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I've always been confused by this whole concept of telling myself things about myself. I see it regularly in self-help things - "You just need to tell yourself 'I'm a good person'" or whatever - but it doesn't even begin to make sense to me.
I don't understand how it's supposed to work. I'm not two different people, so I can't tell myself something that I don't already know. If it's true and I can say it to myself, that's necessarily because I already know it. And it's not as if I can bullshit myself without knowing that that's what I'm doing.
Sorry - probably not the sort of response you were hoping for.
I thought that I was the same as you, but actually I realise I 'tell myself' things all the time.
Mostly it feels like I'm bullshitting myself with things I 'know to be true' to drown out irrational things I feel.
Do you never have irrational monkeybrain chatter? Like, "I don't feel like I'm ever going to be good at X"; only to reassure yourself that you'll get better as you practice? If I ever feel disheartened, I often 'tell myself' that I'm not special enough to be uniquely incapable of learning whatever it is.
I put 'tell myself' in quotes because none of this actually happens in slow full language sentences in my head. It can, but bothering to sound out the whole thought seems silly and inefficient somehow. Mostly it happens in fragmented feelings and flashes of remembered sensations.
You are not two different people but you have different roles throughout your day and life. Like there may be a childish part that loves to do fun stuff or a grown up part that makes sure you properly care of yourself and so on.
Your thoughts can be viewed as a kind of communication between these parts e.g. when you are conflicted because you'd love to watch one more episode of your favorite tv show even though it's late and you know you'll be tired tomorrow. On the decision making progress your different "parts" communicate and sooner or later you come to a decision.
Beside this situational communication there may be also things we internalized e.g. because our parents told us or because we came to the respective conclusion. Like "if I don't do my work properly, my coworkers will be mad".
Sometimes the relation between your "conscious parts" is off or the internalized thoughts are bad for you. That's why it can be good to be more aware of what you're actually thinking. It's just you in there, but a lot of you.
Similar to people telling me that I need to talk about things. It’s not like I can’t analyze things in my mind. I guess everyone has different brains.