Positive Self Talk

I read this today and it really spoke to me. I found lately that I have been negative in my journals and thought process and depressed.

I hope someone else can benefit from it. I am an emotional eater and I know there are many out there who struggle with this as well.

I hope I am allowed to post this here. Moderators if this is not okay please delete. This information is from about.com

Patterns of negative or positive self-talk often start in childhood. Usually, the self-talk habit is one that’s colored our thinking for years, and can affect us in many ways, influencing the experience of stress to our lives. However, any time can be a good time to change it! Here are some ways you can stop yourself from using negative self-talk and use your mind to boost your productivity and self-esteem, and relieve stress.

Notice Your Patterns:
The first step toward change is to become more aware of the problem. You probably don’t realize how often you say negative things in your head, or how much it affects your experience. The following strategies can help you become more conscious of your internal dialogue and its content.

• Journal Writing: Whether you carry a journal around with you and jot down negative comments when you think them, write a general summary of your thoughts at the end of the day, or just start writing about your feelings on a certain topic and later go back to analyze it for content, journaling can be an effective tool for examining your inner process.

   

• Thought-Stopping: As you notice yourself saying something negative in your mind, you can stop your thought mid-stream my saying to yourself “Stop”. Saying this aloud will be more powerful, and having to say it aloud will make you more aware of how many times you are stopping negative thoughts, and where.

   

• Rubber-Band Snap: Another therapeutic trick is to walk around with a rubber band around your wrist; as you notice negative self-talk, pull the band away from your skin and let it snap back. It’ll hurt a little, and serve as a slightly negative consequence that will both make you more aware of your thoughts, and help to stop them! (Or, if you don’t want to subject yourself to walking around with a rubber band on your wrist, you’ll be even more careful to limit the negative thoughts!)

Replace Negative Statements:
A good way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something better. Once you’re aware of your internal dialogue, here are some ways to change it:

• Milder Wording: Have you ever been to a hospital and noticed how the nurses talk about ‘discomfort’ instead of ‘pain’? This is generally done because ‘pain’ is a much more powerful word, and discussing your ‘pain’ level can actually make your experience of it more intense than if you’re discussing your ‘discomfort’ level. You can try this strategy in your daily life. In your self-talk, turning more powerful negative words to more neutral ones can actually help neutralize your experience. Instead of using words like ‘hate’ and ‘angry’ (as in, “I hate traffic! It makes me so angry!”), you can use words like ‘don’t like’ and ‘annoyed’ (“I don’t like traffic; it makes me annoyed,” sounds much milder, doesn’t it?)

   

• Change Negative to Neutral or Positive: As you find yourself mentally complaining about something, rethink your assumptions. Are you assuming something is a negative event when it isn’t, necessarily? (For example, having your plans cancelled at the last minute can be seen as a negative, but what you do with your newly-freed schedule can be what you make of it.) The next time you find yourself stressing about something or deciding you’re not up to a challenge, stop and rethink, and see if you can come up with a neutral or positive replacement.

   

• Change Self-Limiting Statements to Questions: Self-limiting statements like “I can’t handle this!” or “This is impossible!” are particularly damaging because they increase your stress in a given situation and they stop you from searching for solutions. The next time you find yourself thinking something that limits the possibilities of a given situation, turn it into a question. Doesn’t “How can I handle this?” or “How is this possible?” sound more hopeful and open up your imagination to new possibilities?

You can also help yourself develop more positive self talk by bringing more positive energy into your life. Here are some resources for surrounding yourself with positivity so your mind remains more optimistic and positive.

More About Positive and Negative Self Talk

How Negative Self Talk Can Stress YouBring More Positive Energy Into Your LifePositive Affirmations: How and Why

Develop an Optimistic Attitude For Positive Self Talk

The Benefits of OptimismQuiz: Are You An Optimist?How To Become More of an Optimist

Additional Resources:

Healthy Communication TechniquesGet The Latest Delivered To You!Stress Relievers You Tried as a Child

Related Articles

• Positive Thinking and ADD - Positive Thinking and Adult ADD ADHD
• Turn Around the Negative Self-Talk
• Law of Attraction - Attracting Positives
• The Positive Thinking Worksheet
• The Positive Thinking Worksheet

Guide since 2005

Elizabeth Scott, M.S.
Stress Management Guide

I'm constantly shocked at the amount of self-abusive language that gets bandied around, especially on these boards.  "I'm so fat and ugly" etc.  My view is that you should treat yourself as if you were your best friend.  If you thought your best friend was putting on a little weight or needed to fix her hair up you wouldn't open the conversation with "you're so fat and ugly"..  And if she was trying to lose weight and struggling you wouldn't wade in with 'you're such a failure sabotaging yourself like that'.   No, you'd point out all the great things she'd done already, what a terrific person she was and you'd offer to help... not kick her when she's down.  

The one that is desperately sad is "I shall keep hating myself until I'm 10lbs lighter".... Imagine saying that to someone.  "If you were 10lbs lighter I would like you".  How horribly shallow and nasty is that?

My view is that when push comes to shove, the only person we can ultimately rely on is ourselves.  And if we're constantly referring to ourselves in terms of contempt and acting like the worst bully in existence we've got serious problems.

My view is that you should treat yourself as if you were your best friend.

Or, failing that, a trick I learned from Kate Bornstein in Hello Cruel World - even if you genuinely don't feel love for yourself in a particular moment, "treat yourself like you would treat an honored guest in your house."  Seriously, a lot of us treat people we don't even love a lot better than we treat ourselves.

Some people treat complete strangers in the street better than they treat themselves.... !   First thing in the morning, I'll admit I tout that 'pulled through a hedge backwards and a bit puffy around the eyes' look.  But half an hour later when I've bullied the hair into submission, slapped on the eyeliner & lippie and sucked in my stomach for the cameras I always tell myself... 'not bad for an old bird!'   

I have decided that I have looked in the mirror and called myself something less than complimentary for the last time. I may STILL be 35 pounds overweight but, hey, I'm out there working on it 5 days a week for 60 to 90 minutes. Now that I have started eating the cals I should be, I think the weight will start coming off. I digress.

I am going to start treating myself like my best friend instead of a critical relative.

Well...........I have a lot of reading to do. I had only read what's above but saw all the links attached to it and i'm going to read it all and every day try to find something positive to say about myself and my life. I have read many self help books in my life, some were good and I was able to take something from them and some not so we learn we grow and continually try to better ourselves and our life. It's a continual learning process and journey.

I saw a post here the other day about saying what you DO like about your body. That was an wonderful post and think we should just stop beating ourselves up or like me wondering why I don't have friends. If someone doesn't appreciate my kindness, my kind of bantor or me just being me then they can move and someone will come in my life that can appreciate who I am.

Same for everyone. Just be yourself and be kind to yourself. This is much easier for me to say then do lol but i'm going to try and change my negative self talk.

Here is an about.com link to changing a bad habit. I/We can relate this to many area's of our life.

http://depression.about.com/cs/selfhelp/a/bre akbadhabits.htm

Gi-Jane said it ........we need to treat ourself like our best friend. We wouldn't treat our best friend as some of us on here treat ourselves.

Like Nisira said;  and I have noticed with myself is that I treat people I hardly know with much more compassion and caring then I even do myself.

This is something I can change and start treating myself better. After all i'm the only ME I will ever have.