I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now, actually. Not in any formal way. More in that gradual dawning way where you notice something and then you just can’t stop noticing it everywhere.

It started with a coaching client. We were nearly at the end of a session, and she said it almost as an afterthought. “I have to do everything myself. But it’s fine. I’m being daft, aren’t I?” And she laughed. That little laugh people do when they’re consciously trying to make you think it’s nothing at all.

I knew that laugh. I’ve done that laugh. I knew what was underneath it.

It wasn’t nonsense. It was someone who had been ignoring herself for so long that she’d forgotten she was doing it. The very words she was using were ‘I have to’, ‘It's fine’, ‘I'm being silly’, and they weren’t just a description of how she was feeling. They were, in fact, what was keeping her stuck.

That’s what I want to talk about in today’s blog.

I didn’t use to think language mattered this much.

Before training as a certified mindset coach, hypnotherapist and EFT practitioner, I thought the way we spoke was the way things were. I didn’t think it could actually change how things felt.

But the more I’ve trained, sat with clients, and listened to my own inner monologue, the more I’ve seen that it works both ways. The words we use don’t just describe our experience; they actually shape it. They create a filter through which we process everything else.

Psychology has a concept called cognitive appraisal (the idea that how we interpret a situation determines our emotional response). Our language is absolutely central to that appraisal. If we tell ourselves that we ‘have to’ do something, our nervous system responds very differently than if we tell ourselves that we’re ‘choosing’ to do it. The ‘have to’ version puts us into a state of low-level threat. The ‘choosing’ version gives us a bit more agency, a bit more breathing space.

I’m not saying one word swap will fix everything. It won’t. I do think, however, that this sort of thing matters more than we generally give it credit for.

So what actually are disempowering words?

They’re the little everyday phrases that strip you of your sense of choice. The difficult thing is they don’t feel like anything at all. That’s precisely why they’re so easy to overlook.

Things like ‘I should’, ‘I have to’, ‘I can’t’, ‘I’ll just’, ‘I'm fine’, ‘I don’t mind’, ‘I'm being silly’ are so embedded in the way we speak that they’re practically invisible. And that invisibility is the very problem.

Because underneath each one is a little story, and those stories add up.

“I should” tells you you’re not up to standard. “I have to” tells you nothing is a choice. “I’ll just” tells you your needs are trivial and can wait. “It's fine” tells you your feelings aren’t important. Over time, those narratives start to feel like the truth. Like that’s just the way it is. And once you’ve bought into that, you stop questioning it.

What I’ve noticed in myself and in the people I work with is that the effect is a kind of exhaustion. More of a generalised depletion. A sense of just going through the motions. Of life happening to you rather than happening alongside you.

The phrases I hear most (and have definitely said myself)

“I should...”

This one is a quiet bully, really. “I should be further along”. “I should find this easier”. “I should be more grateful”. It measures you against some standard no one has actually set, and you’re just a little bit short of it.

I used to say that all the time. I still catch it. What I’ve noticed is that “should” simply doesn’t get you going in any real way. It just creates a constant background hum of guilt which gradually saps your energy.

Trying “I’d like to...” or “I could...” makes a difference. “I'd like to move a bit more this week” leaves the door open. “I should exercise more” just makes you feel even worse about not doing it.

“I have to...”

I had a client earlier this year who constantly said she was “just terrible at prioritising”. But the moment we looked at her language, every sentence began with ‘I have to’. Everything on her list was urgent, was essential, was a must-do. It wasn’t a surprise she couldn’t prioritise. To her, it wasn’t a choice.

The swap I often recommend is ‘I’m choosing to...’, and people are typically very quiet when they first try it. ‘I'm choosing to put myself last again’ is an uncomfortable thing to say out loud. That discomfort is actually the useful bit. That’s where the real awareness kicks in.

“I’ll just...”

This one’s very much my own! A while back I told myself I’d ‘just’ check a few emails before lunch. By the time I looked up, it was 3.00. I ate my soup (reheated it twice and it was still quite cold). I was grumpy for the rest of the afternoon.

It sounds funny, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. I hadn’t decided at all. I’d just drifted. And “just” does that. It makes your needs sound trivial. Something you can put off for a bit. Something that’s not really all that important.

Trying “I'm going to do this first”, or even dropping the word “just” altogether, gives your needs a bit more weight. They start to sound like things that actually matter.

“I don’t have time...”

This one traps us because it feels like a fact, even if it isn’t. We do have time. We’re just choosing to prioritise other things. That’s perfectly OK as long as we’re doing it on purpose.

The swap that tends to bite the hardest is “It’s not a priority at the moment”. It sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it? The moment you say it, though, you get to decide whether that is actually acceptable to you. And it often isn’t. That’s often when clients make a small but significant change.

“I can’t...”

‘Can’t’ is a feeling that has decided it’s a fact. It shuts the door before you’ve even got a chance to look through it properly. Its finality is what makes it so restrictive. If something feels impossible, then we stop.

“I’m not ready yet” is quite different. It’s honest, it’s kind, and it leaves the door open. That little bit of openness is often all it takes.

“I’m fine” and “I’m being silly”

These are the ones that really hit me, if I’m being honest. They’re not just statements, really. They’re a decision to turn your back on yourself before anyone else even gets a chance.

A good body of research on emotional suppression indicates that if you consistently suppress or invalidate your own feelings, they don’t just disappear. They can show up as irritability, low energy, and a general sense of being off. It’s hard to put into words.

When someone says “I'm being silly” about something that is clearly bothering them, what I usually pick up underneath is, “I don't feel I'm allowed to need this”. That always breaks my heart because they are very much allowed to need it.

“This matters to me” is a much softer starting point. You could say it out loud; you could say it quietly to yourself. The point is that once you start taking your own feelings seriously, the rest falls into place.

“I don’t mind” or “Whatever you think”

This one often comes from genuine kindness and can be entirely true in some instances, and that’s perfectly acceptable. The problem arises when it becomes your default reaction, as it can very quietly undermine your sense of what you actually want.

I’ve had clients sit with me who, when I’ve asked them what they’d really like, didn’t know. It’s just that they’d spent so long not asking themselves that the link has effectively gone quiet.

“Actually, I'd quite like...” is well worth practising, even in the small things, even just for a meal. It’s a simple thing to do, but it’s a powerful way to reconnect with yourself.

Why this matters for your wellness (not just your mindset)

This isn’t about thinking more positively. This is about your relationship with your own experience.

If your language consistently tells you that you don’t have any choices, your nervous system will believe it. If it tells you that your needs are trivial and your feelings are silly, you will stop attending to them. And if you stop attending to your own needs and feelings for a long time, that has a very real effect on your wellness. It will affect your energy, your resilience and your ability to feel joy, to rest and to feel genuinely connected.

The language is the surface. What’s underneath is your sense of self, how much you trust yourself and whether you actually feel you have any agency in your own life.

Which is why gently shifting some of those words is no small thing at all. It’s a significant act of self-respect.

How to start without making it another thing to get right

One phrase. That’s all.

Please don’t start monitoring every word you say after reading this. That would be exhausting and would also undermine the point.

Just pick one phrase from above, the one that felt most familiar. This week, see if you can notice when you say it. Don’t judge it. Just notice. Where are you? What are you doing? How are you feeling?

Then when you’re ready to give it a go, try the swap. It’ll probably feel a bit awkward the first few times round. That’s absolutely normal. Any new language will feel a bit awkward at first.

And then, ideally, it should lead to one small real choice. One thing you actually do differently for a moment. Sitting down and eating your lunch properly. Going to bed when you’re actually tired. Saying what you actually think rather than ‘I don’t mind’. Saying to someone, “Actually, I'm not okay”, rather than “It's fine”.

That’s where the real shift occurs. Not in the words per se, but in the small, kinder things they start to make possible.

A few questions worth sitting with

If you like to journal, or indeed think things through over a cuppa, these might be worth going back to:

• Which phrase do I use most often?

• Where in my day do I actually have the least choice?

• What am I actually feeling when I say “it’s fine”?

• When did I last actually ask myself what I really needed and truly listen to the answer?

• What’s one little kind thing I could do for myself this week?

No right answers. Just a little honest, gentle attention turned inward.

One last thing

I keep coming back to that client. The one who just laughed and said she was being silly.

She wasn’t silly. She’d learned at some point that her needs were an inconvenience and that the right thing to do was to carry on and not make a big deal. Her whole life had been built around that principle.

The words we use every day are, in fact, doing something. They either reinforce the narrative that you really don’t have a choice, or they gently and gradually open things up. It’s not a dramatic thing. It’s a slow, quiet, cumulative process. But it does happen. And noticing it now is already a start.

Until next week, cheering you on to wellness success

Katie x

P.S. If this has resonated and you’re curious about what real, sustainable wellness could look like for you, I’d love to have a proper conversation. Just a chance to understand what’s actually going on for you and explore what kind of support I can offer that might genuinely help. Reply to this email, and let’s arrange a chat.