Its shocking if you stop and think about how careless we are with our vocabulary. No wonder why we often feel like shit. We are so careless with our vocabulary. We say stupid things all the time how many times a day have you said? “I am tired” is that totality of who you are? It’s bad enough we might be tired in the moment, but to use the infamous “I am” is really profound.

“I am” is the mac daddy of meditations. There are whole meditations based on “I am” and we carelessly bandy about “I am” all day long with negative states, feelings and emotions.

What do you think it does to your brain when you’re constantly saying stupid shit like, “I am tired, I am frustrated, I am angry?” For many of us, that is the totality of our day.

PS I am not advocating, mindless, idiotic self talk that equally errs in the opposite direction. I’m willing to bet that you can say I am a billionaire 1 million times and that in and of itself is not going to change your financial situation.

But can we at least start with eliminating all of the negative self talk well it’s not really self talk it’s actually “self identification.” We are literally identifying with emotions, as who we are, that is incredibly profound and probably equally damaging.

I wish I had access to brain imaging like Dr. Amen. It would be fun to image your brain before and after you say all this stupid shit. I also wonder what damages your brain more eating garbage food or saying stupid things? I bet they both do.

How about just committing to not self identify as a negative feeling? It would be amazing if we could all commit to not saying I “am” angry or I am frustrated or I am tired. I bet you that alone would make a humongous difference. You can replace it with I am going to meditate, I am going to take a nap, I feel slightly tired in this moment. Its time for me to energize myself. I think I might need some fresh air and water. I feel profoundly relaxed after doing some great work. The list is endless. I am sure you can come up with a few positive rearticulations of the feeling.

And maybe that is the perfect word for it. Be more artful and cognizant of the things you are saying to yourself and more importantly the THINGS YOU ARE DECLARING THAT YOU ARE.

Perhaps once we meet at zero, we can think about if we want to take a positive direction with what we self identify with.