It was a Sunday evening, I had passed an exam I had been working hard for so long! I called my friend to ask if she could come along with me to somewhere! well, when there is no place to go, we usually go the nearby mall. Surfing through the mall, randomly moving here and there, up and down across the floors, I found myself inside a book store. If you have already met me, or ever meet me, you will find me talking about books, as though I am a very intellectual person, reading through books and talking about this and that, but If I would have to judge me, I would say I am not. I am not the kind of person who would read through classics, or enjoy some sort of intelligence the writers talk about, naah! Not that. I would say I am more of a person who loves books. Books to me are a way of getting to know a person, meeting a person, listening to their stories, and more like my friends. Books have taught me some of the most beautiful lessons, some of them made me laugh hard, some of them gave me peace, some gave answers, and some changed the way I did things. So, when I go to a book store, I never really think too much about who the author is, or whether it is international best seller of whatever, the way I choose books, is I ask the Universe, what does it want me to know, who does it wants me to meet, what lesson is up for me next. Thinking of these questions, I often scroll through the books, and wherever my finger land, I tend to often buy that book.
It is through this process that I have bought, Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, Premchand’s classics, books on money, and very recently, what to say when you talk to your self, by Shad Helmstetter. Few months back, I let go of the person I think I loved the most, and I know I did it on my own, but just because you do it yourself, does not mean that it does not hurt, right? So, well, I was hurting and bleeding, and by the time I was awake, I found myself in the middle of a chaos, not knowing how to handle it. Somehow just somehow I managed to pass one of the exams. When I did, I went to the bookstore and found this book.
If I had to summarise you this book, I’d say, this is the kind of book, you keep on your desk forever. You keep going through it, internalising every damn word in it, and working your life through it. The book talks about the importance of self talk, of how what we talk to ourselves, is how we are going to live our lives. what we tell ourselves, are the instructions we give ourselves. So if you have been talking to yourself, saying, oh I just can’t do that, because of whatever, you might never be able to do it. What is more worse is, that lot of people around you, while you were growing up, while you had hope in you, told you otherwise, and just like a mental tape you often keep repeating that to yourself. But, there are certain things we all thought of us, right, when we were children, or things that we idealise, thinking they would be good for us, but often fail to do them, well that is because of the kind of self talk you do to yourself.
The author says, that you might have heard the wrong talk for so long, that when you start talking correct with you, for some time it might feel as though there is no change, however, if you just keep at it, someday, the negative will come down to zero, and then to positive. Your life will become more aligned with who you are , and what you believe in.
This could be a simple fact for a lot of people, but for someone like me, someone who has been average thought out life, been told that there is nothing much you can amount to, understanding that they are just words, and the words need to be rewired, the brain needs to be rewired, because it is me who is in control, well it was an exceptional breaking news, honestly! We are so often bullied, sometimes behind the closed doors, sometimes by people we expect to think the best for us, the ones who are the nearest to us, getting bullied by them, being belittled by them, often hurts the most, but what hurts the reality is accepting any of those words. It was through this book that I learnt that you are what you say to yourself, you are the story you keep telling yourself, although I did talked to me through this same concept few years back, but I think at that point, the negative voices were too loud to hear the feeble sound.
And so the author urges us to keep the positive words loud, louder in your head, keep repeating them as many times as possible, and believe in them, believe in the power of You, and keep believing in it. I can hands down recommend this book to everyone in this world, this is the kind of book you keep going to everyday, the kind of old friend that will solve all your problems.
Foolishly Yours,
Avantika Tanubhrt
Tanubhrt.This.Side 
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