There's so much evidence out there about the benefits of positive self-talk. If you click on the link above, you'll get to my initial Google search on the topic, but you know how to poke around online for yourself, so even without that link, I'm sure you can find tons of interesting articles about how important it is to speak to yourself (sometimes in the distanced third-person) in kind and forgiving ways.
Even knowing this connection between what we tell ourselves and how we feel/what we can accomplish, sometimes it's still difficult to quiet the doubt in our minds. I don't often suffer from Negative Nelly-ness, but once that inner voice saying "YOU CAN'T" rears its ugly head, I sometimes have a hard time telling it to shut the front door.
Recently, when one of the Peloton instructors (Sorry, as is often the case, I don't remember who or in which class) told me to sing along with the soundtrack, not only to have fun belting out great hits but also to silence my inner complainer telling me the set was difficult, I lit up. Self-singing is one-upping my arsenal in the war between two inner voices: the annoying "This is hard" and the helpful "I can do hard things". It's nearly impossible to sing snappy tunes at top volume while silently cutting myself down.
So if you see me jogging along outside with my earphones in and my jaw flapping up and down, know that I'm drowning out a monologue that isn't serving me.
Whether you're working out or working to survive a tough time, crank up a song with lyrics you know and sing-scream the words. Feel free to play air guitar or drums or bass, if those serve the cause. And take note of how the inner demons disappear. Then, write about your experience in the comments.