When I finally reached the top of the Mardi Himal viewpoint – the 4,500 metre peak of my three-day Nepal trek in October 2020 – I thought I’d feel something akin to elation. Instead, if I’m honest, I felt bloody cold.
It was freezing up there.
But as the sun began to rise further and the hot cup of ginger tea I bought from one of the teahouses started to warm me from within, I began to take in the scenes around me. The mountains looked hauntingly beautiful in an almost poignant way, and I realised something: I had done it. I had put my mind to a trek, and I had made it to the top.
Elation finally set in.
I also realised that given that my fitness was at an all-time low thanks to repeated lockdowns, I got to the top with the help of my mental attitude.
Trekking is one of the ultimate meditative experiences. You’re so focused on continuously putting one foot forward and making it to your next destination for the night that everything else slowly but surely falls away. The more challenging it gets, the more this effect sets in.
As I made my way up the trail, my worries slipped away and all I was left with was this inner peace and desire to make it to the end.
This allowed me to really ‘see’ my thoughts for what they were. My inner chatter was clearer to me while I was trekking. I wasn’t at my fittest, so my inner critic kept insisting: “You can’t do this. What made you think this was a good idea? You’re going to have to give up.”
That’s when I realised I had to start talking to myself better. So instead, I tuned the negative out and focused on empowering statements like “We’ve got this, keep going.” And sure enough, I cheered myself on, one positive thought at a time, and I made it all the way to the top.
My mind got me there.
The power of our inner chatter
I’m sharing this story because, in all honesty, I’ve had something of a revelation over the last eight months, which began with this trek last October. 2020 sucked for various obvious reasons, even though I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m healthy, I have savings to fall back on, and I’m safe. But the pandemic did nothing for other areas of my life and in all honesty I suffered. I was full of self-doubt, worry, loneliness and anxiety, and I didn’t feel like myself.
I came back to Cyprus from Nepal, where I’d spent most of 2020, feeling low and drained.
So, I took the time to work on myself and all the crap that had accumulated over the last year. And I realised something so powerful that I cannot believe I hadn’t realised it before:
Our thoughts create our reality.
Everything we think is reflected back to us in some way. When I told myself the trek was difficult and that I should give up, it felt like a challenge. But once I started to say that I could do it, I was able to focus on the task at hand and enjoy the experience of walking through such a stunning location.
“Everything we think is reflected back to us in some way. When I told myself the trek was difficult and that I should give up, it felt like a challenge. But once I started to say that I could do it, I was able to focus on the task at hand and enjoy the experience of walking through such a stunning location.”
Two different sets of thoughts give two very different experiences of what we call reality.
I saw the power of having positive self-talk during my trek, and I was to see it in action over the following months.
A deep realisation
As a writer, I understand the power of words, which is why I’m surprised I didn’t realise the importance of having a supportive inner voice before. We spend way more time with ourselves than anyone else in our lives, and our inner voice is providing commentary the whole time.
It makes sense that if our inner voice is encouraging, compassionate, loving, and supportive that we’ll have a better experience in life.
Now imagine if we keep berating ourselves for our perceived failures, picking on our flaws and generally being negative and pessimistic? What kind of experience would that be?
I’ve lived it and I can tell you it’s not pleasant. In fact, over the last few months as I began monitoring the negative things I would say to myself when life got difficult, I inadvertently became way more compassionate towards myself. I was also shocked at the fact I have achieved the things I have while having to endure this negative commentary.
I was literally working against myself the whole time.
And it turns out, most of us are. In evolutionary terms, a strong inner critic helped our Stone Age ancestors scan for danger. But in today’s world, this really isn’t needed. And yet most of us still operate from this space of harsh self-judgment and criticism.
I’m here to tell you there’s another way.
Learning to tap into my inner nurturer
Over the last six months, I’ve been working on my inner nurturer – the loving and encouraging inner voice that we all have. A louder inner critic usually buries it.
When I first started out on this journey it helped me to think of what I’d say to my closest friends if they had a problem or dilemma.
I won’t lie. To begin with it was tough and to be honest I felt like that voice would never change. I felt myself revert back to the negative time and time again. I’d then get frustrated for feeling that way, which just fed into this cycle of berating myself.
It’s taken me hours of therapy and doing ‘homework’ in between therapy sessions for it to get better. And, most importantly, it requires me to constantly be on top of the chatter in my head.
Slowly but surely, that nurturing voice became stronger and more prevalent.
Watch out, your inner critic is about
The thing I’ve noticed is that the inner critic is sneaky. Because it’s been with you for years, it tends to escape unnoticed half of the time. You have to really pay attention to what’s going on in order to notice the things it’s saying to you.
Things that have helped this process are:
- Meditation and mindfulness
- Journalling and keeping a ‘thoughts record’
- Writing letters to myself from my inner nurturer
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Challenging my thoughts (a CBT technique)
- Daily non-judgmental reflection
- Creative writing exercises
I will write a post on all of these techniques soon. For now all I can tell you is this: my quality of life has improved tenfold just by strengthening my inner nurturer.
The outer world still kinda sucks (I’m talking to you COVID-19), but my inner world is so much more pleasant now.
Coming through the other side
It’s been a long process, but the low mood that pervaded me when I first got back to Cyprus has lifted, I’m looking forward to the future despite the fact things are still uncertain, my inner nurturer is stronger that it ever was before, and…
…my anxiety has gone.
I cannot express how relieved I am by this last point in particular. It was making me miserable.
And, most excitingly, I am on my own side for the first time in my life. I’ve made it this far while being, in many respects, my own worst enemy. It’s no wonder I fell into a depression: I believe it was telling me that I couldn’t go on operating the old way.
Things fell apart so I could put them back together stronger.
I’m excited about where this new attitude may lead me.
The positive words I’m speaking to myself are resulting in a way more beautiful reality than the one I was experiencing when I was hard on myself.
Words matter (and why I’m back)
And so, I come back to my original point: the words we speak to ourselves matter. I’ve never realised the importance of this up until now. Speaking to myself kindly has become something I actively practise every day.
I sometimes spend a good portion of my time flooding my mind with positive things, whether that’s affirmations, positive articles, or just saying ridiculously kind things to myself.
And I take the time to celebrate wins – no matter how small – and to give myself a pat on the back during the times when I’ve pushed through something challenging even when all I wanted to do was hide under the duvet.
I remind myself, over and over again, that I’ve got my own back because if you don’t even have your own back then who will?
I’ve decided to return to this blog because I want to share with you all how much my life has changed by strengthening my inner nurturer and, over time, share all the tips and techniques that are helping me to improve my relationship with myself every day.
Because I feel every single person deserves to have this experience and I wish this was something that was taught to us in school. It would have saved me a world of heartache.
Moving forward
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with this blog. As some of you may already know, I also have a travel blog, Scribble, Snap, Travel, which I dearly miss at times (I no longer update it), as well as my writing website (I’m a full time freelance writer). I knew I wanted to start blogging again, but I didn’t know in what form (or where).
I’ve decided, though, to kickstart this blog but with a slightly different angle. I will still be writing about mental health, but with more of an emphasis on how writing and working on your inner nurturing voice can really help you to feel empowered and happier.
I have completed so many writing exercises on this journey – both ones that my therapist gave to me and ones I came up with myself – so I really want to share them and show you how healing words can be. This will be accompanied with loads of general posts on mental health and wellbeing, beautiful photography, and some creative writing.
And seeing as I still love to travel (well, that will never not be the case!), once we’re able to again, there will be travel posts too but with an emphasis on ethical/sustainable wellbeing travel.
So, I’ll be updating this blog once a week (every Thursday) from today onwards. Follow me on Instagram for regular updates on content.
Thanks for reading, I’m so glad to be back! Do let me know what you’d love to see here in the near future.
