The Toughest Battle See this is what I feel about self-talk. It has to be sacred. It has to be kept

The Toughest Battle See this is what I feel about self-talk. It has to be sacred. It has to be kept safe. And we have to find ways to keep it so; for ourselves, our people, and our communities.Last evening, a random query took me to stuff I had written years ago. Apart from all the cringing I did (because that’s how I usually react to my younger writing), I was also taken by the readiness with which my younger self had blamed herself. For every friend who did not stand up for me, for every loved one who knowingly or unknowingly ill-treated, for every adult who abused and misused their power, and for everyone else who were just plain assholes, I had done a fabulous job of internalising their shit and making myself responsible. I had written pages and pages of self-talk that had wondered if I ‘evoked’ and ‘provoked’ and ‘instigated’ people’s bad behaviour towards me, including of those who were/are close. Regardless of what they did and how they behaved, no matter how psychologically ruinous it was, my mind had always come around to asking, “Did I make them do it?”. And I did this over and over again, not once doubting the utility of this never-ending self-accusatory model.If I had a friend who wrote such stuff, I would not stop for even one second, before hugging them hard, and telling them how incredibly precious they really are. I would have sat and listed down every single thing that was awesome about them. I would have done everything in my power to ensure they knew it all and believed in it. And yet, when it came to me, I was (and probably is) my worst critic. Don’t get me wrong though; this wasn’t all my doing. I was not born with a negative self-talk chromosome. It happened to me. Just like it happens to all of us who come from disadvantaged contexts. And by disadvantaged, I specifically mean caste, class, and religion. Obviously, being from a particular region and looking a certain way leads to more complexity, and the lack of counter-mechanisms.Now this could be one of our toughest battles, since this is exactly what the oppressor wants. They want us to believe shit about ourselves. And everyone, every single one of them, who mistreated, abused, and hurt us, continue to live in their cocoons. They are completely oblivious and unapologetic to the violence and trauma they caused (and continue to) in our lives, with no remorse whatsoever. It is us who have spent years and years of internalising all of their bullshit, their inability to stand up for themselves, their refusal to come to terms with their privilege, and their cowardice in truly loving us the way we deserve to be. It is us who have pruned and adapted and changed ourselves to fit their expectations, and standards of what’s acceptable and what’s not. It is us who have believed, albeit unwillingly, their lies about how intimidating and negative we are. It is us who have laid ourselves bare, hoping in vain they’d empathise with us.Perhaps it is time we stopped engaging with their insidious-selves. Perhaps we can tell them to take their sorry asses or self-hate elsewhere. By: @mala_rasculat -- source link

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