Shh'ing your negative self talker

There is a voice that lives within my head and she is one mean bitch. She is my negative self talker. She talks to me in a completely imagined way and she never has a single nice thing to say to me. Never. I used to think that this voice could be attributed to a variety of people - it was every negative thing people said to me on rotate....this is the kind of thing that therapists L-O-V-E to hear about. Because they want you to identify WHO is saying WHAT and WHY.

Let's call her Netty. Netty would say things like: you're fat, you're not working hard enough, you could be doing SO much more, you don't deserve a nap - people will pass you, you should be saving more, you shouldn't eat that, you should work out, you should make a plan, you should be accomplishing something, you shouldn't play on the computer, you should comment more, you should write notes to people, you should. Netty is one big "shoulder" she can should you from one side of sane to the other in about five minutes. I would say that out of all the things my Netty said to me I've only heard one or two of those things ever spoken aloud to me by another person....so why was I being so mean to me?

I'm not sure if it's because I am currently gigantic and the only thing on my mind is "When are you coming out?" but Netty has been on vaca. I was driving home from the grocery store today and I was thinking to myself that there was someone that I hadn't heard from so I go through the list of people I converse with and I had in fact talked to all of those people...and then it occurred to me. It was Netty. I had not been hearing her - not listening - she was silenced and it didn't take five years of therapy either. When I realized that she was no longer audible I realized what a freeing silence this was - when was the last time I hadn't heard Netty? And I honestly could not remember. How sad. No wonder I was up at 5am to get a jump on the day, no wonder I use lists to qualify the accomplishment of the day. No freaking wonder.

So my friends (and yeah, I'm not qualifiying you as my blog friends or my internet friends because really - you're just friends to me now and I'm so glad I have you) I'm wondering if this makes me crazy. Do you have a Netty? Have you silenced your negative self talker? or have you never had one to silence? Is there a loop of negative self talk playing in your head today?