We know that we can't speak to our friends in a negative manner and expect them to stay our friends - so why do we speak to ourselves so negatively? It is no wonder that we are not our own best friends, when all of the self-talk that we hear in our minds is judgment about our bodies, our careers, our lifestyles our very being. Cynthia Kane has the solution. In TALK TO YOURSELF LIKE A BUDDHIST, she defines negative self-talk as the vehicle by which we pass judgments on ourselves for mistakes and circumstances - even for something as trivial as wearing the wrong shoes with the wrong belt! These judgments grow in our minds to become something that we berate ourselves with over and over, with both internalised thoughts and spoken words. To break the power of these words, we have to go back to where the negative self-talk originated. The four-step process of TALK TO YOURSELF LIKE BUDDHIST relies on first becoming aware of the negative self-talk. From there you explore where the self-talk came from and track it back to the original judgment you placed on yourself. You then ask questions about this judgment to see if it holds any truth - in most cases, it doesn't - it's simply a judgment of your mind! Finally, you release yourself from the chains of this judgment and shift your self-talk to the middle path where you can speak to yourself from truth rather than from a place of harmful criticisms or overinflated and false positivity.