Morning Vibes With Dr Jerry - The First-Episode 144/Stopping Negative Self Talk

Sunday                          4th February 2018

Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First

Hello and welcome to #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 144

Title:          If You Have To Choose Yourself First This Year, These Are The 8 Things To Throw Overboard - Stopping Negative Self Talk

In continuation of our discussion on the habits to drop like a piece of hot charcoal if you have to choose yourself first this 2018.

Yesterday we took a look at Overcoming Self Doubt and discussed in details what it is and how it can be overcome in order to move forward

Today we are taking a look at  Stopping Negative Self Talk

Most people don’t realize it, but as we go about our daily lives we are constantly thinking about and interpreting the situations we find ourselves in.

It’s as though we have an internal voice inside our head that determines how we perceive every situation.

Psychologists call this inner voice ‘self-talk‘, and it includes our conscious thoughts as well as our unconscious assumptions or beliefs.

Much of our self-talk is reasonable — ‘I’d better do some preparation for that exam’, or ‘I’m really looking forward to that match’.

However, some of our self-talk is negative, unrealistic or self-defeating — ‘I’m going to fail for sure’, or ‘I didn’t play well! I’m hopeless’.

Self-talk is often skewed towards the negative, and sometimes it’s just plain wrong.

If you are experiencing depression, it is particularly likely that you interpret things negatively.

That’s why it’s useful to keep an eye on the things you tell yourself, and challenge some of the negative aspects of your thinking.

You can test, challenge and change your self-talk. You can change some of the negative aspects of your thinking by challenging the irrational parts and replacing them with more reasonable thoughts.

With practice, you can learn to notice your own negative self-talk as it happens, and consciously choose to think about the situation in a more realistic and helpful way.

Challenging the Self-Talk

Disputing your self-talk means challenging the negative or unhelpful aspects. Doing this enables you to feel better and to respond to situations in a more helpful way.

Learning to dispute negative thoughts might take time and practice, but is worth the effort.

Once you start looking at it, you’ll probably be surprised by how much of your thinking is inaccurate, exaggerated, or focused on the negatives of the situation.

Whenever you find yourself feeling depressed, angry, anxious or upset, use this as your signal to stop and become aware of your thoughts. Use your feelings as your cue to reflect on your thinking.

A good way to test the accuracy of your perceptions might be to ask yourself some challenging question.

These questions will help you to check out your self-talk to see whether your current view is reasonable.

This will also help you discover other ways of thinking about your situation.

There are four main types of challenging questions to ask yourself:

1. Reality testing

What is my evidence for and against my thinking?

Are my thoughts factual, or are they just my interpretations?

Am I jumping to negative conclusions?

How can I find out if my thoughts are actually true?

2. Look for alternative explanations

Are there any other ways that I could look at this situation?

What else could this mean?

If I were being positive, how would I perceive this situation?

3. Putting it in perspective

Is this situation as bad as I am making out to be?

What is the worst thing that could happen? How likely is it?

What is the best thing that could happen?

What is most likely to happen?

Is there anything good about this situation?

Will this matter in five years time?

When you feel anxious, depressed or stressed-out your self-talk is likely to become extreme, you’ll be more likely to expect the worst and focus on the most negative aspects of your situation. So, it’s helpful to try and put things into their proper perspective.

4. Using goal-directed thinking

Is thinking this way helping me to feel good or to achieve my goals?

What can I do that will help me solve the problem?

Is there something I can learn from this situation, to help me do it better next time?

Recognizing that your current way of thinking might be self-defeating (e.g., it doesn’t make you feel good or help you to get what you want) can sometimes motivate you to look at things from a different perspective.

You can conquer your negative self-talk today by challenging yourself with these questions every time you catch yourself thinking something negative to yourself.

Negative Self-Talk: Top 10 Things NOT to Say to Yourself

1. I’m not worth it.

This is a direct assault on your self-esteem and it is simply not true!

Telling yourself you are not “worth it” only perpetuates negative beliefs you may have picked up early in life.

2. There’s no use.

Telling yourself there is no use steals your personal power and leaves you with no motivation.

3. I can’t do it.

Again, very disempowering. There are times when you truly cannot do something, however, most of the time this one is delivered as more of a self-attack than a statement of fact.

4. I’ll never follow through.

This is a set up for failure before you really get started. We all know that success comes one day at a time.

Telling yourself you will fail before you get started is shooting yourself in the foot.

5. People won’t like me.

A set up for rejection. When you enter a new situation telling yourself that people won’t like you, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy!

6. Others are better than I am.

We all tend to compare ourselves to others.

Sometimes we exercise prejudice against ourselves, though.

Telling yourself that others are better than you is an assault on your self-worth.

7. I am not enough.

A huge one for people who feel inadequate to meet the demands of life.

A sense of personal inadequacy is very discouraging – don’t reinforce it!

8. I must be perfect.

The way to guarantee failure is to criticize yourself whenever you are imperfect, which is all the time.

We are perfectly imperfect!

9. My opinion doesn’t matter.

More low self-esteem in this statement.

To say this one to yourself, you must consider yourself unworthy.

10. I’ll never be any different.

We say this as if we are written failure into stone.

It’s a hopeless thought.

Just say no to this one!

What To Do About Negative Self-Talk

Follow these steps to get a better handle on your negative self-talk:

1. Catch yourself. 

So often we run on autopilot and allow our minds to ruin our day.

So, start each day with the conscious goal to catch yourself saying negative things.

2. Call a spade a spade. 

Next, label what you just said!

Recognize it as negative self-talk.

3. Use the following formula:

 “I just had the thought…” (repeat the negative thought here).

If you caught yourself saying, “I am not worth it,” for example, then you would pause and say, “I just had the thought, ‘I am not worth it.’”

Using this formula securely labels the thought as a mere thought.

If you do not realize that what you said was just a thought, you run a higher risk of taking it personally and allowing it to ruin your day.

4. Take a deep breath and move on!

9 Ways to Stop the Incredible Damage of Negative Self Talk

You’ve heard it before—you’re your own worst critic.

Here’s how to silence that nagging voice in your head.

1.      See yourself more accurately

Parts of your brain are hardwired to scan for problems, meaning they’ll latch onto your weaknesses and magnify them, says Amy Johnson, PhD, psychologist, life coach, and author of The Little Book of Big Change. “The thing that your mind is fixating on and seeing as this imperfection and horrible flaw, that’s pretty biased,” she says.

Once you recognize that your mind isn’t telling the truth, you can let criticisms become background noise instead of a disruptive roar

2.      Focus on your good traits

“It’s hard to forget pain, but it’s easy to forget what makes us happy,” says Irina Popa-Erwin, founder of The NYC Life Coach.

To remind yourself of your best qualities, she recommends looking in the mirror and finding three things you like about yourself every day for three months. “At the beginning you might not believe it—you’re just saying it because you gave yourself that assignment,” she says. “At the end of three months, you’ll actually embrace them because of the repetition that you keep telling yourself.”

3.      Know what to blame on your mood

Just as you should give yourself time to cool off before sending an angry email, learn to ignore self-loathing when you’re feeling generally down. “Imperfections and flaws tend to change day to day and by our mood,” Johnson says. “When we’re in a bad mood, we think we have all kinds of problems. When we’re in a good mood, all of a sudden those problems don’t seem so big.” Once you’ve had a chance to cheer up, you’ll probably find that the failings you saw before aren’t worth dwelling on. 

4.      Ask yourself why you care

Do you want toned arms for your own benefit or because you're worried about what other people think about your appearance?

Popa-Erwin says understanding your real values and dreams will help you be more content when your shortcomings don’t stack up to others’ expectations (or what you think they expect). “I tell people to find what they want. Not based on what society says, not based on what their circle of friends has,” she says. “That will be different standards.” If your priority is spending time with family, don’t sweat the fact that you can’t spend hours at the gym.

5.      Understand your inner critic has good intentions

“Never criticize the voices inside you that criticize you,” says Melissa Sandfort, IFSCP, founder of A Thousand Paths life coaching. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Instead of resenting your negative thoughts, appreciate their helpful purposes, she says.

After all, beating yourself up over eating too many cookies is your mind’s way of trying to get your body healthier.

Understand why you’re having those thoughts, but don’t believe them when they say you’re inadequate.

6.      Learn to accept—not love—your flaws

If you try persuading yourself you love your imperfections, your inner lie detector will go crazy. “To convince yourself it’s a good thing can be sort of annoying,” Johnson says. “You know your giving yourself a pep talk, and it falls short.”

Instead of forcing a positive spin on your weaknesses, give yourself perspective and remind yourself they seem worse to you than they really are.

7.      Recognize what you’re beating yourself up over

Then decide what steps you’ll make to better yourself, Popa-Erwin says. The key is to pick steps you’re willing to take, not ones you feel obligated to take. “If you say what you’re willing to do, then you’re already a step forward and will feel much better because you see progress,” she says. Then build a long-term plan to work at it, checking your progress every few months to remind yourself how far you’ve come.

8.      Recognize your accomplishments

Maybe your presentation at work didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, but that single shortcoming doesn’t define you.

Remind yourself of everything else you’ve accomplished and that disappointment won’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

“There is not one person on this earth who didn’t accomplish something,” Popa-Erwin says. “It could be saying ‘hi’ to someone, smiling at someone, helping a friend in need, or listening.”

Reminding yourself often of these little wins can change your mindset and help you embrace the bright side of your failures, she says.

9.      Address your vulnerabilities

Criticizing your flaws is usually self-defense. Painful past experiences leave you vulnerable, with your mind trying to prevent that shame, anger, or lack of control again by criticizing you when you make those same mistakes again. But often, the flaw really isn’t as big of a deal as your mind makes it out to be, Sandfort says.

Figuring out why you started to hate that weaknesses can put it back in perspective. “Go to your vulnerable parts and witness the pain they’ve been carrying, and then they can let go of it and not be as vulnerable as in the past,” Sandfort says.

Once you’ve accepted your past, your mind won’t have to work so hard to protect you from letting it happen again and you’ll react less strongly.

Until I come your way again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst

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