quite clever about hiding right there in the open. Kind of like sin come to think of it…
Because thinking that I’ll never do anything that will need me to work on negative talk is a kind of negative talk in itself, isn’t it? Once Negative Talk has become ingrained it can be quite difficult to recognize it for what it was. After the many years of “not needing it”, just last month was when I really got a good look at negative talk. It was when I was browsing and stumbled onto an activity I would love to do and it would work well towards my goals.
And yet what was my first reaction to it?
“Aw, I’ll never be doing this.”
Thankfully I had just read through a book on Running which, unsurprising, had the chapter on Negative Talk. So once the thought went through my head, for once I stopped and asked myself: “What did I just say?”
It made me stop and really think. Was the activity, traveling to different states or training to run 3 miles, an evil? No, there was nothing wrong with traveling in itself, nothing is wrong about traveling to different states and enjoying the beauty of a world made by the Lord. And getting fit enough to run 3 miles isn’t selfish.
Was doing either of these sinful? No, if I went traveling I would make sure I wasn’t leaving my family to fend for themselves. No, I wouldn’t be leaving my family to fend for themselves. In fact, I would like to learn a few things before traveling and learning good things was never wrong.
So what if I need to learn some skills and learn how to be prepared with the proper materials, and all that involves practical things like time and money. But it struck me that I was right away disarming myself, in a way, from even attempting it by bringing these things up as obstacles and not challenges.
This here was Negative Talk.
After picking my jaw off the floor (after all, I had believed that while fighting against Negative Talk was a good thing, that I would never really need it) it made me mentally straighten up and take notice.
It also made me decide that if I again have this “can’t do it” reaction I need to challenge myself with the question “why not?”
With the question “why not” I can mentally pick apart the idea and what really is stopping me. It helps to bring up other questions like, do I really want to do this or am I being impulsive? If I’m not, with the question “why” I can try and figure out what exactly is stopping me and a direction to take to overcome them.
Of course, recognizing Negative Talk doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to defeat or wrestle with any of the fears. Like, if I don’t try I’ll never know if I could actually do it.
But then what if I do try and fail, won’t I just be proving myself right that I couldn’t do it in the first place?
Its a whole learning process. And I’m pretty sure there’s lessons in all this for my Christian walk as well.
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