Be Careful What You Think - Your Thoughts Make Your Reality
Published April 18th, 2023 by Sabah V.
It’s normal to think negatively of ourselves from time to time, we all do it more than we think. But, we have to be more mindful of what we think of ourselves because you may bring it to fruition.
How It Starts
I have always been a social person. I connect well with others and have no problem making new friends. But, I went through a period of time where everything flipped to the opposite side of the spectrum because of these negative beliefs I kept making up about myself.
When college ended, a lot of my friends moved into different areas while I decided to live at home to save some money for a year. I didn’t think much of it, but when I kept seeing a good amount of my friends all together and hanging out, I couldn’t help but think some negative thoughts from time to time.
At first I would wonder why I wasn’t included sometimes, and then I started to subconsciously tell myself that it’s because my friends had qualities that I lacked. I basically started feeding myself lies that I suck at making friends, and that I am an expendable person, and most importantly: that no one wanted me around anyway.
How It Comes Into Fruition
It only took a couple months of me having these thoughts for everything to change. Even when my friends invited me out, I would decline a lot of the times and would still fully believe those negative things about myself. I would start feeding myself even more lies like, “They’re only inviting you around this time because they have no one else around this weekend.” and all sorts of nonsense like that. I legitimately began to isolate myself. I stopped spending time with friends and focused on learning to be alone.
It got even worse. Every time somebody would start a conversation with me at the gym, I began to feel incredibly anxious. Here I was: someone who had no trouble making friends and never had a hard time holding a conversation to someone who couldn’t even speak to anyone for a minute without feeling anxious about if I was holding too much eye contact, if I’m coming off weird, if my arms are in a weird position, etc.
Even when I would see my friends, I became incredibly anxious and awkward when I spoke to them. Keep in mind I had lived with some of these people for a couple years and we used to be incredibly close.
All of this happened because of the negative thoughts and lies I told myself about myself. And the worst part is, it keeps feeding itself like a negative loop.
How To Overcome This
There isn’t really any benefit to having these thoughts. If you genuinely screwed up, sure it’s good to reflect. But, if you are worrying about how you come off and tell yourself that you’re awkward and not a social person, you will quite literally become that.
Spend some time doing mindful exercises such as meditation. One thing that really changed this for me was writing out all of my good qualities and repeating it to myself almost everyday.
You are more special than you think. Don’t ever dull your light.