Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 648 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I’m Heidi, I’m so happy you’re here. If you’re new, be sure to subscribe or follow the show wherever you are seeing it because I publish twice a week and I know life happens and podcasts fade if we aren’t notified, happens to me too but I publish twice a week and they are around 10 minutes each so it’s a really easy listen and a really great way to keep our head in the game. We often have a monologue running in our head that if we stopped and noticed at times, we would be horrified by what we are thinking about ourselves and sometimes what we are thinking about other people too so being aware puts you back in control of those mood swings you didn’t think you had anything to do with but turns out you do. So that’s what’s on my mind this week…that monologue in our head and how much it affects our life, how much it matters to our day to day happiness.
So I have a question…
Do you ever think about how you talk to yourself?
Do you find yourself saying things like I’m so tired of this. I can’t handle this. I’m not good enough. I’m fat. I’m a wreck…..
Do those words sound familiar or maybe something similar? They used to live in my head rent-free.
There have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve caught myself thinking, “I can’t handle this.” And the old version of me? She didn’t just think it—she marinated in it. I’d stress myself into a full-blown knot in my stomach, feeling sick before anything even went wrong. Because here’s the sneaky part: most of the time the disaster wasn’t what was happening right in front of me. It was the horror movie I was directing in my own head about what might happen next.
I remember years ago my dad and I were building new homes together. We had the best time—planning together, laughing, creating the best floor plans. With building though there came financing….of which neither my dad nor I loved. We loved the operations and the people part….But the money side? That was a whole different beast. One mistake and it could cost us thousands. I was younger, way less in control of my thoughts, and somehow I’d ended up handling most of the finances even though numbers have never been my love language. So my dad and I had just closed on our first custom home (we’d only done spec homes before that), and we were on cloud nine. Money in the bank, happy clients, the whole success story.
Then, a couple months later, my phone rings. It’s the homeowner. There’s a $10,000 bill that supposedly hasn’t been paid and we need to cover it. Ten grand. Back then that felt like the end of the world to me.
My brain didn’t even wait for the details. It went straight to panic mode: “This is all my fault. How did I screw this up? I should never be touching the books. I can’t handle this. I’m not built for this. We are never building another house again.” I was already writing the obituary for our whole business before I even knew what the bill was actually for. Dramatic? Extremely. Accurate? Not even close.
Turns out the company had made a mistake on their end. It wasn’t our bill at all. All that freak-out, all that self-beating, and I hadn’t done a single thing wrong. I had just been really, really mean to myself for no reason.
Looking back now, that moment is such a perfect little snapshot of how rough I used to be with myself. I didn’t give myself two seconds to breathe or get the facts. I just went right to the worst version of the story—and the worst version of me. And the craziest part? It felt normal because I had lived there for so long. I thought that was just me “being realistic” about my shortcomings.
But here’s what I’ve learned since then: the way we speak to ourselves isn’t just background noise. It’s the script we’re living by. It decides how we feel, how we show up, and honestly, what we think we’re even capable of.
I let that voice run the show for way too many years. It sounded so logical—“I’m just being honest with myself.” But it wasn’t honest. It was mean. And it kept me playing small. Every time I told myself I couldn’t handle something, my body believed it. I would have these racing thoughts and that sick feeling that made me want to hide under the covers.
But as I grew and I got really curious about why we do the things we do, I started studying Tony Robbins content and went through Brooke Castillos life coaching school and so much of what they teach is how our thoughts affect us. And so I began to notice the thoughts that were always there but were so subtle. Not in some forced, “think only happy thoughts” way—because that never worked for me either. Just noticing. I’d catch myself spiraling and I’d literally ask out loud, “Heidi, would you ever say this to your best friend?” The answer was always a hard no. I would never talk to someone I love like that. So why was I doing it to myself?
That one question started to change everything. Because the truth is, you’re with yourself twenty-four hours a day. That voice is the one constant companion you can’t turn off. If it’s constantly tearing you down, you’re fighting an uphill battle before you even leave the house. But when it starts to have your back? Everything gets lighter. You handle the hard stuff better. You recover faster. You feel safer inside your own skin.
I am pretty aware of how I talk to myself anymore, when I look in the mirror, I look for the good instead of focusing on the bad. Even stressful moments don’t seem so stressful anymore. Just recently my husband and I had a pretty stressful scenario pop up and I heard that old version of me creep in starting to say “I can’t handle one more minute of this”. But I actually caught that and said yes you can and you will just like you always have and you will come out even better and stronger for it. And you know what else? Instead of looking to my husband to make me feel better, which I often would and do because he’s my partner and best friends, but he was stressed too, so instead of asking him to comfort me, I was strong enough to comfort him. I actually told him “we’ve got this, regardless of which way this goes, we are going to be fine, you know that and I know that, I could see he felt better just hearing that. You see, because I had my own back, I didn’t add stress to him, I actually lifted him a bit and it made me feel so proud. Usually it’s the complete opposite.
I didn’t suddenly turn into some fearless superhero, but I felt supported. And because I felt supported, I showed up calm instead of a frazzled mess. I stopped letting the negative voice run the show and I took control and flipped the script. It felt really good, I felt better, my husband felt better and to be honest the situation didn’t change, we did. The way we talked about it in our heads did. We stopped creating future drama in the present!
Makes me think about something My yoga instructor said the other day she said she was stressing out and her daughter who is about 17 told her Mom, yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, which is why it is called “the present”. If you’re into cartoons you’ll recognize that from Kung fu panda….that’s where she heard it, but that’s another banger to keep in our back pocket for high stress moments.
But look, It’s not about never having another negative thought. Good luck with that—brains don’t work that way. It’s about noticing the thought and deciding whether you’re going to hand it the microphone.
Seriously just start noticing when you hear yourself say “I’m so stupid” or “I always mess this up,” or I’m so fat today. Notice those mean thoughts and point them out to yourself. There’s that old voice again.” Awareness is half the battle.
And then maybe, run it through the friend test. Would I say this to someone I really care about? If the answer is no, rewrite it the way you’d say it to them. Instead of “I can’t handle this,” try “This feels really heavy right now, and I’ve handled heavy things before. I’m going to take it one step at a time.” It might feel a little awkward at first, but your nervous system notices the difference.
And finally start giving yourself the backup you’ve been waiting for. We think we need someone else to save the day for us, but it’s actually us who was there all along just waiting to be called upon. I actually say it out loud sometimes: “I’ve got my own back.” Sounds a little silly, Maybe. But it works. It reminds me I’m on my own team. I’m not the enemy here.
The best part? The more you practice, the more natural it gets. Your brain starts believing the new story. And when life eventually does drop something big in your lap—and it will—you won’t be starting from “I’m not enough.” You’ll start from “I’ve got me. Let’s figure this out together.”
The point of this episode is you are worthy of the same kindness you give away so freely to everyone else. You deserve a voice that roots for you instead of against you. The way you speak to yourself sets the whole tone for your life. Let’s make it a good one.
If this landed for you, send me a quick voice note or DM and tell me one negative phrase you’ve been saying on repeat and how you’re going to flip it this week. I really do read every single one.
Share this with three people who deserve to be kind to themselves, which is everyone, I love you guys, I’m rooting for you and I hope this helps you root for yourself too, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
