“I just can’t take it anymore.”
“Why is it always me?”
Phrases like these might sound like harmless venting, but according to Sonia Díaz Rois—my coach, mentor, and an expert in emotional management and anger—repetition turns them into something far more damaging. “The more you say it, the more your brain believes it’s true. Eventually, it stops being an exaggeration and starts feeling like reality,” she told me with striking certainty.
In that moment, I mentally fast-forwarded through my day and cringed at how often I’d muttered some version of defeat. What Díaz Rois was really saying was this: our words are not just descriptions, they’re signals. They reveal our inner dialogue—and sometimes, they warn us it’s time for a reset.
Words That Build—or Break—Us
Over the next week, I started paying closer attention to my own language. I noticed that my first thoughts were overwhelmingly negative, rooted in doubt rather than trust. I wasn’t just unkind to myself; I wasn’t even giving myself a chance.
“Language doesn’t just reflect reality, it creates it,” Díaz Rois reminded me. “Every word we choose activates certain pathways in the brain. It shapes how we feel, how we think, and how we act. Compare ‘I’m falling apart’ with ‘I’m having a rough day.’ Or ‘This is a disaster’ versus ‘This is a challenge.’ The difference may look small, but the impact is enormous.”
Negative speech doesn’t just trap us—it traps the people listening. Constant complaints like “nothing ever works out” or “nobody gets me” don’t only reinforce a victim mindset, they weigh down every conversation, keeping us stuck in cycles of tension.
Complaining: Venting or Self-Sabotage?
We all complain—it’s a quick release, like popping the steam off a pressure cooker. But when griping becomes our default language, we cement the very problems we’re trying to escape.
“Complaining is like a rocking chair,” writes Salvo Noè, author of Forbidden to Complain. “It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” Neuroscience backs him up: repeated negative speech damages neurons in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that drives problem-solving and creativity. In other words, the more you complain, the less able you become to actually fix what you’re complaining about.
Shifting the Script
The real breakthrough, for me, was reframing absolute phrases like “I can’t handle this” or “this always happens to me.” As Díaz Rois explained, these absolutes feel like background elevator music—so constant that you stop noticing them, yet they quietly dictate your mood and choices.
When I caught myself saying “I can’t handle this,” I swapped it for “I need a break.” Suddenly, instead of standing on the edge of collapse, I was giving myself permission to pause, reset, and try again.
At home, when I saw our messy kitchen, instead of yelling “Ugh, this is always such a disaster,” I said to my roommate, “Hey, the kitchen’s pretty messy today—could you help me out?” To my surprise, she responded warmly, and the tension disappeared. My shift in language seemed to ripple outward, changing not just how I felt but how others responded to me.
The Power of Small Edits
Over time, I eliminated words like “never,” “always,” “everyone,” and “no one.” I stopped letting them define my experiences or box me into impossible absolutes. Suddenly, one bad moment didn’t ruin an entire day. One mistake wasn’t the end of the story—it was just a detour.
“By changing your language, you rewire your brain,” Díaz Rois explained. “You become more flexible, more creative. You stop being a threat to yourself or to others and start being someone people can truly communicate with.”
After just a few weeks, I found myself lighter, freer, even hopeful. The words I chose were no longer limiting me—they were leading me somewhere better.
And maybe that’s the real point: changing the way you speak is not just about sounding positive. It’s about reclaiming your own narrative—and reminding your brain that you’re capable of writing a different ending.
