We have all had those moments where someone else catches us talking to ourself. For a split second, we feel embarrassed over the thought of getting caught doing something odd, but have you ever thought about the words you are actually saying to yourself and how this affects you?

Words are a powerful weapon, strong enough to speak life or death to your soul. Think about it, when you have conversations with friends and are seeking comfort, their words bring comfort, heal, and affirm. When you are reading beautiful words written on a page, they come alive, inspire, and nourish your mind. When your lover whispers sweet words of romance, your heart melts, and you feel loved. Words have the power to help us feel certain emotions. Whether through conversations, reading, or listening to music, the words spoken have an impact on our overall being. So the words we speak over ourself have significant power to build us up or bring us down.

As a graduate student in Communications, I have researched intrapersonal communication (self-talk), and the significant power that conversations with ourselves have on our confidence level. I specifically examined how students can integrate positive self-talk as they are preparing for their speeches for public speaking classes.

When you practice self-talk, you enhance your EI "emotional intelligence." EI is your ability to monitor your own feelings and emotions to guide your thinking and actions. The more you practice positive self-talk, you can motivate yourself, control impulse, regulate your moods, and become more hopeful. Practicing positive self-talk will help you to keep anxiety from hindering your ability to think clearly.

Positive self-talk will help you to build confidence in yourself, and you will see yourself succeed. I encourage my students in my public speaking class to speak positively over themself before they give their speeches. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy when you predict or expect something, and it comes true because you believe it. So practice speaking positive words so you can change your mind to believe in yourself.

If you wake up and say, "I have way too many things to do. I am never going to accomplish anything this day," then that is precisely what will happen.

If you wake up and say, "I am capable of completing my tasks at work today, and I can get it done," then that is precisely what will happen.

The words you speak have the power to alter your thinking and make you believe either you are capable or not capable. The choice of how you articulate your words to be either positive or negative is yours. Choose to speak positive words to yourself, be kind to you. You are too precious and too valuable, and you do not deserve to hear damaging words spoken to you from your own mouth. Reflect on the words you are talking to yourself. Consider is this hurting me or building me up? How am I making myself feel? Self-talk affects you, so start checking to see how you nourish your mind and soul.

"A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword." -Robert Burton