It all started out pleasant enough.
My sister called to ask if my family would like to go on a bike ride with her and her husband on The American Tobacco Trail. I thought, it’s a beautiful Sunday morning…why not?
BTW – if you’re not from around here, The American Tobacco Trail is an old railroad track that has been converted to a trail for cyclists, walkers, joggers and horses.
While my family rides bikes almost on a weekly basis around our neighborhood, we quickly realized that the kids bicycles are quite a bit larger than the last time we tried to get them on our bike rack. After getting mine, my husband’s, and our older son’s bicycles on the rack, we shoved our younger son’s into the back seat. This, of course, left no more room for their feet, and they rode to our destination in quasi yoga positions. I wish I had taken a picture of that…another time.
We get to our destination, unload, my sister and her husband greet us and we’re on our way.
My older son, is, well, let’s say, he’s not the fastest kid on a bike.
Honestly, this isn’t because he isn’t capable, it’s because he’s convinced himself that he isn’t. Or as my great-grandmother used to say, “It’s all in his head.” So, you may be asking yourself, “How do you know it’s negative self talk and not that he’s simply not as physically capable as other kids?”
That’s a great question and one that should be asked. Here’s the thing. Steven, my older son, has the wonderful capability and talent for speaking what he’s thinking. Often. (I think it might be a teenage thing.) Before we even begin the ride, Steven says, “I’m not looking forward to this, it’s going to be hard and I’m going to be the slowest one here.”
Great. Negative self talk is in full force. This bike ride is never going to end. (Yes, now my negative self talk has kicked in – hence the title of this blog entry.)
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Q: How often does our own negative self talk have an affect on those around us?
A: All the time.
Even if we don’t let the negative self talk to come out of our lips for other ears to hear, it has an affect on our body language, demeanor, our posture and the energy that we give out to the people around us. It affects everyone in our vicinity whether we want it to or not.
The most interesting thing about negative self talk is that it is simply an idea that we have in our heads. We can choose to change it.
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As the ride continued, there were several times that I was having a difficult time keeping up with Steven, though his personal perception was that he was still going slow because during his slow start, almost everyone else in our group had pulled away. When I told him that he was doing great, he nodded and pedaled even faster. His negative self talk had been overwhelmed by the introduction of the positive.
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The only way the negative self talk will go away is if we replace it with something positive. We need to surround ourselves with positive people, images, words, music, etc. Surrounding yourself with the positive will ultimately begin to seep into your mind and help you to change the thoughts that you tell yourself. Personally, this is one of the reasons I don’t watch the news anymore…too depressing and negative.
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Steven went on to finish the ride and did quite well. We’re still working on helping him with his negative self talk. How is it going for you?
Let go and be!
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