Why?
Because your brain is listening.
It’s easy to dismiss the words we say to ourselves. Sometimes we don’t even notice them.
How many times have you caught yourself thinking…
“I’m stupid.”
“I’m ridiculous.”
“I’m so silly.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
But are you really?
No… you’re not.
Would you accept someone else speaking to you like that every single day?
I know I wouldn’t.
So why did I spend so many years talking to myself that way?
I know from my own experience, and from talking to others, that we often don’t even realise how unkind we are to ourselves. Those thoughts become so familiar that they almost fade into the background and become an automatic reaction because we’ve repeated them to ourselves for so long.
Our brains learn through repetition. The thoughts we repeatedly think and the words we repeatedly say to ourselves become more familiar simply because our brain hears them over and over again.
I used to do it all the time.
Thankfully, not anymore. Well… I still have the occasional slip-up because I’m human after all. But I know now that I’m most definitely not stupid.
The problem is, if you continually speak to yourself in a critical or unkind way, your brain begins to believe it.
Over time, those words can quietly chip away at your confidence, your self-belief and the way you see yourself.
It reminds me of a metaphor that has always stuck with me…
The Poisonous Parrot
Imagine someone gives you a parrot.
Now, this isn’t an ordinary parrot.
It’s been specially trained to criticise everything you do.
Remember, it’s just a parrot. It doesn’t have wisdom, insight or understanding. It’s simply repeating what it’s been taught.
But this particular parrot is poisonous.
It sits on your shoulder all day, commenting on everything.
You’re five minutes late for work because your bus got stuck in traffic.
Immediately the parrot starts…
“There you go again. Late. You can never get anywhere on time, can you? If only you’d got the earlier bus. Honestly, you’re useless. Pathetic. What a waste of space.”
Day after day…
Comment after comment…
Criticism after criticism.
How long do you think you’d put up with that before covering the cage with a towel… or getting rid of the parrot altogether?
Probably not very long.
Yet many of us allow our own inner critic to speak to us like this for years… sometimes decades.
We hear those thoughts.
We believe them.
And naturally, they affect how we feel about ourselves.
They influence our confidence, our relationships, the choices we make and the way we live our lives.
The good news?
We don’t have to argue with the parrot.
We don’t have to prove it wrong.
We simply have to notice it.
“Ah… there’s that parrot again.”
“I don’t have to listen to it. It’s just a parrot.”
Then gently bring your attention back to something else.
Of course, the parrot won’t disappear overnight.
It’s persistent.
But every time you choose not to engage with it, you’re teaching your brain something new.
Over time, it becomes quieter.
This metaphor was adapted from The Malevolent Parrot by Kristina Ivings and Carol Vivyan (2010).
What Changed for Me
I used to call myself stupid because I couldn’t stop pulling. I desperately wanted to “look better” and “feel better”, and I believed the only way I could truly be happy was if I stopped pulling out my hair.
Now I don’t.
Instead, I recognise that I have a behaviour that I’ve lived with for many years.
Some days I might pull one hair.
Other days it might be a few more.
But that doesn’t make me stupid.
It doesn’t make me weak.
It makes me human.
I still pulled.
But instead of being sucked into that deep, dark hole of despair and sadness that I used to disappear into for months at a time, something slowly began to change.
Months became weeks.
Weeks became days.
Nowadays, maybe one day or two.
But actually, more often than not, if I’m really kind to myself, it might only last a few hours, or even less.
Now, that… that makes a difference to my life.
It changes my relationship with myself.
It changes how I interact with my family and friends.
It doesn’t mean I never have difficult days.
It means I don’t stay there for as long.
And to me, that’s real progress.
So Where Do We Start?
It takes time.
It takes practice.
And I don’t think it starts with trying to stop every negative thought.
For me, it simply started with noticing them.
And guess what? I used to think I was a positive person! Mainly because that was how I liked to see myself — and how I wanted others to see me.
But then I realised something… although my outer talk was positive, my inner talk was often the complete opposite.
After reading this, I wonder if you’ll begin catching some of those little comments that have quietly slipped under the radar for years.
When you do…
Pause for a moment.
Take a breath.
And ask yourself,
“Would I say this to someone I love?”
If the answer is no…
Maybe there’s another way you could speak to yourself instead.
Not perfectly.
Just a little more kindly.
Because every small shift matters.
I still have days where my negative inner voice pops up and gives me its opinion.
But now I notice it much sooner – and sometimes l am just amazed at how creatively negative it can be!
Then I remind myself…
“Ah… there’s that parrot again.”
I carry on with my day.
For me, learning to speak to myself with a little more kindness hasn’t just changed how I feel after I’ve pulled.
It’s changed how I feel about me.
And if there’s one thing I’d love you to take away from this blog, it’s this…
Be kind to yourself.
Your brain really is listening.
Claire 💛