Self referencing is a kind of voodoo that humans do to themselves.

There are basically two types of self referencing: negative and positive.

A negative self-referencer looks at other people and tells themselves they are not as good as others.

A positive self-referencer looks at other people, and tells themselves that they ARE as good as others.

A negative self referencer is judging herself as “not as good” and therefore ends up feeling either hopeless (depressed) or frightened (anxious). If you are positively self referencing you will be feeling calm and optimistic.  The voodoo works either way!

If you have either anxiety or depression this means that you are constantly negatively self-referencing in your head. This is a gentle area you can change and begin to nurture, tend and defend yourself.

Why should you bother?

Because learning how to do this is the quickest way to making positive, kind communication with your child second-nature for you.

 

Easy Steps to Powerful Self Referencing:

 

1. Become aware of how you are referencing yourself now:  Self-comparison and judgment plays like back chatter in your head, close to the sub-conscious. It comments on everything you do. You want to become aware of how it is evaluating your efforts and what it is telling you about what you do today. You can check your self-referencing using simplest of tasks, even peeling a potato, because the  back-chatter is always there if you listen close enough.

2. Write Down Some of the Things you Hear Yourself say: This is particularly easy to do when you have been doing a hard task, feel  stressed or that you are not doing something well. Write down the things you hear yourself tell yourself to get yourself to do more, “better” or faster even if it seems okay like, “Hurry up” “Hustle now” or “Be careful.”
3. Evaluate Whether you are a Negative Self-Referencer (anxious). Here is an example of what negative (anxious)self-referencers might hear for potato peeling: “Hurry up, you aren’t doing this fast enough!”, “You missed a patch, pay better attention!”, “Quickly, quickly, you haven’t done enough today. You won’t get the dinner ready in time and the baby will be awake soon.”   

This type of referencing is anything that says you aren’t as fast, efficient or smart as other people and that you need to be harassed.

It is based on a prediction that you are going to fail and the (false) assumption that you aren’t as good as everybody else. If you are a negative self-referencer you may even be telling yourself that you haven’t read this properly!

4.Evaluate Whether you are a Negative Self-Referencer (depressed): If you are depressed you will be hearing something like, “Your meals never taste good, I don’t know why you bother.” “You will have to peel another 500 potatoes before the year is out, this task is endless.” “You are so always so late with your food preparation, you never get organized in time.”

This referencing is anything that says nothing you do is good enough and it is ridiculous that you even try. It is based on the assumption that you are going to fail because you aren’t as good as everybody else.

 

Can you see the similarities in these two types of negative self-referencing? They are both cruel, harsh, uncaring types of  messages and they both predict failure.

 

5. Evaluate Whether you are a Positive Self-Referencer (calm, happy): With potato peeling you will be hearing messages like, “Good job how wonderful you are to peel potatoes for dinner.” “You are a great Mum/Mom and are doing a great job.””Wow! You did that one quickly, you are going to have this done in a jiffy.” “Good work, good for you.”

 

How do these work?

Negative self Referencing acts as a type of Doom saying. Negative self-referencing judges you as inferior and then predicts that BECAUSE OF THAT INFERIORITY, you will fail. It is kind of like carrying an evil witch in your head who constantly casts a hex on whatever you do!

On the other hand, if you are a positive self-referencer you are constantly acting on the prediction you will succeed. THIS is like carrying the blue fairy in your head who gives you a little fairy dust at every turn and 3 wishes if you get stuck!

The expectation of failure is pretty discouraging and if, in your head it appears based on a “fact”, (ie: “you are flawed compared to other humans”), then no amount of effort feels like it can help. The double disability of expecting failure is that it makes ANY accomplishment a hundred times harder.

Everything a negative self-referencer does is completed with the double burden of believing that failure is ahead and no effort can avert it.  This makes every task a misery. Thus two Mothers may be doing exactly the same thing and one will be suffering and using huge energy and the other is breezing through. Same task, different weight.

The one who is suffering is  being fed mental desperation and stress that  make it harder for her to do well. Negative self-chatter works the same way that a heckler does in a crowd. It disrupts concentration, makes it harder to focus and creates a handicap against success. Self-referencing can therefore predict and cause success and disaster. It is something we should choose with care. It is powerful voodoo!

 

So what is Self-Referencing?

Self referencing is really just an audio replay in your head of what other people have told you about yourself and how you compare to others, most particularly what your parents told you. Some people received messages that were a constant stream of evil voodoo and negative predictions: “Stupid!” “Bossy boots” “Lazy” “Can’t do anything right!” “Useless!” “ You will never be anything!”

If YOU are one of those people you need to counter that with some powerful positive voodoo of your own. In the movie “The Help” there is a little girl who is subject to her mother’s dislike and cruelty. The Nanny counters this every day by saying to her, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” You must also counter negative messages in your head every day with the kind truth and also give kind truth to your children.

 

 If you are going to prophesy and predict – at least give yourself a good fortune cookie message!

Even the act of peeling a potato can be a transformational experience for you if you harness it! Anything you can do can be an opportunity to nurture yourself in the ways you wish  you had been nurtured and to create new predictions for yourself.

 

NURTURE MESSAGES: Actively encourage yourself with any task.  Positive self-referencing works no matter how small its task. “You are doing a good job with this.” “Good for you for doing yet another act of love.” “It is a great thing that you are doing this now.” “You are doing a good job as a Mum/Mom.”

 

TEND MESSAGES: Focus on strengthening yourself as you do the task. “You always try so hard, you are a good person.” “Each act of love you do strengthens you, strengthens your child and strengthens this home.” “Well done, you don’t have to be perfect, you just need to do your next step.”

 

DEFEND: Learn to defend yourself from being under attack when you are trying to learn something new. Try saying NO! out loud if you notice negative self-referencing chatter in your head.   Some people just say, “SHUT UP!” in their heads and stronger language is good if they are comfortable with it!  “That isn’t true, I am just as good as anyone else!”

We are all learning skills on an ongoing basis and if you were given less than others you will have more to learn. There is no shame in this. The affirmation, “I have enough, I do enough, I am enough” is a very important one for mothers, especially new mothers.

If harnessed in this way ANY mothering task that you do can be used to strengthen you inside. This will help you feel better about everything you do as a mother and will help you be able to give your children positive references. Imagine that you have a favourite grandmother as your Daily Supervisor and that she walks around behind you saying, “Arent’ you wonderful. You are doing a great job.” If you can’t imagine that because you never had a favourite grandma then try a Fairy Godmother.

What matters is that you put a new voice in your head. This is so important, not just for you but for your child. Developing the habit of having a positive evaluator in your head who supports and strengthens your learning  is the quickest way to make kindness come naturally when you interact with your child.

 

Absolute Power:

Once we are adults self-referencing is something we do BY ourselves, TO ourselves within our own heads, hearts and minds.

With practice it can therefore become something we fully control.

In the world of mothering there are many areas where we do not have any control, will the baby sleep all night? will my two year old get the stomach bug? at what age will my baby cut teeth? when will they begin to crawl? Walk?

You DEFINITELY want to control domains where you can have almost almost 100% influence! Self referencing is one domain where you can develop almost absolute power with time and practice. Begin with small encouraging messages, “I am glad you are trying.” “Its okay that you can’t do this very well yet” and gradually let this skill grow.

Another helpful quote from the movie The Help is : “Ask yourself every day; Am I going to believe all the bad things them fools say about me today?”  While you can’t go back in time and stop cruel things being said you CAN make sure you don’t replay the bad messages in your head TODAY.

Build a new, more nurturing voice to replace harmful messages. Seize this power! It is your own.

Photos:  © Depositphotos.com/Voodoo Belchonock, Rebel bloodua;Hiding Child photshkolnik; Red haired girl matusciak. Other images from imagebase.