Week One: What Are You Saying to Yourself?
Welcome to the first post of Your Great Self!
We all have an internal dialogue that monitors our behavior and provides ongoing feedback regarding our person. This dialogue forms the foundation of our self-esteem, can shape our feelings and thoughts about other people, and can be a determining factor in our mood and whether we’re happy, sad, or angry and a host of other emotional experiences. And most of the time, it’s unkind. The first step to your great self is to learn how to change this dialogue into realistic self-monitoring and positive support.
When we look at changing the dialogue you may have heard the terms “negative self talk” and “positive self talk”. These describe the tone of the dialogue you are engaging in and the outcome that occurs after engaging in the talk. But it’s not enough to put a simple label on the talk. We need to be specific. Generalities in our thinking create real problems in how we interact with the world around us. For example, if you say to yourself “I hate all people who wear red” (I know silly example, but bear with me), you’ve just made a generality that can prevent you from enriching and positive experiences with a wide range of people. And you’ve also created a negative emotional response that will become a pattern and will cause you to feel bad frequently. Sadly, we usually have a lot of these embedded thoughts and emotional patterns that we find ourselves irritable, sad, angry, depressed and feeling poorly about who we are chronically. So let’s start the process of changing these patterns.
In this blog we will begin with step one. Recognizing what we are saying to ourselves. This is the week one challenge and I’ve attached a handout on cognitive generalities most commonly known as “Cognitive Distortions”. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the distortions you most commonly use. Try to even take the week to notice which ones are emerging. Then week two we will start the process of breaking through these! --Katie Handout
We all have an internal dialogue that monitors our behavior and provides ongoing feedback regarding our person. This dialogue forms the foundation of our self-esteem, can shape our feelings and thoughts about other people, and can be a determining factor in our mood and whether we’re happy, sad, or angry and a host of other emotional experiences. And most of the time, it’s unkind. The first step to your great self is to learn how to change this dialogue into realistic self-monitoring and positive support.
When we look at changing the dialogue you may have heard the terms “negative self talk” and “positive self talk”. These describe the tone of the dialogue you are engaging in and the outcome that occurs after engaging in the talk. But it’s not enough to put a simple label on the talk. We need to be specific. Generalities in our thinking create real problems in how we interact with the world around us. For example, if you say to yourself “I hate all people who wear red” (I know silly example, but bear with me), you’ve just made a generality that can prevent you from enriching and positive experiences with a wide range of people. And you’ve also created a negative emotional response that will become a pattern and will cause you to feel bad frequently. Sadly, we usually have a lot of these embedded thoughts and emotional patterns that we find ourselves irritable, sad, angry, depressed and feeling poorly about who we are chronically. So let’s start the process of changing these patterns.
In this blog we will begin with step one. Recognizing what we are saying to ourselves. This is the week one challenge and I’ve attached a handout on cognitive generalities most commonly known as “Cognitive Distortions”. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the distortions you most commonly use. Try to even take the week to notice which ones are emerging. Then week two we will start the process of breaking through these! --Katie Handout
Thank you for this challenge, Katie. I call it that because it's bound to challenge me in my summer busyness complacency. Gardens take work, clients take work, so when do I sit still and take care of my soul/self? So now, with these blog posts, I can sit still and listen to my inner voice. Thanks for the Handout. Have a great day!
ReplyDeleteMy issues are filtering, jumping to conclusions, change, and shoulds. I fully recognize these and knew they were an issue. But I feel, as with many excuses, I had chalked it up to that "being the way I am" mentality that resists change even if I know I need it. Now maybe I will have the tools to set about change. I really need to. I am systematically destroying myself and my relationships with these patterns of behavior. Raymonde, it is wonderful to see you!
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