What I would work with every woman on

If I could work with every woman on the planet to support her health and wellbeing, it wouldn’t be her diet.

It wouldn’t be her exercise.

It wouldn’t be empowering her to go out there and chase her dreams and goals.

It wouldn’t be a five-step morning routine.

The one thing I would spend my time with her on is how she speaks to herself and about herself.

I have been working one-on-one with women in my coaching practice for ten years, and so much of the work I have done comes back to this, time and time again.

It’s the comments she makes about herself.

I sometimes think of words as little spells. We say them over and over, often without even noticing, and eventually they can start to feel like truth.

“I always do this.”

“Oh, I’m such a silly goose.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“Of course this would happen to me.”

“Just my luck.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that.”

“I couldn’t wear that.”

“I could never be that.”

“I should have known better.”

“Oh, here we go again, things never work out for me.”

The list honestly goes on and on.

We might say these things casually, jokingly, without giving them much thought. But imagine hearing someone else speak to your daughter, your best friend or a woman you loved that way. You probably wouldn’t be okay with that.

And then there are the internal comments.

They can be brutal.

The things she says to herself that nobody else hears.

These take a little more care, love and attention to listen to, understand, reframe and rewrite.

And this isn’t about becoming a “you go girl!” version of yourself and joining the fierce girl brigade.

It’s much gentler than that.

It’s a slow return to understanding where some of this dialogue came from.

Because much of what we say to ourselves was learned.

Sometimes it came from things people said to us.

Sometimes they were comments that were never intended to create the picture we eventually formed of ourselves.

I think about my grandad.

We lived in a sunny, dry town and he lived somewhere much wetter, where the soil was often boggy.

We used to park our cars at home on the grass when there wasn’t enough room in the driveway.

I can’t remember where I was going, but I was on my own, driving a car very proudly. I think I had only just got my licence.

I pulled up in my beautiful second-hand car and parked it on his driveway, but slightly on his lawn.

He was not impressed with my parking.

“Oh, you stupid girl.”

It was probably a very typical comment from an elderly man in the 1990s.

But I remember it.

And for years afterwards, that little sentence lived somewhere inside me.

Am I a stupid girl?

Obviously, I am not.

I was a young woman who was excited about her new car, proud to be driving on her own, and completely unaware of how hard my granddad had to work to keep his grass intact.

I wish he had been more excited to see me and my car.

That’s the thing about the words we hear.

Sometimes the person who said them has completely forgotten them.

But we haven’t.

You can’t change your internal and external dialogue overnight.

But you can start to notice it.

And slowly, you can start to change it.

Catch yourself when you are about to say something derogatory about yourself—even if you are saying it as a joke.

And try something kinder.

Instead of:

“This doesn’t fit me. Everything always looks terrible on me.”

Try:

“This doesn’t suit my body shape. I’ll find something that does.”

You don’t have to convince yourself that you are amazing.

You don’t have to stand in front of the mirror and declare that you love everything about yourself.

Just start speaking to yourself with a little more kindness.

Because something changes when you stop constantly putting yourself down.

You start to feel safer with yourself.

You start to want to take care of yourself.

You become interested in nourishing yourself rather than punishing yourself.

And perhaps most importantly, you begin to hear your true self again.

The woman underneath all those old comments, expectations and beliefs.

The one who was never stupid.

The one who was never too much.

The one who was never not enough.

She was there all along.

Sometimes she just needs the bully inside to get a little quieter so you can hear her.