The Mean Girl in Your Head

You can’t do that. Maybe you aren’t enough. Why did they hire you? You know you don’t have the experience to lead this team. Why do you think he left? Why do you think they all left? It must be you. Sounds like some pretty negative things for someone to say to you. But what if that someone is you?

Your Inner Mean Girl

I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely got a mean girl in my head. She tells me that I am not enough for whatever it is I am trying to do. Whether I am mothering my children, loving my husband, creating a program, launching a business, applying for a job, or making a new friend, she is there telling me it won’t work because there is a deficiency in me.

My daughter Miah and I talk about this in episode 3, The Mean Girl in Your Head. I wanted to talk with someone from a generation behind mine so that we could examine whether the mean girl shows up differently for different generations. Is she still up and about? Is she sneaky or bold, ratchet or sophisticated?

How Does the Mean Girl in Your Head Get Her Voice?

What I found was that she is still alive and well for a whole other generation. I have done my best to pour positive things into my daughter, but if the truth be told, this wasn’t always the case. I wasn’t always super cognizant of what I said to her in moments of failure or mistakes. I was highly critical when she was a little girl, always correcting, fixing, or adjusting.

What’s Family and Culture Got to Do With It

See, I came from a highly critical culture in my family of origin. It seemed nothing was ever good enough. If I brought home a B, I was asked for the A. If I brought home an A, I was asked where was the plus. When I brought home the A+, I wasn’t celebrated because that is what I should have done in the first place. IT felt like there was no way to win sometimes. Now please don’t get it wrong, my accomplishments were celebrated, but in a West Indian household, there were just some things that were a given and so taken for granted. Good grades were one of those things.

So, I went about parenting much in the same ways my parents did without even realizing it. But here’s the kicker, my highly critical parenting style had everything to do with my fusion with my child. Believing that how she presents in this world is directly tied to my value and worth as a mother caused me to want to “fix” everything that looked even slightly out of place. And that was fueled by my own mean girl telling me I am not a good enough mother.

So Now We all Got One

So, now as a result of culture, family, society, or whatever system that has sent you messages of inadequacy, you’ve got a mean girl, I’ve got a mean girl, she’s got a mean girl and we all continue to impact one another negatively because she is what’s driving our behavior. That’s the systemic nature of nurture. The way I have been nurtured impacts the way I nurture or relate to others and cycle continues on and on.

Break the Cycle

So how do we break the cycle. Well, Miah and I talked about how to quiet the mean girl so that she won’t get in our way, stop us from doing the amazing things we were made to do, or cause us to hurt someone else. See, often mean girls in our lives are pulling us down so they can measure up because they really don’t feel good about themselves.

So how do we get her to settle down and shush? We can become intentional about how we talk to ourselves. The things that have been said to us often program us into thinking there is deficiency in us. Well, if negative things reprogrammed us to think negatively about ourselves, surely saying positive things to ourselves has the power to reprogram us again. It works both ways.

Affirmations Work

In Proverbs, the Bible talks about the power over life and death being in the tongue. It also talks about the tongue being a fire that can change the whole trajectory of our lives in the book of James. This spiritual principle connects with the therapeutic principle of speaking affirmations over your life. It has been said that thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny.

But it doesn’t have to start with your thoughts. Maybe your thoughts have been negative over the years. Maybe you aren’t sure how to change your thoughts about you. That’s the mean girl in your head. What we say to ourselves has the power to change what we think about ourselves. When we practice celebrating ourselves, speaking lovingly to ourselves, offering grace to ourselves, and being kind to ourselves we retrain our thoughts about ourselves.

What If I Can’t Say Good Things About Myself?

What if I am so negative in my thoughts that I can’t even muster the power to say positive things to myself? Some people report that they feel silly or stupid saying good things to themselves. Some folks burst into tears even at the thought of trying to say something good about themselves.

You can write positive things that you want to believe about yourself on paper or sticky notes and post them around a private space in which you spend a lot of time. Every day, read some of the notes to yourself.

Find the Source

I also want to encourage you to find the source of your mean girl. What system(s) in your life have contributed to the development of her voice. Who told you that? Was it social media or media in general sending you messages about your worth or value that is based in someone else’s standard of beauty, success, excellence, etc? Was it a highly critical or abusive parent? Did you experience sexual abuse or assault and now you live with shame about what was done to you?

Get into a therapist’s office and talk about your mean girl’s origin story so that you get to consciously evaluate the things you think about yourself and decide whether you want to maintain those thoughts. Is the way she’s been talking to you serving you, or is it getting in your way? Do you want to continue to let her dictate how you live?

If you are interested in therapy or a group coaching program, you can check out the therapy experience or coaching programs I offer. If nothing here fits, please do look for a program that does with another provider because you don’t have to live with the mean girl in your head. You get to quiet her down and an objective professional can absolutely help!