Negative self talk can be as insidious as the office gossip or the school yard bully! Negative thoughts about self impact on your mood and exacerbate symptoms of anxiety. When working with clients we reinforce the importance of being kind to yourself. This includes not only doing something each day for self care but also paying attention to what your internal thoughts say about you as an individual.
Do you find yourself saying “I always mess things up”, “I’m such a fool” “I’m not good enough”? Do you even notice that you’re sometimes being unkind to yourself? Common forms of negative self talk are: Personalising and blaming yourself for situations which haven’t gone as planned; Catastrophising – making something so much bigger or worse than it actually is; Filtering – forgetting all the positive things that have happened and focusing only on the negative.
It’s so important to change negative self talk patterns. Here’s a few strategies to get you started on your path to self kindness:
- Become aware of when your thoughts about self are negative. Awareness allows opportunity for change!
- Challenge those negative self talk patterns.
- Practise positive self talk!
- Reassess your thoughts by stepping outside of yourself and questioning the validity of what you’re saying.
- Focus on the present moment by activating your 5 senses with some mindfulness.
- Visualise putting your negative thought patterns in a box, tightly tied up with string OR drop them into the deepest part of the ocean! The sky’s the limit when it comes to how you make those negative thoughts more difficult to access.
And finally, a reminder that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Challenging and changing negative thought processes may take time. But trust the process and practise daily self care to be kind to your mind!
