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Tag Archives: Self-talk

No. 160: Call On Your Compassionate Self

April 17, 2015 11:09 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing…
… create a compassionate self to call on in times of stress and distress. We often have a strong self-critic or even a self-bully that pipes up to tell us all the worst things about ourselves and what we are going through. If we reflect on our self-talk in times of distress we might notice we use blaming, judgmental and sometimes downright mean words with ourselves that leave us feeling ten times worse. Having a compassionate self allows us to use soothing, understanding, non-judgmental, kind and supportive words with ourselves instead of or in response to the self-critic or the self-bully. Start out by creating a character map of your compassionate self.It’s easiest to do all this on a piece of paper, in writing or drawing, to make it concrete and give us something to come back to later.

1. First, think about what compassion means to you. If you find it difficult to be compassionate towards yourself, it might help to think of what another compassionate person might do, or even what you are like when you are being compassionate towards other people. Think about what you might need from your compassionate self and what compassion involves for you. Is your compassionate self forgiving, respectful, kind, aware of what is important to you, caring, accepting, warm, humorous or all of those things and more? What does your compassionate self think about making mistakes, flaws, limitations, weaknesses, failures, and negative life events?

2. The next step is building a visual image for your compassionate self. What does your compassionate self look like? They could look like someone who has treated you with compassion in the past, a creature you have found comforting or it could look like you when you are being compassionate, understanding and kind to someone you care about. Think about what facial expressions and gestures your compassionate self might make to show their empathy, understanding and warmth and what it feels like to be near that. How does your compassionate self look at you? What do they do when they see you suffer?

3. Next you need to create a voice for your compassionate self. What does your compassionate self sound like? Think about what tone of voice it uses, what it sounds like, how loud its voice is and how fast it speaks. Finally, create some words for your compassionate self. What does your compassionate self say to you? Think about what words and phrases your compassionate self uses to soothe, show kindness and be understanding. It’ s easiest to do all this on a piece of paper, in writing or drawing, to make it concrete and give you something to come back to later.

Now you are ready to practice, take one to two minutes a day to sit mindfully with your thoughts about the day ahead and practice responding to them with this compassionate self you are learning to build inside you. Have a little conversation with them. What would this kind, accepting part of you say back to these thoughts and feelings you are holding right now? What would they offer you? How would they do it? Whenever you notice other thoughts distracting you, describe them to yourself, respond to them using your compassionate self and return to visualising yourself talking to my compassionate self about the coming day.

Once you are familiar with visualising your compassionate self and responding to your thoughts with a compassionate voice, add “Call on Your Compassionate Self” to your Personal Coping Kete as a way of coping with stress and distress. You will be able to call on the compassionate part of yourself to support yourself through stressful times with soothing, kind, respectful and understanding words, ideas and images, instead of being pushed along by your mind’ s negative self-talk on autopilot.

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No. 157: Thank You, Brain

July 17, 2014 12:14 pm ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...

...practice noticing and naming the stories your brain tells you and thanking your brain for trying to keep you safe, in all senses of the word. We usually all have a few chains of thought that repeatedly pop up to trigger stress and distress and pull us away from the things we really want to be doing. We can think of these repetitive thought patterns as stories our minds have learned to tell us to try to keep us safe. In a way our brains are automatic storytellers. Often we get caught up and stuck in the stories our minds are throwing up at us. One way to detach from those stories and take the heat out of the distress they create, is to practice naming each of the stories and then literally thanking our brain for doing its job. We don't need to believe, accept or agree with the story - and if we do, that doesn't mean we get much out of being caught up in it or responding to it. Instead of resisting it and struggling against it, this week simply practice naming it and saying 'thank you brain!'

To prepare, take some time to write down some of the things that your mind often throws up when you are distressed. Name the most repetitive thoughts or the ones that trigger the toughest emotions, as in, give them titles you can refer to them by - there is often some kind of "I can't cope" story, "bad self" story or "dangerous others" story in the mix.  These are tough thought-chains to deal with when we are caught up believing them or struggling against them, especially when they have been 'true' for us in the past. Struggling against a story makes our mind keep repeating it. Naming the story and saying 'thank you brain' lets our mind know we are aware and reframes the thoughts as ideas and words instead of realities we need to act on - this often lets our mind know it can stop telling the story so loudly.

Once you have named some of the stories you notice your brain often tells you, practice naming them as you notice them throughout your day. Try to pause whenever you move between tasks or situations to practice observing what stories your brain is telling in the moment and saying "Thank you brain, for telling me the xyz story. I hear you", then move forward with your valued direction or do another coping strategy to make things workable.

To start with, practice naming stories and thanking your brain for telling them in ordinary, transition moments, rather in times of intense distress when it will be difficult to use a new strategy. It can help to also observe what the function of the story and the emotions that go with it might be.  It can also help to name what our intentions and valued directions are too.  These can be like alternative stories we are learning to tell ourselves. For example, "Thank you brain for the "I can't cope" story, I know you are trying to make me anxious, so I will be cautious, to keep me safe from threats. My intention is to discover how to handle this risk because independence and new experiences are important to me." Some variation of "Thank you, brain, for trying to protect me" or "Thank you, I appreciate that you're trying to help, brain."

This might seem like a bit of strange thing to do. But imagine your mind is like a micro-managing advisor at school or work - or maybe a worried parent at home. Like any advisor, some of the advice is useful and some of it is not useful to us at all - and we get to choose what stories we want to take on board. What usually happens if you ignore an advisor or argue with them? They usually just get louder and more persistent, don't they? But if we let an advisor know we have heard them and thank them for their message, then they are more likely to quieten down and we can get on with what we need to do. Responding to our thoughts in this way can help us to see our thoughts for what they are - words, stories, and images that arise in our minds automatically - and this in turn can help us get a bit of distance from them and more mindfully choose which thoughts we want to respond to. 

Here is a short video from Russ Harris for an example of what this might look like: Thanking Your Mind: https://youtu.be/206WtwEyqzg?si=my2d8Z_kBr_abccA

Once you are comfortable with this practice, add Naming The Stories and Thank You, Brain to your Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
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No. 156: Make Space

June 12, 2014 11:56 am ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...

...practice making space for whatever you are feeling, rather than trying to push them away. When you experience distressing thoughts or feelings, acknowledge that it is there, then turn your attention to where you feel it in your body, observe the feeling with curiosity, take three deep breaths and imagine each breath flowing in around this feeling, opening up more space around it. Breath into it and imagine expanding around it, whatever that means to you. Notice also the way your chest and stomach literally expand with each breath, opening up a little more room inside you. Notice that no matter how big the feeling gets, it never gets bigger than you. See if you can just allow it to be there without trying to change it. If it changes of its own accord that's okay, but your aim is to simply allow it to be there. Practice saying to yourself "It's okay to feel this, I am a human being with a human heart," "I have room for this", "I can allow this feeling to be here", "I can make space for this." Take another few deep breaths, and whenever you feel ready, turn your attention towards the present moment and whatever it is you need to do right now. 

Making space for our emotions, or in other words allowing them, or accepting them, is so much easier than fighting against them, arguing with them, or judging ourselves for them. Making space can help us respond to distressing experiences with more compassion and reduce how much suffering we have to go through. 

Once you are comfortable with this practice, add Make Space to your Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
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No. 155: Extend the Image

May 29, 2014 4:00 pm ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...

...practice extending the image when you notice yourself having distressing or worrying thoughts about the future. There are two ways to do this - experiment with both and see which one you prefer. 

1. Pay attention to the image or story you see unfolding, and then extend that image or story in your mind until you come to its conclusion. Most often we stop right in the middle of the worst bit and worry about that. With this strategy we extend the story far past the thing we are worrying about, we tell ourselves about the next chapter too, the part where we cope with it, we can even fast-forward ten years into the future and it might look quite different from there. In this way, you will be able to introduce the possibility that things could turn out okay in the end, that you will eventually find a way to handle it and move on. Be mindful of how caught up you are in catastrophising though - sometimes it has such a strong grip on us we simply tell a very long, even more upsetting story, and that's probably not hugely helpful. If that's something you struggle with then practice this strategy on milder concerns first. 

2. Bring to mind an image of what you are worrying about or think of an image that symbolises it, then imagine zooming out and notice what you'd see around it, then zoom out again, and again. In this way, you will be able to create distance from distressing thoughts and feelings and reduce their power over you.

For example, if I have a distressing thought, I might imagine it as a dark cloud and then extend the image to see the sky around it, making the cloud appear smaller and less threatening.

Once you are comfortable with this practice, add Extend the Image to your Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
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No. 154: Supportive Self-Talk

May 24, 2014 5:47 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing…
…practice catching your inner critic when it’ s up to its tricks and responding to your self-talk with kindness. This is about learning to label your unhelpful self-talk for what it is and deliberately talk to yourself in a way that builds you up instead of cutting yourself down. Self-talk is automatic but we can bring it into our awareness and use it to support ourselves through moments of stress and distress. That last bit is key here. It is important to choose self-talk that feels supportive to you and that you can believe to be true. Sometimes we take ‘ supportive’ to mean that we are supposed to try to cheer ourselves up with lots of positive phrases that oppose what we have been thinking and that can often make people feel worse, especially if they really do not believe the positive statement at all. It doesn’ t usually work when we try to do this with others, and it doesn’ t usually work when we try to do this to ourselves either.
Supportive means to hold up, so try to experiment with finding a way of talking back to harsh self-talk that can hold you up in the struggles you find yourself in. This can be really hard to do, so practice in the ordinary moments first, maybe with your morning cuppa or something like that. Just sit and observe what you notice in your mind as it arises for a few minutes a day. If it’ s empty, observe and describe that. If it’ s focused on the cuppa, observe and describe that. Practice noticing the detail. Eventually your mind will start to wander and chatter like minds are designed to do. When you notice, observe and describe that too. Keep a look out for how your mind talks to you. When you notice critical, judgemental or harsh self-talk, describe what you observe, put words to it, name it for what it is.
Then take a deep breath and deliberately respond with self-talk that is supportive towards yourself, in a way that has your back, as if to hold yourself up in this moment, not to deny your reality, but to hold you steady there. Our minds are kind of messy in real life and so observing them can be too. It might go something a bit like this inside in your mind as you do this: “I am sitting here with my cup of coffee …I notice my mind is blank. [cue distracting chatter] I can never do these things. How does this even work as a thing. I’ m not even thinking anything important. I want to have chicken for dinner. Dammit I’ m not paying attention… [good noticing, and you’ re back. Describe where you went just then and try your supportive self-talk again]….I notice I am judging the way I am confused about doing this. I notice I am kind of hungry… [take a deep breath and meet this with some supportive self-talk]… This is a kind of hard thing to learn really. At least I am trying. Did I have breakfast? Dammit again! [Good noticing again, and you’ re back. Describe where you went just then and try your supportive self-talk again]...I notice hunger distracting me. I notice harsh words about that. No one can focus properly when they are hungry…” Stay with it for a couple of minutes if you can, and then continue on with your day.
As you move through each day, pause when you notice your mood change and take a moment to observe what you are telling yourself about the situation and your experience of it, and see what happens if you meet it with some of the supportive self-talk you’ ve been practicing each morning.
When you are comfortable noticing, labeling and responding to your self-talk with support, add ‘ Supportive Self-Talk’ to your Personal Coping Kete for moments of stress and distress. When times are tough, you’ ll be able to catch your harsh inner critic and feed yourself supportive self-talk that helps hold you up. Self-judgement adds another layer of distress to already difficult situations. Giving ‘ voice’ to your inner supporter can make distress less intense and easier to cope with.
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No. 132: Affirming Breaths

April 19, 2013 11:42 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…I will spend a moment every morning taking some calm, slow breaths while I repeat a couple of positive self-affirmations in my head. For just two minutes, I will sit still, with my eyes closed, as I breathe deep into my belly and gently repeat my affirmations in my mind. As I notice my mind drifting away from my affirmations into doubtful, critical or negative chains of thought, I will bring myself back to my slow breathing and once more begin repeating my affirmation to myself. After a couple of minutes I will open my eyes and carry on with my day. Before I try this, I will need to prepare some statements that I might find validating, hopeful, strengthening or soothing in some way. A positive self-affirmation is just a statement about something positive that I think is true about myself or my place in the world. It is important that it is something I can believe to be true. What is a useful, comforting affirmation for one person, might not be any help to another person. So this exercise involves doing some exploration of what fits for me. Some people use inspiring quotes they have read somewhere, others use simple self-statements like “I am okay, whatever happens, I can survive it.” Others like to acknowledge their values and intentions. Others like to remember things like “I am connected to the wider universe and the ancestors that came before me.” Really, an affirmation can be anything at all. Over the week, I will pay attention to the kinds of statements that I find useful and figure out what kinds of self-affirming statements work for me. This week, each morning, I will have a chance to get used to hearing myself being kind and encouraging to myself. Once I am comfortable with doing a breathing exercise while I think some self-encouraging statements, I will add the Breathing Affirmations to my Personal Coping Kete as a way of coping during times of stress and distress. When I notice myself feeling upset or troubled in some way, I will take a moment to breathe and feed my mind some soothing, strengthening thoughts.
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No. 118: Declare a Peace Treaty with the Moment

November 3, 2012 2:41 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing … Coping Kete… I will practice mindful distraction and self-soothing by regularly pausing and declaring a peace treaty with the current moment. When I declare a peace treaty with a moment, that means I am committing to spend a moment in peace before moving on to my next experience of the day. I will surrender whatever is on my mind for a moment and peacefully engage my attention in my surroundings. This week, when I am in between tasks, I will practice saying to myself either silently or out loud “I declare a peace treaty with this moment.” I will then take a minute or more to ground myself peacefully in the current moment before I move on to the next task before me. Declaring a peace treaty with a moment means that for this moment I will interact with myself and my surroundings in a kind, calm way. I will take 10 slow, deep breaths while I stop and mindfully observe my current surroundings. As I notice thoughts about the past or the future surfacing, I will remind myself of my peace treaty with this moment and turn my attention back to my peaceful breathing and the space around me in this current moment. In accordance with my peace treaty, if I notice critical or judgemental thoughts, I will say something kind or accepting to myself to soothe them. I will then bring my attention back to my breathing and observing my current surroundings. In this way, I will practice giving myself times of relaxation and release from worrying or critical self-talk. By practicing breathing at the same time, I will be able to return to the next task of the day with a clearer mind and calmer mood. Each time I find myself in between tasks, I will stop and practice declaring a peace treaty with the moment again. Throughout the week I will experiment with different ways of doing it until I find what works well for me. I will keep a record of the things that make it tricky and how to respond to them differently next time, so I can start to build a good list of what a Peace Treaty with the Moment looks like and involves for me. Once I have become familiar with the practice of declaring a peace treaty with a moment and taking some time to be present and kind to myself in between ordinary, daily tasks, I will add it to my Personal Coping Kete for times when I find myself struggling against stress and distress. I will be able to declare a peace treaty with the difficult moment, disengage from feelings of conflict and take some time out to send myself some mindful messages of calm and compassion before I respond. _ _ _ _ Acknowledgement: This mindfulness strategy was inspired by Thich Naht Hanh’ s Peace Treaty method for communication during conflict. Thich Naht Hanh is known for creating the Engaged Buddhism movement and popularising mindfulness in the Western world.
Posted in: Mindful Distraction, Self-Soothing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

No. 117: Allowing Room for Hope

October 25, 2012 12:25 pm ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing...



I will practice allowing myself room to hope for the best. When I find myself catastrophizing or assuming the worst, I will pause and remind myself that I don't know what will happen.

I will practice saying to myself: "I don't know what will happen, but I can hope for the best" or "Things might work out better than I expect" or "it's possible that things could be okay" or "it's possible I will be able to handle it."

By allowing myself to hope for the best, I will be able to reduce my anxiety and open myself up to positive possibilities.

Once I am comfortable with this practice, I will add Allowing Myself Room to Hope for the Best to my Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
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No. 97: ABC Thought Catching

May 18, 2012 11:15 am ⋅ 
This week, to attain, maintain, or regain my sense of wellbeing...

...I will practice engaging with my thoughts and how they are affecting my mood by practicing thought-catching. Being able to catch my thoughts and follow their connection to my moods is a key step towards being able to reason myself out of stress and distress when I need to. Taking a moment to be aware of the core components of my experience will help me be able to respond with awareness.

This week, whenever I notice a slight drop in my mood, I will take a moment to ask myself (A) what just happened, (B) what it meant to me or what I might have been telling myself about that and (C) what it did to my mood.  It is not easy to notice our own thoughts, which is why I will start out by trying to catch thoughts associated with minor changes in mood. Once I'm comfortable with that, I will move on to using thought-catching as an engagement strategy in times of stress and distress.

It is often helpful at first to use a pen and paper to note these things down in three columns.

(A) Activating event: What just happened?

(B) Thoughts / Self Talk: What might I have told myself about that? What did it mean to or for me? 

(C) Mood Change: What happened to my mood?

In this way, I will start to build up a picture of the kinds of thoughts that make my moods swing, and the kinds of situations that trigger those thoughts. This will prepare me to be able to recognise and catch those thoughts later when they are fueling my distress - and perhaps detach from those thoughts a bit, adopting the position of observer and getting a bit of perspective on them.

Once I have gotten good at making myself aware of what my thoughts are, I will add thought-catching to my Personal Coping Kete. In times of stress and distress, I will be able to practice catching my thoughts and observing to myself what triggered them and how the thoughts made me feel. By engaging with my thoughts and emotions before I respond, I will be better prepared to soothe, express, distract myself from or get support with them.
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No. 83: Riding the Wave

February 10, 2012 10:28 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅
This week, to attain, maintain or regain my sense of wellbeing… Coping Kete…When I notice shifts in the way I feel, I will stop, take a deep breath and acknowledge that even though they are distressing and unpleasant, I can survive them. I will say to myself “I am riding the wave of emotions” and I will keep breathing. If I can, I will name what I am feeling and thinking to myself. And I will keep breathing. It is okay to feel what I feel. Feelings always fluctuate and change, it’ s impossible to experience one feeling non-stop, so I can also trust that what I feel in this moment will change. Feelings come and go, rise and fall, like waves as my attention shifts throughout the day. As I stop and breathe in, I will breathe into an awareness of the feelings and when I breathe out, I will pretend to exhale the feelings with the air – as if I am releasing them. As I am doing this I will remind myself, “I am going to get through this, I am riding the wave of my emotions.” By riding the wave instead of running from the tide, I will get through this. There is an excellent video resource for this well-known mindfulness technique on the DBT Self-Help Website. If I find it hard to do mindfulness by myself at first, this website has excellent videos that you can practice with until you are familiar enough with the exercise to do it independently. Once I am familiar with mindfully thinking about my emotions in this way, I will add Riding The Wave to my Personal Coping Kete to help me get through moments of distress.
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