I need to tell you something I’ve been noticing lately.
Something that I think is make-or-break for a lot of us when it comes to connection.
It’s our self-talk. That inner dialogue we have when we’re connecting with people.
And I’m going to be really honest with you: Sometimes mine is incredibly mean.
Like, shockingly mean. The kind of mean I would NEVER be to another person. The kind of mean that makes me want to crawl into a hole and never interact with humans again.
And I know I’m not alone in this. Because I hear from so many of you about how you feel awkward, how you think you’re bad at making friends, how you’re convinced you said the dumbest thing, and now that person definitely hates you.
But here’s what I’ve realized: If there’s anything that separates people who feel like friendship is possible from people who feel like it’s impossible, it might be this.
It might be whether you’re able to notice your self-talk, question it, and eventually shift it to something kinder.
So today, I’m going to tell you three real stories from my life. Stories where my self-talk showed up in very different ways. Somewhere, I completely spiraled. Somewhere, I did better. And somewhere I caught myself in an old pattern.
Because I think the first step to changing our self-talk is just noticing it. Acknowledging what’s actually happening in our heads.
And maybe if I’m vulnerable about mine, you’ll feel less alone about yours.
How Your Brain Plays Tricks on You
Before I tell you these stories, I want to name something we all experience:
Your brain is constantly playing tricks on you in social situations.
We all know that feeling when you walk into a room where you don’t know anyone. Your brain is screaming: Turn around and leave. Turn around and leave. RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN.
You have to push through that. You have to walk into the room. You have to say hello to that first person, even though it feels so awkward.
But there’s also the self-talk that happens DURING the interaction. While you’re talking to someone, analyzing every single thing you’re saying, how they’re reacting, whether they think you’re interesting or boring or weird.
And then there’s the self-talk AFTER. When you walk away and think: Oh my god, I said the dumbest thing. I am so embarrassed. I was so awkward.
Except… I can’t think of a time I’ve ever said that TO another friend.
If a friend told me they felt awkward in an interaction, I’d probably say something like: “Yeah, it was kind of awkward, but you’re okay. I think they really enjoyed hearing about your love of birding.”
But we don’t do that for ourselves. We just pile on the criticism.
And I think there’s a lot of talk out there about self-talk when it comes to our bodies (body positivity) or our careers (asking for that promotion, speaking up in meetings).
But we’re having connection interactions nonstop throughout our day.
If that self-talk is consistently mean, no wonder so many of us have ended up labeling ourselves:
- ▪️ I’m a bad friend
- ▪️ I’m awkward
- ▪️ I’m terrible at small talk
- ▪️ I’m not good at showing up
- ▪️ I’m not there for my friends
We don’t say “that interaction was awkward.” We say, “I AM awkward.”
And when we’re regularly saying unkind things to ourselves after every social interaction? That piles on. That’s a heavy weight to carry.
Now, I know some of you have told me that when you’re taking that initial risk – going to the party, having the awkward interaction – you imagine what I would say to you.
And I want you to know: I am MORE than happy to be your cheerleader, anytime, whatever it takes.
Because if you had a close, trusted friend there after an awkward interaction, they would say: “It’s okay. I’m sorry you feel awkward, but like… It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
So, if you need to picture me doing that for you? I’m here for it. I’m on your shoulder. You got this.
(And actually – I’m working on something to help with this. There’s a link in the show notes. If you’re reading this after I’ve released it, that link will take you to the product. If you’re reading this before, sign up, and you’ll be the first to know when it’s ready.)
Okay. Let me tell you three stories about my own self-talk. And I’m warning you now: Some of these are embarrassing. But I think that’s the point.
Story #1: The Podcast Recording Where I Completely Lost It
This story is about a brand new interaction with someone I’d never met before.
I’m not going to say her name because I’m likely going to interact with her again – this was a work-related thing in my industry. And honestly? Good luck figuring out which podcast episode this is. I’m not telling you.
But when I tell you this was a runaway train… it was SO bad.
We’d pre-discussed via email how we were going to work together. We’d figured out this reciprocal situation. I was pretty excited about the connection.
And then we got on the call to record.
I was having an off day. My insomnia had crept up the night before. I was a little nervous because I thought this was an important episode.
And I completely lost it.
I was trying to talk to her, trying to have this conversation. And at a certain point, I actually just stopped talking and stared off into space.
Because I was so embarrassed by how the interaction was going.
And in my head – while I’m still IN the interaction – I was just lobbing profanities at myself. Lobbing missiles. I was SO MEAN.
You have completely failed this interaction.
She’s never going to want to speak to you again.
You’re a laughingstock.
There’s no way you can come back from this.
I mean, I was just saying MEAN stuff to myself.
And the thing is, I’m still in the interaction when this is happening.
So, of course, she’s asking: “Are you okay? What’s happening? What’s going through your head?”
And I just want to curl up in a ball. I want to say: “I’m so sorry I’ve wasted 15 minutes of your time. This isn’t going to work out. I’m going to run and hide every time I see you.”
It didn’t go well. I was so mean to myself that I had no facial expressions for the rest of the recording. I looked completely out of it. Because I was so in my head, just beating myself up.
Which probably didn’t make it a very great interaction for HER either.
We finished the recording. I got off the call.
And I cried.
I cried about it. Partially because I was upset about the work piece. But also just: Wow, Alex. Normally, you’re pretty good at this. What the heck happened today? Why couldn’t you get it together? Why couldn’t you recover?
More mean stuff. I cried for maybe 10 minutes, then went on a little walk.
And finally, I had to pretend I was on my own shoulder. I had to step away from the situation for a bit.
I actually said to myself: “If I just witnessed that between someone else, what would I say to them?”
And here’s what I came up with:
Well, that happened. That is what it is. And we don’t need to make the best first impression.
I KNOW that the world tells you to always put your best foot forward and that people just click. But I know for a fact that I have multiple friendships where we didn’t click initially. It was a matter of time for us to figure it out.
So if this woman and I are meant to be connected – if we’re meant to be any sort of friends or work friends or whatever – we’ll look back on this interaction someday and LAUGH about the time I was a complete mess when we first met.
And if we never get there? If I’m forever “the awkward one” every time we interact? That’s just what it is. I’m okay. I will survive. I will be fine.
I have made plenty of other okay first impressions. I’m not going to label myself as bad at meeting people or awkward.
This situation was awkward. I was having a bad day. That’s different from “I AM awkward.”
But when I tell you I really had to talk myself down… I had to recognize how mean I’d just been to myself. I had to sit with the fact that I’d just spent an hour and a half being absolutely cruel to myself in my own head.
And then I had to pretend this was a completely neutral situation and figure out what levelheaded, not-triggered, not-wanting-to-crawl-into-a-hole me would say to two people who just had that interaction.
That’s what it took.
And when I reflect back on this now, I can see: I was NOT kind to myself in the moment. I was so caught up in it that I couldn’t pull back. There was no way 20 minutes into this thing I could go neutral. I was just straight-up mean to myself for an hour and a half.
But now, after the fact, I can notice that. I can acknowledge it.
And maybe next time it happens (because I’m sure there will be a next time), the progress is that I can notice it in the MIDDLE of it happening. And I can try to go neutral.
I’m not even trying to get to positive yet. Just: Stop the mean talk. Silence it. That would be progress.
In the full episode, I walk through the exact moment I completely lost it on a recording call and the messy, step-by-step process I used to talk myself back down from the spiral. If you’ve ever been so mean to yourself mid-interaction that you couldn’t recover in the moment, this story will make you feel a lot less alone.
Story #2: When I Got Ghosted (And Did Better With My Self-Talk)
The second story is about a woman I met at some work-related events.
She was delightful. There was a series of events, so we met many times. We really hit it off. There were other people at these events, but she and I really clicked.
We were chatting about places where we might see each other again. I really enjoyed her company. She was just… delightful.
So after this series of events was over (we’re a couple months in at this point), after we’d followed each other on social media and were commenting back and forth, I did what I talk about on this podcast all the time:
I messaged her directly and said I thought it would be fun to get together.
Now, I don’t currently have kids. She’s a mom. So I understand that time is precious. And I could sense there might be some hesitation about how a friendship between us would work – I know how this works with my established friends, but as a NEW friend, there’s vulnerability in figuring that out.
So I tried to accommodate. I said, “Hey, I know you’re really busy with your kids. What if I came over and we went on a walk, or we met at a local park?”
I even said, “If you can or want to get away, we could totally meet up just the two of us.”
But in my mind, I was like: That’s probably unlikely from what I know of her life. So I was trying to make it work.
She never responded.
I got ghosted.
And here’s where I did better with my self-talk.
I COULD have said: She doesn’t like me. Something’s wrong with me.
But I didn’t say any of that.
What I said was: Well, it was kind of a long shot that we were going to find time to connect. She lives a very busy life. She’s got a lot going on. Maybe she just doesn’t have capacity right now.
I’m not trying to make excuses for her. I’m trying to remove MYSELF from being the problem.
Sure, there’s a chance that even though we had this whole string of pleasant interactions, maybe I AM the problem. But the chances of that? Maybe 5%. Maybe 10%.
What’s more likely is that something about our circumstances just didn’t align.
And that’s what I told myself when days, then weeks, passed with no response.
I had to accept that I put myself out there, and it wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Come to find out later – maybe a month or two – she was moving. So that could be another reason. Maybe she’d already known and just didn’t have capacity.
Could she have messaged me and told me that? Yeah. But we’d only met a few times. We didn’t really know each other. I could have just fallen to the bottom of her DMs.
Or maybe she felt awkward about it. Maybe she really would have enjoyed hanging out, but didn’t know how to turn me down.
I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is.
And it doesn’t really matter.
The whole point is: I was able to remove myself from the situation pretty quickly and have better self-talk.
I think I did much better on this one. And that probably has something to do with the fact that I wasn’t standing in front of her.
If I’d been standing in front of her, asked her to hang out, and she’d just turned around and walked away? That probably would have sent me into a different self-talk spiral.
In the full episode, I also talk about why getting ghosted feels so different when it happens in person versus over a message, and how practicing removing yourself from the equation can genuinely change how you experience rejection. If you’re someone who tends to immediately assume you’re the problem, this part of the conversation is for you.
Story #3: The Grand Gesture That Never Happened
The third story is about some of my very established friends. And this is a repeat pattern I have.
I have this tendency to want to do BIG things for my friends.
When I want to show someone I care, I want them to KNOW it. I want to do something grand. Something that shows how much I think about them.
This shows up in all sorts of ways:
- ▪️ A friend graduates from grad school across the country, and I want to fly there and surprise them and take them out to dinner
- ▪️ A friend gets married, and I can’t make it to the wedding, so I plan this elaborate overnight staycation for them with dinner and a whole evening looking at wedding photos
Big gestures. Grand plans.
And they never work out.
And then I berate myself internally for not doing enough.
The most recent example: Some friends of ours experienced a loss in their family. There were many ways I wanted to show up for them, and I showed up in some ways.
But they had a big milestone date coming up around this loss. And I told myself: I’m going to put together this care package.
I know milestone dates can really throw you for a loop when it comes to grief. So I’m going to put together all these things to help them through this day – foods I know they like, maybe a nice blanket, a really thoughtful card.
I had this plan for MONTHS.
And with some of my own life stuff going on, this was probably too grand of a plan given my actual capacity.
Of course, because I had this grand plan, I didn’t allow myself to just order a few things on Amazon and put them in a basket.
No, I was going to SOURCE the right things. Do research. Put in time and care.
And it just didn’t happen.
The day before the milestone, I started scrambling. And then I was like: This just isn’t going to turn out. I’m not going to be able to pull this off.
Because even that day, I was past capacity.
And in these spaces, it’s really easy to find myself saying: I’m a bad friend. I’m not showing up. I’m not doing what I should be doing for the people I care most about.
But then I took a step back.
I looked at this objectively and realized: I created 9 million hoops for myself to jump through. They didn’t ask for this. I created this.
Sure, would they have enjoyed it? Yeah. Can I still create this basket for them some other time? Absolutely.
Because here’s the thing: We have these dates, and sometimes we’re able to show up on that exact date. But the impact isn’t that different if I do this a month from now.
Maybe it’s 25% less impactful? I don’t know how you quantify that. But really, it’s just the thought.
But I had a hard deadline. I had the highest expectations. I did that to MYSELF.
And then when I didn’t meet my own expectations, I wasn’t kind to myself. I said: I’m a bad friend. I didn’t show up. It wasn’t enough.
So when I was saying that to myself last week – when I was mad at myself for not meeting all these expectations that I SET – I had to step away.
I had to look at this objectively and say: Okay. Today’s a milestone and I don’t want it to go unnoticed. Sure, I didn’t meet this grand gesture I laid out for myself. What is enough? What does my friend really need today?
And I decided that enough was a really thoughtful text message.
I didn’t spend hours putting together a care basket. But I spent 15 minutes writing a single text message, really trying to make sure it hit all the things I wanted to say to them.
And I was going to allow that to be enough for today.
If it wasn’t enough, I could do the basket in a few weeks or months.
Because here’s what I’ve done in the past: I set these big grand visions, don’t show up in the way I planned, and then spend MONTHS feeling guilty.
That wedding example I mentioned? I spent months feeling guilty about not executing that grand gesture. Which meant I was basically AVOIDING that friend because I felt so bad.
Instead of just doing something small. I could have done five little things in those months. But I didn’t, because I was stuck in guilt.
That’s what it costs me when I can’t objectively look at my own self-talk, be kinder to myself, and allow what I’m doing to be enough.
When I can’t just show up as I am.
The Question That Changes Everything
So, where does this leave us?
Well, I hope this is a reminder that we’re all out here doing the same thing. I’m still working on this too. Still paying attention to my own self-talk.
Sometimes I do a really good job at it. Other times I don’t.
And I’m just trying to notice and shift that over time.
But across all three of these stories, there’s one question that kept coming up. One question that helped me shift from cruel to at least neutral:
“If I just witnessed that between someone else, what would I say to them?”
Or: “What would I tell a friend if this happened to them?”
Because here’s the truth: We would NEVER talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves.
If a friend told you they had a disastrous interaction and felt like they’d ruined everything, you wouldn’t say: “Yeah, you’re a laughingstock. You’ll never recover from this.”
You’d say: “That sounds really hard. But honestly, if you’re meant to connect with that person, you’ll look back and laugh about this someday. And if not, you’ll be okay.”
If a friend told you they got ghosted after trying to make plans, you wouldn’t say: “Clearly something’s wrong with you.”
You’d say: “That sucks, and I’m sorry. But it probably has nothing to do with you. She’s probably just got a lot going on.”
If a friend told you they didn’t execute the perfect gesture for someone they care about, you wouldn’t say: “You’re a bad friend.”
You’d say: “You care so much. The fact that you’re even thinking about this shows how good of a friend you are. What you DID do was enough.”
So why can’t we say those things to ourselves?
The Labels We Give Ourselves (And Why They’re Wrong)
Here’s another thing I want you to notice about your self-talk:
Are you saying “that was awkward” or “I AM awkward”?
Because there’s a huge difference.
When we have enough interactions that feel awkward or don’t go well, we start to label OURSELVES instead of labeling the SITUATION.
We say:
- ▪️ I’m a bad friend (instead of: I didn’t show up the way I wanted to in that situation)
- ▪️ I’m awkward (instead of: That interaction was awkward)
- ▪️ I’m terrible at small talk (instead of: I struggled with small talk in that moment)
- ▪️ I’m not good at showing up (instead of: I had a hard time showing up this week)
These labels become our identity. And then we live into them.
If you believe you’re awkward, you’ll act awkward. You’ll expect interactions to go badly. You’ll interpret neutral responses as negative. You’ll avoid putting yourself out there.
But if you can say “that situation was awkward” or “I was having an off day,” you leave room for other possibilities.
You leave room for growth. For different outcomes. For grace.
Progress Isn’t Perfection
I want to be really clear about something:
I’m not telling you these stories because I’ve figured it all out.
In fact, I’m telling you these stories to show you that I HAVEN’T figured it all out.
Story #1? I completely spiraled. I was mean to myself for an hour and a half before I could pull myself out of it.
Story #2? I did better. I was able to shift my self-talk more quickly.
Story #3? I caught myself in a pattern I’ve repeated many times before.
That’s not linear progress. That’s just… being human.
And I think that’s actually the point.
Progress isn’t about never having mean self-talk again. Progress is:
- ▪️ Noticing it more quickly
- ▪️ Being able to shift to neutral (not even positive – just neutral)
- ▪️ Catching patterns you’ve repeated before
- ▪️ Extending yourself a little more grace each time
In Story #1, I couldn’t notice my mean self-talk until after the interaction was over. Maybe next time, I’ll notice it IN the moment and be able to at least go quiet instead of continuing to pile on.
That would be progress.
In Story #2, I was able to remove myself from the situation pretty quickly and see other possibilities besides “I’m the problem.”
That was progress.
In Story #3, I caught myself in a pattern I’ve repeated for years – setting impossible standards, not meeting them, feeling guilty, avoiding the friend.
This time, I was able to see it and choose differently. That was progress.
None of it was perfect. All of it was progress.
An Invitation
So here’s what I want you to do:
Start paying attention to your self-talk.
Not to judge it. Not to immediately fix it. Just to NOTICE it.
Notice what you say to yourself:
- ▪️ Before social interactions
- ▪️ During them
- ▪️ After them
Notice when you’re being kind. Notice when you’re being neutral. Notice when you’re being cruel.
Just notice.
Because I truly don’t think there’s a single person out there who has perfect self-talk. We’re ALL doing this to ourselves in some way, shape, or form.
And maybe if we notice it, we can start being a little kinder to ourselves.
Not perfect. Not positive all the time. Just… kinder.
A little more like we’d talk to a friend.
And I’d love to hear what you notice. Send me a DM. Send me a voice memo. Send me an email.
I think it would make us all feel a little less alone to realize how mean we’re all being to ourselves sometimes.
That even if we hide it (which I didn’t do very well in Story #1), or our minds go blank except for the rage we’re throwing around in our heads, or we shut down – we’re all doing this.
We’re all not alone.
What I’m Creating For You
I mentioned this earlier, but I’m working on something specifically to help with your self-talk.
Something for those of you who ARE imagining me on your shoulder, telling you “you got this.”
I don’t want to give too much away yet, but head to the link in the show notes. Depending on when you’re listening to this, you can either sign up to be notified when it’s ready, or if it’s already out, you can check it out.
Because I want to actually BE that voice on your shoulder when you need it.
When you’re walking into that party, and your brain is telling you to run.
When you’re in the middle of an awkward interaction and spiraling.
When you’re walking away from a conversation, convinced you’ve ruined everything.
I want to be there, reminding you: You’re okay. That was just awkward. You’re not awkward. You’re going to be fine.
I’m really excited about this. And I can’t wait to hear what you think.
One More Thing
Before I let you go, I want to say this:
If you’re someone who’s been imagining what I would say to you in these moments – thank you.
Thank you for trusting me to be that voice. Thank you for letting me be on your shoulder.
And I want you to know: Everything I would say to you? You can start saying to yourself.
You can be your own shoulder angel.
It takes practice. It takes noticing. It takes catching yourself mid-spiral and asking: “What would I say to a friend right now?”
But you can do it. I know you can.
Because you’re already doing the hard part – you’re showing up. You’re trying. You’re putting yourself out there even when it’s scary.
The least you can do is be a little kinder to yourself while you’re doing it.
In the full episode, I go deeper into all three of these stories and share the one question that helped me shift from cruel self-talk to something kinder in each situation. If you’re ready to start noticing the mean voice in your head, and actually doing something about it, go listen to the full episode.
Want to work on your friendship self-talk? Let’s chat about it in the comments.
