There are two monthly challenges I need to evaluate: my most recent challenge with lifting small weights, and the one I completed before that which involved transforming my self-talk.

I don’t have a lot to comment on with regards to the weights challenge. It was a terrific way to get back into resistance training and I plan on continuing to follow the protocols I created going forward. As much as I love Bikram yoga, it is nice to complement that with an exercise that is more strength-focused and progressive.

The evaluation of my self-talk challenge is more interesting and necessary, so I will devote the rest of this post to that.

What I learned:

• Running is a great training ground for self-talk – I learned a lot about my thinking process during my long-distance runs during this challenge.
  

  I started out having all of these negative thoughts (e.g. judgment for pushing myself too little, judgment for pushing myself too much, guilt from years ago when I stopped running, anxiety about my jacked up left foot and ankle, etc.).

  After going through a couple notice/soften/reframe procedures, I started to counter the negative thought with a positive reframe that I had come up with the previous week.

  By the end of the month, my inner narrative had mostly died away and I just ran without any internal voices, which was incredibly peaceful.

• Cognitive journaling is helpful, but I hate it – Taking the time each night to write down the specific process I had used that day was great for accountability and locking in affirmations. However, I always resented the time dump for something I probably will never post publicly.

• I love posting phrases around the house – Having the walls peppered with personalized affirmations and empowering suggestions was dope. The only problem is they were a bit visually tacky.
• Using terms of endearment and physical gestures towards myself feels forced – This just didn’t feel like me. It never stopped feeling like an act. I’m not saying it didn’t ever help in some way, but I felt really awkward doing it even when there wasn’t anyone around.
• Softening is a revolutionary practice for me – I’ve done noting practices with thoughts and emotions a decent amount both through meditation and non-meditation practices. I’ve also used affirmations and reframes in the past. However, actually carrying out a dialogue with my inner critic is not something I’ve purposefully done before and definitely not to this extent. As someone with INTJ preferences, I felt this to be completely natural and aligned with myself.

What I plan to continue going forward:

• One-sentence daily journaling – I love the idea of a daily journal, but it has to be very targeted and brief if I am going to keep it up and feel the derived benefit is worth the time input. I would like to have a specific topic each month that I focus on (motivation, time management, socialization, etc.) and just give a one-sentence update from that day pertaining to that topic. To make this more meaningful, I could turn these entries into a blog post each month.
• Purchase some sort of digital wall display to upload affirmations – I would like a way to continuously be updating my pithy quotes that is simple but also classy. Maybe the way to do this is with a digital picture frame, or maybe there is a better alternative I will discover for this specific purpose.
• Incorporate this strategy into some of my meditation sessions – I have a lot of different meditation practices and techniques I cycle through on a semi-regular basis, and this would be a great addition to that list. It is similar to the RAFT technique, but with a bigger emphasis on challenging the thoughts that are arising as opposed to just noticing and releasing them.

I feel like I thoroughly understand the concept of self-compassion but still struggle to actualize it on a regular basis. This challenge greatly helped in that regard and I feel much more confident in my ability to utilize this skill after going through this experience.

Namaste.