We talk to ourselves all of the time, usually without realizing it. And most of what we tell ourselves is negative, counterproductive, and damaging, preventing us from enjoying a fulfilled and successful life. How do you turn your self-talk around? What to Say When You Talk to Yourself helps you figure that out.
If things aren’t going so well, it’s time to change the program and start things looking up again. Using self-talk to deal with loneliness or depression is one of its best uses and one of the easiest to put into practice. Because self-talk deals with you and what you think, it deals directly with the root of the problem. In the case of loneliness, it is more than self-talk’s self-conversation that can help. It is true that some of the time you spend alone may be best spent engaged in a worthwhile conversation with yourself. But it is the reprogramming that the self-talk conversation creates that is most helpful in turning the experience of being alone into an experience that is positive and pro table.
Fortunately, almost anything that we create in our lives, we can also change. But changing it has been the hard part. The despair and despondency of depression are all too often a part of many of our lives. But those kinds of depression that are self-created can be lightened or removed; the thoughts and the mood that caused them in the first place can be replaced—by the refreshing change of mental scenery that self-talk creates.
Any of us can talk ourselves into depression and discouragement—and we can as easily talk ourselves out of it. It doesn’t take an iron will or a special formula; it takes a new word-for-word program that will redirect our self-belief, an adjustment in our pictures of ourselves and what’s going on around us.
It is our choice to see things any way we want to see them. If we want to view our circumstances as dark and discouraging, we can. If we would rather view our circumstances as accept- able, hopeful, changeable, and positively possible, we can. But it takes more than just wanting things to work out right. That’s why things didn’t work out right in the first place—we hadn’t given ourselves the right pictures, the right input to create the right output. And that’s something any of us can do something about.
When dealing with depression, counselors often recommend the right diet and the right physical activities to help counteract the depression. I would add to that recommendation a healthy diet of new positive self-talk, and the daily activity of putting it to work.
Written by: Shad Helmstetter
Article Source: Link
