Hey everybody, happy Thursday! And when it's Thursday what do we do here?
We do FAQ videos, or we do media and I've been really lazy and I haven't been
reading the media. I apologize, but sometimes the news is just depressing.
Am I right?
Ok, so let's get going because my mom is here. Say hi mom.
She's in the back and Larry. They've come to visit.
It's my mom's birthday, so you know we're treating her right. don't you worry.
Ok, first question. Let's get cracking.
It says "hey Kati, I'm wondering have you ever made any videos on making decisions?
How do you break it down and not overthink?"
Now this is going to be tricky, and I don't know if I've actually talked
about this, hence why I put it in this, but if I have another FAQ, hey let me know
put it in the comments 'cause I couldn't find it and I didn't think I've talked
about it.
So the best way to make decisions I find is to number one, talk it out with
someone. Preferably a professional, if you have a therapist they're going to
give you the most unbiased representation of the scenario and tell you kind of
what's best to do, but secondly, and I do this the most, is talk to my mom. Hey
or I call some of my good friends. And I just kind of bounce ideas off of them
on when I'm making decisions, and the last and the most important is taking
time to kind of journal it out.
I know a lot of people do pros and cons lists, but things can be weighted so much
more. Like, you could have five million pros and two cons that are terrible,
so you're not going to do it anyways no matter all the pros you have, so I don't
feel like pros and cons really helps as much as writing it out, and then putting
it away and coming back to it a day or two later and reading it again
and deciding from there. Now, that's how I make decisions and it helps
me to see it clearly, because setting it aside and not ruminating on it over
and over gives it time to kind of, you know, steep in your mind, and then
when you return to it you're like "oh, yeah, that was shitty, I don't want to
do that. ugh, it's so clear now." and so that's how I do it, but how do you not
overthink is when you make the decision, you just make the decision. It's done.
You can't go back. You can't change it. You can't like unbreak-up with someone
or untake that job. And I mean I guess you could just quit, but, you know,
I'm just saying that if you take the proper time, you think it out, you
write it out, and you decide, then that's it, and I think if you give
yourself enough time to make sure it's the right decision, you won't be
overthinking it, wondering twelve thousand ways, and if you are, then I think you
should probably talk to your therapist about that as well, 'cause that's part of
anxiety. Ruminating thoughts and not being able to slow it down, so you might
want to bring that up as well.
And if any of you have experience with this and certain things that you use
let us know, 'cause those are just things that I do and that have helped other
people I know, but you have all your own experiences too.
Ok, now the second question, this is a long question, so I'm going to take a big
breath. Let's get this going. "I just wanted to ask, like, how do you know
when it's you speaking or your mental illness/negative, nasty voice speaking?
Whether that's for depression, self-harm, eating disorders, any other illness,
do you actually get like two or many voices in your head? Like, I don't
technically hear two voices like there's only one..." and it goes on and on, and
you can see where it's going. How do we decipher between our mental illness
voice and our own voice, because it can feel like they're the same thing.
And to be honest, it is our voice. It's our voice in our head.
The reason that I talk about it negative or self-harm or depression voice is
because that voice is usually a big shit head and it's always negative.
It's always nasty, and it's always telling you "you didn't do this right,
you didn't think about this enough. you need to do it again. re-do it. start
over. you're such and idiot" and it's negative, negative, negative.
And so it can help to what we as professionals, call to externalize
the problem.
And so when I tell you it's another voice it's because it can be easier to look at
it like "oh, ok so this is Kati number one and this is like Kati number two, like
nasty Kati. Bad. Problem. And we can call it a problem. I can be like "this is my
anxiety and it's an asshole, and it ruins everything."
And so by saying that, I can detach myself enough so then I can battle it.
Otherwise, we're battling ourselves, and then it's just more negativity.
And so, the way that you can decipher between the voices is to notice which one
is actually helping you grow, move forward, make good choices in your life,
and which one is doing the opposite. Holding you back, taking negatively
to you, forcing you to make bad decisions and bad choices.
And it could be the voice of your alcoholism. It could be the voice of,
you know, your anxiety. It could be the voice of your eating disorder. It could
be any kind of voice, but those are the ones that hold us back.
And so, I would start writing them down. Write down some of your thoughts.
Um, I have actually a worksheet on my website called.. it's under the CBT
worksheet.. worksheets.. sorry, that's hard for me to say.. and it'll say
thought tracking. And you can click on it and you can print it out, and you can
start tracking your thoughts, and then maybe next to them put like a B for bad
and a G for good, and start deciphering which voices are coming from which part
of you, and then when you have a negative one, it's good to talk back to it
in a positive, because the whole goal is that then we have more positives in our
head than negatives, and we feel better overall. TADA! And life is amazing and
we're happy all the time. I'm just kidding, but you know what I mean.
So, hop on there, print it out, and if you haven't subscribed, click here,
and if you're new, from Chris and I's magic Monday video, welcome!
I answer most of the questions in the videos in the comments below the day
or two after, so if you have questions, that's when it's best to ask them.
And you can follow me on twitter, and any other place that you so desire,
and I'll see you on Monday. BYE!
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