How to reduce negative self-talk …

One of the most powerful actions you can take for improving and changing your life is to become aware of your self-talk and then reduce the negative and irrational thoughts flowing through your mind.

This step is needed and powerful because of this simple truthful equation: Our thoughts create our emotions, and the combination of our thoughts and emotions create our behavior.

Therefore, you change what you feel and what you do by changing what you think, what you say to yourself. And we are always talking to ourselves. Our self-talk is a constant conversation we have with ourselves, usually at an unconscious level. Most people are not tuned into what they’re saying to themselves, which allows for a whole lot of irrational thinking to flow through their minds. That, in turn, generates correlating emotions and behaviors.

I’ve written in greater detail previously about dealing with your thought life, but let me give you a simple primer on how you can reduce the amount of negative self-talk you experience:

1. Purposely become aware of what you’re saying to yourself. This may sound like a “duh” statement, but considering the average person lacks awareness of the content of their self-talk, it is important that you purposely become increasingly aware of exactly what you’re saying to yourself. This will take practice; initially you’ll have to focus to “hear” and distinguish your self-talk, but the more you do that, the easier it becomes to be more consistently aware of your self-talk without having to strain to take note of it.

2. Change the content of the conversations with yourself. Once you have learned to note what you’re saying to yourself, you’re then capable of changing what you’re saying to yourself. That’s exactly what Christians are to do, and the apostle Paul gave us some instruction for making such content changes: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise,” Philippians 4:8.

As you learn to focus on your self-talk, you’ll likely discover that a lot of what you say to yourself is irrational. Just seeing that fact positions you to change it. For example, a person may have started a new job but didn’t initially receive a “warm” welcome, and so this person begins saying to themself, “No one likes me.” This self statement may begin to ruminate in their mind, and such negative self-talk will then generate negative emotions which might lead to negative behavior. When the same person is aware that they’re making such a negative statement to themself, they can correct it by, 1) being more rational about their “welcome,” that although it might not have been a parade of hellos, people have been professional and helpful so far, and 2) review the truth of all the people in their lives who not only like them, but love them! Redirecting their self-talk to more rational statements reduces or removes the impact of negative self-talk.

3. Training with a counselor can be life-changing. There’s a lot to building truthful, rational, Christian self-talk, although it’s not so difficult to achieve or to learn. A competent Christian clinical therapist who is skilled in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy can teach you all about self-talk, rational v. irrational thinking, cognitive distortions, etc., and help you learn how to change your self-talk so effectively that it can be life-changing. Often some of our most negative self-talk becomes habitual; a skilled therapist can teach you how to dehabituate from patterns of negative thinking and how to rehabituate to rational thinking.

4. Seek first the kingdom of God and practice basic Christian disciplines. The single greatest problem humanity experiences is sin, and God has provided redemption from it. A key point in His saving us from sin is God transforming the way we think (e.g., Ro. 12:2, Eph. 4:23). Practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer, studying the Word, worship, fellowship of the church, etc., are all means of keeping our minds focused on godly things, rather than falling back into the sinful, irrational, and negative.

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God,” Colossians 3:1-3.

You can never experience the fullness of life God intends for you with a mind habitualized for negative self-talk. If you have identified that most of what you say to yourself is negative or irrational, contact a Christian clinical therapist and get the help you need to change your self-talk. It will be worth all the effort!

Scotty