I'm breathing in the empty spaces
that remain now that I've cleared away
the fantasies I'd sewn together
in my wild, run rampant imagination.

I'm leaving it all behind.
I'm floating through this time.
I'm the only one that's mine.

Self-talk is called self-talk because it is what we hear ourselves saying to ourselves. It sounds a little loopy, but it's true; we speak to, and listen to, ourselves. All day, every day. Although it is within our own minds, it is also shaped by what we hear from others. When someone says "you should _____", a part of us listens and remembers that. Our minds sometimes accept sentences that begin with "you should" as instructions, whether we like it or not.

The art of self-talk has much to do with what we choose to keep in terms of messages from our peers, our family members, and our societies, but it also has to do with what we choose to erase, or to leave behind. We can choose to erase and leave behind the messages that tell us that we are not good enough, that we are different in a bad way, that rejection has to do with who we are and what we do, instead of who the other people are and what they do. We can re-program our minds into hearing and accepting the good. I once read an article in a peer-reviewed journal that explained the ways in which the human brain is naturally prone to remembering negative messages and experiences. As humans, we actually have to try much harder to remember and hold onto the positive messages and experiences. 

I wonder what kind of positive messages I can re-program my brain into remembering and believing.