In a previous video, I talked about negative programming
from early experiences and the distorted thoughts
that they create for you that you can get hung up on.
I'm gonna give you some tools
to help you deal with these thoughts.
I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist,
and I make mental health education videos.
These negative stories can create a lot of shame,
and what's shame?
Shame is feeling flawed, damaged, or inept.
Some people use criticism to shame others.
I talk a little bit about this in my video
on the importance of narcissism, or self-love.
If you don't have a basic sense of self-worth,
criticism becomes damaging
instead of being simply unfavorable feedback.
So similarly, when you have been programmed
to have a negative appraisal of yourself,
like feeling unworthy, it doesn't matter what someone says,
or doesn't say,
you feel that way about yourself at baseline,
and that feeling of inadequacy shapes the decisions
that you make, the company you keep,
and the kinds of opportunities
for which you make yourself available.
But these negative stories can also create
a lot of anxiety and self-doubt.
So when you feel locked in to these repetitive thoughts
that are create distress for you,
here are two steps
toward getting control over those thoughts.
The first step is to pull back and observe the thoughts.
What does that mean?
There's different ways
that you can do this using visualizations.
One type of visualization is using the character technique.
You visualize a funny character saying the thought.
You could imagine a comedian saying it,
or someone performing it as an opera piece.
♪ If you really cared about people ♪
♪ You wouldn't care about making money ♪
♪ Not at all ♪
- You might say, "Well, that's stupid."
Yes, exactly, and so are my thoughts,
because they're not fact, they're my distorted conclusions
that I draw based on my own negative programming.
Projecting your thoughts out of your head
helps you reframe them and look at them more objectively.
You wanna hear them sound differently.
Another type of visualization
is you imagine writing your thoughts on a piece of paper,
balling it up,
and putting the paper in a trash bin that gets dumped.
If you have trouble visualizing this,
you can carry it out.
Another way to disrupt the momentum
of your spiraling thoughts is to attribute the thoughts
to your mind as if your mind is another person,
then you thank your mind for thinking that.
So you could say, out loud to yourself,
"No one understands me.
All right, thanks, mind, you're on that one again."
It's like you're trivializing the thoughts
by acknowledging that it's not something
that you believe in your soul to be truth,
it's just this thought that your mind decides to place
in front of you for consideration,
and it's up to you
how much consideration you decide to give it.
The second step is to distract yourself from them.
So you've loosened the choke hold that they had on you,
but now you wanna make them go away,
and there's lots of ways to do this.
One is by replacing them with coping statements.
And these would be pre-made thoughts
that you can use, or you can fall back on,
when you start ruminating
on these negative thoughts about your.
And you wanna have them ready so that it's like a reflex
that you can just say without having to conjure them up.
You wanna create them when you're not in a state of distress
or negative thinking.
Write them down in a journal, put them on your phone,
have easy access to them.
If you use them enough, you may not need to read them,
you can just say them.
You wanna make them sound like your own voice, though,
so it's convincing,
but here's some examples to get you started.
My emotions do not reflect reality.
I'm allowed to struggle, it's okay not to be okay.
I don't have the answer, but I can tolerate uncertainty.
I accept who I am while I continue to improve myself.
This is an important concept,
because self-improvement is a good thing,
but someone with less self-confidence can feel
like their current existence doesn't really count
and it's not until they reach a certain level
that they feel that their presence is valid.
And this means that you're no thriving in the moment.
And that kind of future-driven existence
breeds anxiety and worry.
They key is to accept whatever state you're in
at any given time while welcoming change whenever it comes.
It's also important to be flexible
with your expectations for yourself.
I saw a cool quote that said, "Be patient with yourself,
nothing in nature blooms all year."
So for you, on the path to self-improvement,
don't expect big gains continuously.
If this is part of your negative self-talk,
expecting to be blooming all the time,
then a coping statement for you could be,
"I am enough just as I am."
Another distraction technique is using grounding exercises.
A popular one is the five-four-three-two-one technique.
This is where you name five things you can see,
four things you can feel, three things you can hear,
two things you can smell,
and take one deep, slow breath.
Other exercises are counting backwards from 100,
place a cool cloth on your face or wrists,
or splash cold water on your face,
drink a glass of water or a cup of tea slowly and mindfully.
Mindful drinking means that you're paying careful attention
to how the activity affects all of your senses.
So for example, as I drink the tea,
I take a mental note of how the warm cup feels in my hand,
how the tea smells, how dark it is, how it tastes,
can I feel the warm liquid move down my chest
and into my stomach?
So I'm not drinking and checking my Instagram feed.
I'm only focused on the experience of drinking the tea.
Three more grounding techniques.
The elastic band technique,
wearing an elastic band on your wrist,
and when you feel your thoughts spiraling
or intense emotions, snap the band against your wrist.
Focusing on your breath is another grounding technique,
but instead of simply noticing that you're breathing,
take specific note of how the air moves in
and out of your nostrils,
or you can pay attention to the movement of your chest
or your abdomen.
The last grounding technique I wanna mention
is focusing on colors.
Pick a color and then look around the room
and notice all the objects that have that color.
Pick another color and do the same thing.
What's the most common color in the room?
For each of these exercises,
you would do them until you feel more settled
and the distress has passed.
So here's what I've taught you today.
When you feel distressed,
usually there's a combination of emotions
and thoughts associated with the emotions.
The emotions are real reactions to the thoughts
that are usually distorted in some way.
And here's what you can do to break the cycle
of ruminating over these thoughts
and spiraling into an emotional black hole.
First, defuse the intensity of the experience
by using visualizations to pull you out of the moment,
so that you can evaluate your thoughts.
This breaks the negative momentum
and gives you a chance to look more objectively
at what's going on.
Second, use coping statements and grounding exercises
to distract yourself from the thoughts and emotions.
If you didn't already watch the video
on negative emotional programming, go watch it.
And if you identify a story that you use,
try some of these techniques.
See you next time.
(mellow music)