"The Power of Awareness: How I Learned to Challenge and Change My Negative Thoughts"
Negative self-talk can be a subtle yet powerful force that impacts how we feel, our habits, and overall quality of life. I've struggled with negative self-talk for decades and had very limited awareness that I did. Once I discovered that our thoughts create our emotions, which in turn affect our behaviours, I started paying attention to the automatic thoughts that run through my mind throughout the day, and more importantly, in the situations that unnecessarily activated my nervous system into a fight, flight or freeze state.
Many years ago a counsellor noticed my negative self-talk and recommended an exercise where I sat down and emptied all of my thoughts on paper. I took it a step further and created a handful of categories related to my life (career, parenting, health, hobbies, fun, relationships, etc) for even more clarity. That exercise helped me realize two big things:
I was quite mean to myself. There was a lot of labeling, judgements and I “shoulds” going on.
I noticed one thought that popped up in every category. "I never finish anything." Oddly enough, this thought didn’t help me finish things. lol.
Seeing pages of my internal chatter was an eye opener for me. I slowly started realizing how these negative thoughts were impacting me and holding me back in life. Maybe you relate to some of these too:
Lack of Confidence: The thought “I’m not good enough” or “what if people think I’m dumb” wore down my self confidence, while also not allowing space for self-love or self-compassion.
Increased Anxiety: Constantly thinking about potential negative future outcomes can be very activating to the nervous system. For me, it often lead down a multiple day thought bender that left no room for positive thoughts. Just a real peach to be around.
Holding myself back. I was my number one roadblock. Limiting beliefs and negative thoughts stopped me from taking action many times over. I’m not talking about over achieving, I mean levelling up a notch when there’s more energy, desire, talent and potential available to draw from.
Damaged Relationships: I mean, where do I begin. This was mainly with myself, however it certainly didn’t add anything helpful to any relationships in my life.
A few simple steps I draw from when a negative thoughts arise:
1) Awareness with kindness. Awareness is a crucial first step, the second is not to judge it. Treat it simply as information to notice any patterns, triggers or content that could be useful to dissolve any derailing thoughts.
2) I no longer really care if the thought is true or not, I now question if the thought is helping or hindering me. Of course some thoughts need some time spent with them for more clarity and processing, however the little stuff I try and get rid of right away. Except when I’m driving, always a good reminder there’s more work to do.
3) Change is a process. If you fall off track, get frustrated, pause, or feel like taking a full stop…just treat yourself the same way you’d treat someone you care about who is struggling and needs your help to get back up and try again.
