I was playing squash on Monday morning with a young lawyer. I’d beaten him a few points in a row and he literally stopped and yelled, “you’re so brilliant. I SUCK!”
My squash game has gotten pretty killer lately, but still, I was struck. I told him “mate, you’re really talking yourself down.” I told him he’d already lost if he was going to think of himself in those terms, and suggested he start telling himself, “you’re awesome,” even if he kept on losing the points.
Then he beat me. I was delighted. And since I’m obviously so good at getting through to people on this score…
The next day I led a free yoga class on talking yourself up…
It’s probably hard to believe from how confident I seem, and how wonderful I am, in general. (You can tell I took my own class, right?).
But the truth is, we all talk ourselves down, constantly. There are ways to notice it. And there are ways to challenge it. Here:
But perhaps one of the best ways to challenge some of that thinking is to pay yourself some good, positive attention. And you know one of the best ways of doing that?
Take a free yoga class with Yoga Matt. That’s how.
Seriously, you’re awesome and let’s go find that negative self talk right now and challenge it to a fight…a totally nonviolent ahimsa-style fight in which we tell it, “you know what really sucks? YOU suck…” And then we all win. And everything is fantastic the end.
Matt
🙏
P.S. This has been my spot for recipes of the week. But today, given my evident self-confidence, I’m going to break with my own conventions and recommend a book. I just finished Olivia Laing’s Funny Weather: Art In An Emergency” and the whole thing is inspiring. But her three-page love letter to Freddie Mercury on page 308 made me remember why art is so fantastic, and why often, even those of us in the most stressful situations in life can find surprising strength in ourselves, and inspire others with it. So my recipe for the week is to read the book and cook up…some plans. And so it is indeed a recipe of a kind, you see.
