Month: September 2025

Ever been scolded for the errors of your younger siblings? Being told you’re responsible. That is a concept I never understood. Do you know how hard it is to keep a younger sibling in check? It was like I was Jesus carrying the sins of somebody else. The weight of responsibility, the frustration, the guilt,…

Overcoming Self-Toxicity: Breaking Free from Negative Self-Talk

For the longest time, I believed the hardest battles were the ones fought with people around me—the arguments, the misunderstandings, the heartbreaks. But over time, I realized that the most exhausting and relentless fight was the one happening inside my own head. My inner critic was my loudest, harshest enemy. It didn’t need to say much; just a quiet, constant drip of doubt and judgment that seeped into every part of my life.

Self-toxicity isn’t always about someone else being toxic to you. Sometimes, it’s about you being toxic to yourself. It’s that voice that criticizes your every move, tells you you’re not enough, that your best will never be good enough, and that mistakes are proof you should give up. It’s negative self-talk dressed up as “realism,” self-sabotage masquerading as self-care, and perfectionism disguised as discipline. And honestly, it’s exhausting.

Why do we become this way toward ourselves? For me, it’s rooted in fear. Fear of failing, fear of disappointing others, fear of never measuring up. Sometimes it’s the weight of past wounds—those moments when someone told me I wasn’t worth it, or when I internalized a small failure as a life sentence. Other times, it’s the pressure from society, from social media, from constant comparisons that whisper, “You must be flawless, productive, always on, and never vulnerable.”