The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Written by Celeste Osborne, LPC-S

“I’m awful. I’m the worst. No one likes me.”

The inner dialogue of your brain is on repeat.

To the world, to your family, to your coworkers, to your friends, you probably look like you are full of confidence, that you have everything together. Your friends and family love you, they think you are amazing. They look up to you and even want to be you at times. They admire many things about you. 

But on the inside you struggle, you question every single thing you do. You worry about what other people are thinking about you. You feel like you are constantly failing. You believe there is nothing good about you. You believe people think you are failing. And when they compliment you or say something kind about you, you don’t believe them. You point out how wrong they are, or at least you come up with 10 reasons why they don’t know what they are talking about.

Why is what people see and what you feel so different? 

How did you get to this point where you feel so low and can’t see anything good about yourself? 

When we can’t see any thing good about ourselves, we feel like others can’t see it either. We feel as though other people are crazy for thinking we have done something good, or we have a good quality because we can’t see that good quality in us. And since we can’t see the good quality, then they must be wrong. There is no way they are right if we can’t see the good thing we have or do. 

Could it be that we are wrong?

Could it be that the thoughts we think about ourselves are actually what is wrong? That maybe the things we tell ourselves are actually lies? 

That maybe we are amazing, and smart, and fun, and people enjoy us and they want to be around us? 

It kinda feels crazy to think that other people actually like us and care about us, right? It’s crazy to think that we have good qualities and are liked by others. 

Why is it so hard to believe this about ourselves? 

Is it because you don’t actually like yourself? You can’t find anything good about yourself, so there is no way that others can find anything good? 

How about we start liking ourselves. 

How do you do that, you ask?

Well, the negative thought and beliefs you have about yourself didn’t start overnight did they? Did you go to sleep one night, confident, happy with who you are and then wake up the next day and decide, I don’t like myself, I am awful and no one likes me, and then believe it? 

No. You didn’t. It was a gradual change in your thought processes. It started small, little negative thoughts here and there. Where after a while, you started to believe all of these negative thoughts you have been telling yourself. 

So, in order to change this and start liking yourself, start believing in yourself again. You have to change the thoughts. You have to take the negative thought you have and change it, make it a positive thought. 

One way to do this, is every single day, find one good thing about yourself, one thing that you like. If you can find one thing every day that you like about yourself, and you point it out every day, you will start to see how amazing you are, you will start to believe it.

Just like the gradual change in believing the worst, it will be a gradual change in believing the best. It won’t be overnight, but you can change the way you think about yourself. You can discover how awesome you are and start to believe in yourself again. 

So, every single day, point out one think you like about yourself.