By Yamila García
When my mind is filled with self-doubt and insecurity, I silence it with facts. As if it were an investigation that I am carrying out, I search my memories for information that will help me prove that those thoughts are a lie. If my mind tells me that I am not enough, I search my memories for moments when I was able to do great things, people who have told me how much they admired what I had done, memories with friends who showed me that my presence was important in their lives. I contradict each of those thoughts with facts. I prove to myself that none of that is true. When my mind describes myself with some hateful adjective, I say to myself: okay, let’s see if this is true. What evidence do I have? Has anyone ever told me this? And if they did, what were their intentions? Has anyone ever told me otherwise? Likewise, when I think I won’t be able to do something, I ask myself: Have there been other moments when I thought I wouldn’t be able to? And what happened then? How many times out of all the times that this voice told me I was incapable of achieving it, did I not achieve it?
I learned that my thoughts are not going to be actually silent, but that I can contradict them with facts and concrete evidence. I learned to use my curiosity and ability to logically argue everything so that my way of seeing life is not conditioned by that voice. I know that many have this voice torturing them. I have talked about it with friends and many feel that they could only live better if they got rid of this voice. The truth is that it is not like that and I don’t even know if that could be possible. Many times when we listen to this voice and let ourselves be guided by it, our gaze is very narrow. If we can talk to ourselves to take weight away from that voice, we can broaden our vision. Most of us have already achieved much more than we believe, we are loved and valued much more than we think, and we have much more capacity than we ever thought we would have. We just need to look back and be objective with ourselves as if it were someone else we are rooting for.