I talk about this a lot. To my mom. To my friends. To colleagues who didn’t ask but needed to hear it anyway. Not because I’m trying to be some whimsical life coach, although that would be cool as hell. But because I’ve watched what happens when people let their inner dialogue run feral for years unchecked.

It’s not harmless. It’s not honesty.

It’s dangerous.

Your brain is always adapting to whatever environment it lives in. And one of its main environments is your own voice. Neuroplasticity is basically your brain going, okay, this again, and building around it.

So when the running commentary is relentlessly negative, dismissive, or fatalistic, your brain adjusts accordingly. Tension becomes normal. Stress and panic become your baseline. You don’t notice it because it begins to feel familiar. And to your brain, familiar means safe.

That’s a huge problem.

This Isn’t About Toxic Positivity.

I don’t do toxic positivity. I’m not interested in pretending things are fine when they’re not. That’s insulting to your emotional intelligence.

But I also don’t do wallowing. I don’t do constant self dragging masked as being “real.” Persistent negative self talk is not neutral. That shit is contagious and harmful.

It spreads to how you see your future, how you interpret setbacks, how quickly you give up. And neurologically, it keeps your nervous system in a low grade stress response, and state of dysregulation.

Neuroplasticity Is Boring but Crucial

Neuroplasticity just means your brain strengthens what you repeat. No dramatic breakthroughs required.

If you constantly tell yourself you’re behind, bad at things, or fundamentally flawed, your brain reinforces these ideas. But when your self talk is calmer, more accurate, and more kind, your brain relaxes. It has more capacity. You think better. You recover faster. You don’t spiral as hard.

Talk to Yourself Like a Friend

Kind self talk doesn’t mean lying to yourself or being downright delusional. It just means, choosing the silver lining.

“I fucked this up” becomes “that didn’t work.”
“I can’t do anything right” becomes “this is annoying but a teachable and fixable moment.”

Language matters because your brain responds to it. Harsh language escalates stress. Neutral language deescalates it. Neuroplasticity follows suit. You don’t rewire your brain by verbally beating the shit out of yourself.

Gratitude, Always

Gratitude gets ruined because people turn it into a performance. Strip that away and what’s left is attention training.

Your brain already scans for problems. Gratitude just widens the scan. It asks, what’s not broken right now?

The coffee was decent. Your college friend called to check-in. You finished a big project. Nothing went wrong today. These types of moments don’t need some super deep meaning. They need repetition.

Over time, this changes how your brain interprets your life. You’re still critical. You’re just not living in a constant state of complaint.

How This Actually Looks Day to Day

There’s no ritual. No journaling mandate.

You just need to notice when your inner voice is being unnecessarily brutal and pull it back. Let yourself clock small things that worked instead of only narrating failures. That’s it.

Your brain doesn’t need intensity. It needs consistency.

Why I Keep Saying This Out Loud

I bring this up so much because I’ve seen the difference it makes. In myself. In people I love. In rooms where the mood shifts the second someone stops casually shitting on themselves.

The way you talk to yourself sets a tone. For you and everyone around you. Regulation spreads. So does self contempt.

Rewriting your brain isn’t a this mystical concept. It’s a basic lifestyle.

So I hope you refuse to let unchecked negative self talk run your day, week, or even life under the guise of being honest with yourself.