Since a healthy and confident self-image is the foundation of all relationships, the most important relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself.

Nicholas Boothman, author of How To Make Someone Love You Forever! in 90 Minutes or Less (www.nicholasboothman.com), talked to Balance Television Host Dr. Marla Shapiro about the negative self-talk some of us engage in and how that kind of talk is highly detrimental to all of our relationships.

Our whole destiny is formed by the way we put our experiences into words, Boothman said. "If you learn to explain your experiences in a negative way, it leads you toward pessimism and finding problems. If you have a positive self-talk, it leads you toward optimism and finding opportunity," he said.

Pessimists and optimists have predictable responses, Boothman explained. The pessimist will look outside, see the rain and think: "Now my day is ruined." The optimist will think: "Hey, free car wash." Boothman said that by the time we're adolescents, we've established those patterns in our thinking. But not to worry. It's actually very simple to change the pattern.

It's all about how we make sense of our experiences. The cycle that Boothman named "Making Sense" starts with our experiences, and leads through your thoughts, actions, habits and personality all the way to your destiny, which Boothman said, is determined by our the first step in the cycle: our words.

Boothman used dating as an example of how the way we process language can prevent us from reaching our goals. "You say, 'I can never get a date.' That's incorrect," he said. "If you're consistently not getting dates, you are consistently doing something wrong." Instead of repeating your mistakes, Boothman said, try being more flexible and changing your self-talk.

Flexibility is an important tool in changing your negative patterns. "As we grow up, we get very inflexible," he said. We have to be willing to change our patterns.

Boothman's theories are based around neuro-linguistic therapy, which is the way we use language to program our neurology. By breaking down the words we use in interpreting our experiences, we can change them.

Changing the words you use, re-making your self-talk, Boothman said, will change your destiny.

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