From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsay to yourselfsay to yourselfTHINK something/HAVE A THOUGHTto try to persuade yourself that something is true or not true I kept saying to myself that this wasn’t really happening. → say
Examples from the Corpus
say to yourself• "Face it, Jack, you're getting old, " he said to himself.• His wife, Tess said to herself.• Just look at him, Blue says to himself.• We think, but we don't really know what they were saying to each other behind closed doors.• Another few weeks, he says to himself, and every morning will be like this one.• I said to myself: ridiculous.• The worm will turn, he said to himself silently.• I said to myself that the world is revolting and man is pitiful. 