Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / How Nice is Your Self-Talk?

Transcript

How Nice is Your Self-Talk? · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever it is or whatever time it is that you're tuning in.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to welcome you to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way, and thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend with me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Today's topic is something that has actually uh come up several times over the last uh few client sessions that I've had.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's not a specific topic, it's more a generalized uh something I'm noticing, um, and it seems to be really prevalent and something that's uh is of importance to bring to the forefront, which is just self-talk, how we actually talk to ourselves, the voice in our head and what it is we're saying, and noticing, you know, not just what we're saying to ourselves, but how we're saying it to ourselves and just the importance of that.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to take a few minutes today to kind of revisit that topic of self-talk.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is self-talk?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Self-talk is that inner voice that sometimes we're not even aware of.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the the voice that's in our head talking to us, it's intertwined with our emotions, our feelings.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're in a good mood, the positive thoughts become more frequent and intense, and maybe the self-talk is actually uh makes us can contributes that feeling good because we're talking to ourselves in a compassionate positive way.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we experience emotional distress, the negative thoughts might dominate our mind, and then in turn, our inner voice might actually um start having a meaner way, so to speak, of talking to ourselves.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when we really break it down, self-talk is just the way that our brain processes our experiences and combines our conscious thoughts with the unconscious beliefs and cognitive biases.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we how do we, you know, become aware of it and maybe uh take advan advantage, maybe that's not the right way to put it, but really have it be more um something that helps us on our trajectory and our path forward rather than hold us back.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about positive self-talk, it is a useful tool that helps, you know, boost our self-esteem, boost our confidence.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It can uh help us look at a challenging situation and prompt us to maybe think of another way of viewing that situation.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're when we're talking to ourselves in that positive way, it helps us maybe even identify or dial into our strengths that help us either uh celebrate what we're doing and or if we're facing a challenging situation, we're able to dial into those strengths and able to move through it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Positive thoughts and beliefs often start with positive self-talk, and the endless stream of your inner dialogue is uh mostly positive and not and not negative when we're thinking about positive thoughts and positive self-talk.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the research does suggest that there are health benefits of positive thinking and optimism, as that does contribute to self-esteem, it does reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, it helps us better cope with just fear.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about that idea of optimism and we lead it into positive self-talk, we can see how that can help contribute to our overall well-being as well as our ability to face challenging situations and raise our resiliency factor.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a few forms of self-talk uh that are commonly part of the other end of the spectrum, which is the negative self-talk or the part of the spectrum where we're we're actually not being very nice to ourselves.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So one of that, one of the categories of the negative self-talk is catastrophizing.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is a common cognitive distortion that occurs when we automatically anticipate the worst case scenario for the future.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we're catastroph catastrophizing, uh catastrophizing, excuse me, it's filled with negative self-talk that usually intensifies anxiety and depression.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when we are catastrophizing in our minds, and then that creates the self-talk, we're actually creating this world in which we think the worst things are gonna happen.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Other categories of negative self-talk are personalizing that, and that's really blaming or uh personalizing the the um personalizing what may have occurred in the sense of automatically blaming yourself when something negative occurs, and that form of self-talk is putting yourself down and really uh putting ownership of whatever it may be completely on you.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a couple other categories or forms of self-talk are filtering, where you end up blowing up a negative situation or a negative aspect of a situation and completely filter out the positive ones.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like, for instance, if you're having one of those days where it feels like everything has gone wrong, filtering would be the negative self-talk where you're only looking at the bad things that occur rather than also being able to look at maybe the one right thing that has occurred or one positive thing.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh polarizing is when we're not able to see the middle ground of things.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So either it's good or bad.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's very black or white.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we end up doing with that polarization, we will again self-talk into the this, there is no good in this, it's only bad.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that can actually create those feelings of um, you know, self-doubt.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It can actually raise our anxiety, it can raise our level of fear, it can raise our level of guilt or shame.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when we are in those those situations, it's very difficult to have the ability to face challenging, challenging times.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our resiliency factor is so depleted at that point.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do if we find ourselves in these negative talk cycles?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the challenge to the negative inner critic is that the very first thing is to actually be aware of it, be aware of how you are talking to yourself.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it really does require us to become more mindful and being able to slow down and pay attention to what it is that we're saying to ourselves and how we're saying it to ourselves.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then really being uh aware of the decisions that we make.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So catching it when we have a negative thought, it's not about pendulum swinging to the opposite and trying to be positive, but it's it's also about asking the question, well, what also is true, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: When we say something negative about ourselves, it's also about asking, well, is that actually true or what is actually true about myself?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that we can counter the negative thought with maybe a slightly more positive affirmation of who you are or of your strengths, of your abilities.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Other things that we can do that can just help um counteract negative self-talk on the whole is uh really having an active gratitude practice.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is gratitude for yes, things in your personal life and things in your work life, but I say this often, it's about having gratitude for yourself too, and not just for the accomplishments, the things that you're you're doing.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's having gratitude for who you are as a person, recognizing your right being as you are and having gratitude for that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: It does require us to pay attention to the thoughts that we're having and recognizing that it's not about controlling our thoughts, it's noticing them and saying, even with maybe a negative thought, we can expand and get wider and we can have other thoughts too.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's about where we want to put our energy in, to which thoughts we want to actually uh, you know, put our energy into and put our our um our being behind, right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we can have a thought about ourselves that maybe, oh, I really didn't do that really, I didn't do that well today.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we have the quick negative thought about how, you know, maybe we're stupid.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's noticing the thought and then widening and saying, well, that, you know, that thought might be one of my saboteurs, that thought might be my judge saboteur coming up to to criticize me.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And also what's true about me is, you know, I made a decision with the information I had in front of me at the time, and because of my strength of resilience or perseverance, or just my my my strength of um sticking to something and working through it and learning from it, I'm now learning, you know, A, B, and C and I can move forward.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not a pendulum swing where we're like we go from I'm stupid to I'm the smartest person in the world.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's coming to that place of expanding and allowing for other thoughts, more positive ways of seeing ourselves, the ability to see how we can grow and expand to not just focus on the negative self-talk, but to allow for a more positive way to speak to ourselves.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you find yourself struggling with something like this, or you just want to talk about how, how, what you can do to start moving yourself forward into that trajectory, feel free to reach out to me at any time.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can book a time with me at chatwithcomedy.com.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay well, and we will talk soon.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Username it's authentic me.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.