Self-talk can become one-sided, centered on a negative dialogue of despair, regrets, frustration, confusion and doubts. The voice of forgiveness is rarely heard and the chorus of optimism, hope, and joy are drowned out.
Take some time to think about how you treat yourself.
- Are you your own drainer or filler?
- Do you make it a habit of pointing out the positive?
- Is your self-talk a constant stream of emphasizing the negative?
- How do you talk to yourself when you make a mistake?
- How do you talk to yourself when negative circumstances occur?
Imagine you’ve just had an automobile accident. No one is injured but your car is badly damaged. The accident is your fault. Write down three things you would say to yourself.
You might write down negative comments about yourself, your driving habits, your worth as a person, your intellectual capacity. Or possibly, you will write comments that will only partially accept responsibility for the accident. In other words, you may have a tendency to magnify your blame or minimize your responsibility. Neither of these perspectives is helpful to the situation.
Magnifying is harmful because it crushes you as an individual and leaves no room for forgiveness. Minimizing is harmful because it does not allow you to learn from the situation and become a better person. Neither option allows you to experience the truth and grow.
Take the example of this hypothetical situation and consider that you carry on conversations like this with yourself multiple times each day. It’s usually not over something as dramatic as an automobile accident, but the cumulative effect can be significant. It’s the internal dialogue you have with yourself as you’re driving to work, as you carry out tasks during the day, as you interact with others, as you react to hundreds of small events.
If your self-talk is out of balance, either magnifying or minimizing your role in each day’s events, your ability to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself is compromised. When you magnify, you make yourself a victim to your own perfectionism. When you minimize, you keep yourself a captive to your own mistakes.
Telling the Truth
One way you can work toward a healthier relationship with yourself is through more realistic and truthful self-talk. For example, in the situation of the automobile accident, it is healthy to acknowledge your role in the accident. It is also healthy to realize that accidents do happen. It is healthy to be grateful that no one was injured and that you have insurance to help repair the damages. So, as you are talking to yourself about the accident you neither beat yourself up nor let yourself off-the-hook.
There is great value in acknowledging and affirming the truth, about situations and about yourself in those situations. Having the courage to accept and integrate the truth builds self-esteem. In the scenario of the automobile accident, it is true that you were at fault for the accident, but it is also true that you accept responsibility, that you pledge to do all you can to make it right, and that you put the accident into context and allow it to make you a better driver. You can feel good knowing that you have done the right thing, even in a difficult situation.
Often, other people will not tell you the truth either because they don’t know the truth or they are threatened by it. In any case, it may be that the only person who will tell the truth is you. That is why it is imperative that your self-talk affirm the truth when no one else around you will. That is why the first step to overcoming depression is to recognize, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy. Life-affirming self-talk allows you to recognize the truth.
The above is excerpted from Turning Your Down Into Up: A Realistic Plan for Healing from Depression by Gregory L. Jatntz, PhD.