You may be giving yourself negative messages about yourself. Many people do.
Another name for these messages is negative self-talk.
These are messages that you may have learned when you were young. You learned ideas and attitudes from many different sources including other children, your teachers, family members, caregivers, even from the media, and from prejudice and stigma in our society. What if these lessons are not all positive?
Once you have learned them, you may have repeated these negative messages over and over to yourself, especially when you were not feeling well or when you were having a hard time. You may have come to believe them. You may have even worsened the problem by making up some negative messages or thoughts of your own. These negative thoughts or messages make you feel bad about yourself and lower your self-esteem.
Some examples of common negative messages that people repeat over and over to themselves include: “I am a jerk,” “I am a loser,” “I never do anything right,” “No one would ever like me,” I am a klutz.” Most people believe these messages, no matter how untrue or unreal they are.
They come up immediately in the right circumstance, for instance if you get a wrong answer you think “I am so stupid.” They may include (shame generating) words like should, ought, or must. The messages tend to imagine the worst in everything, especially you, and they are hard to turn off or unlearn.
You may think these thoughts or give yourself these negative messages so often that you are hardly aware of them. Pay attention to them. Carry a small pad with you as you go about your daily routine for several days and jot down negative thoughts about yourself whenever you notice them. Some people say they notice more negative thinking when they are tired, sick, or dealing with a lot of stress. As you become aware of your negative thoughts, you may notice more and more of them.
It helps to take a closer look at your negative thought patterns to check out whether or not they are true. You may want a close friend or counselor to help you with this. When you are in a good mood and when you have a positive attitude about yourself, ask the following questions about each negative thought you have noticed:
- Is this message really true?
- Would a person say this to another person? If not, why am I saying it to myself?
- What do I get out of thinking this thought? If it makes me feel badly about myself, why not stop thinking it?
You could also ask someone else—someone who likes you and who you trust—if you should believe this thought about yourself. Get another, and perhaps more realistic view. Often, just looking at a thought or situation in a new light helps.
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thanks for the post.
Turning negative talk and thoughts about yourself is a challenge for even those who are not addicts.
I read a good book a while back, ‘What to say when you talk to yourself.”
have you read it?