Building Positive Self Talk for Confidence and Self Esteem

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on building positive self talk for confidence and self esteem. I am your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. We're going to identify the function of negative self talk, explain the benefits of positive self talk and describe 15 is methods for teaching positive selft talk to people of all ages. This is something we can do ourselves as adult, as caregivers. But this is also something that we, we can teach our kids. We can model this behavior, we can incorporate it into our daily activities. Especially since a lot of us are still on self isolation. Even though restrictions are being lifted slowly, we are spending a lot more time together. So that is an opportunity for us to embrace some new behaviors that can help all of us with our mental health. Remember that behavior is a form of communication. We do things because they have some sort of benefit. So we want to ask ourselves when we talk to ourselves negatively, when we heckle ourselves or when we heckle somebody else. Hopefully not that we understand. What are we trying to get out of this? What is the benefit of it? Negative self talk can protect us from threats and failure. None of us likes to fail. And there was a great commercial that was on, oh gosh, a few years ago with Michael Jordan and a few other sports figures that Gatorade had put together. And it talked about recognizing that failure is a challenge. Everybody fails when they try to do things. Nobody's perfect a hundred percent of the time. And talking about how to overcome failure, encouraging people to embrace a new way of thinking about failure. And you can go online, I encourage you to do this with older kids to find quotations about failure that you can, you know, post in places around your house, wherever you want to post them that remind you that failure teaches you one more way not to do something. Failure is evidence that you stepped outside of your comfort zone. There are a lot of positive quotes about how to embrace failure. But some of the things we may tell ourselves I can't do this. I'm not smart enough. I can't find a decent partner. Nobody wants to be my friend. I'm ugly. I could lose my job at any moment. There are all kinds of negative thoughts that we have, stress promoting thoughts that we have and we want to look at. What is the benefit to telling myself this? One of the benefits may be to spur you into action, to do something else, to make a plan. Other times it may be to, you know, like I said, protect you. So if you do fail, you kind of saw it coming ahead of time. Some people use negative Self talk to get attention. They will say out loud, they will talk about how stupid they are or how ugly they are or how fat they are in order to get get other people to say oh no you're not. And that is a way of getting attention, getting reinforcement, getting feedback from other people. Unfortunately, that usually doesn't go over too well for very long with people. So it's one of those strategies that may not be as effective. So what is more effective? Well, positive self talk. Positive self talk reduces our cortisol, our stress hormone and our HPA axis activation. Remember, the HPA axis is your threat response system. When you are telling yourself that you are vulnerable, that you are a failure, that you can't do something, that you are not able to take care of yourself in some way, that threat response system kicks in. You're increasing your anxiety, you're increasing your stress, you're increasing your stress chemicals. When that happens, serotonin goes down, other things go down, inflammation goes up. We may experience more pain when we have increased HPA axis activation. So positive self talk helps us calm ourselves down. It helps reduce pain not only because our serotonin levels are higher and our endorphin levels are higher, but also because we don't have the same muscle tension that we have when we're stressed out. We have improved physical health because of less stress related diseases. There are a lot of things that are totally exacerbated, maybe not caused, but exacerbated by stress. We'll experience increased energy if we are not running that threat response system on high gear. We are going to have more energy. If we're not just flooring that gas pedal. We're going to have more energy, greater life satisfaction. It's seems like a brighter world when we are engaging in positive self talk and when we're engaging in positive self talk that also usually encourages us to engage in positive other talk so we are more complimentary of other people. We notice the positives in things and situations and improved immunity. When our stress is high, our immunity is low. When our stress is low, our immunity is high. We all want to avoid getting sick, we all want to avoid some of those stress related illnesses like cancer. So positive self talk is a tool in that toolbox. It's not going to prevent the flu, but it is certainly going to help you and help your body have more energy to fight off any pathogens or bugaboos that come your way. Unconditional positive regard from attachment figures who teach positive self talk is really important and especially with children. Obviously, as we get older, we have different attachments. We don't have that one primary attachment figure because we can take care of ourselves now. But as we get older, we do still have significant attachments in our life and we do need positive feedback in some way or another from those people. And that's where Love languages comes in. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself. But it is important. We need unconditional positive regard from ourselves. Now remember, unconditional positive regard means saying you are awesome for who you are. I may not agree with your behaviors, but I love you for who you are. And that's important to get from other people, you know, not as the sole source of validation, but we do need positive regard from other people, but also from ourselves. Recognizing and being compassionate with ourself and saying, you know, I love you, I know I'm a good person, even though I failed at something, you know, I'm a good person who makes mistakes. Encourage the use of the phrase in, in your household, in your family, I love you when or I love you even when you make mistakes. I love you even when you forget. If you remember. There's a little. There's a book that I read my kids all the time and I remember my mother reading it to me. It's called Little Critter. And Little Critter has one book and I can't remember. Help me if you remember the title of this. But basically he wants to show his love for his mom and he just keeps messing up. But I love you even when you make mistakes, even when you forget, even when you're having a bad hair day, when you're angry, when you're sad, or when you lose or fail. Remembering and reminding children, you know, if they bring home their report card and it's not what you had hoped for, I love you. Now I'm not crazy about your grades. Let's take a look at what we need to do to address that. And very clearly separating the person from the behavior. Instead of saying, you're a good boy or a good girl or a bad boy or a bad girl, I love you but I disapprove of those behaviors or I love you and I am really proud of those behaviors. But making sure to separate self awareness of who you are. Reminding yourself that you have the ability to do things, explore, try new things, encourage yourself, encourage your kids to try something new most every day. Climb a tree. You know, I hadn't tried to climb a tree since I was knee high to a grasshopper. And we've Got a willow tree in our yard that my son climbs all the time. So I tried to climb it the other day. Probably not my best choice, but because I'm afraid of heights. But I wanted to try it. You know, I wanted to see what it was like to be up there in the tree. And I really enjoyed being up a little bit. Getting down was a little bit of a bugger, but I tried it and I realized that that's probably not for me. Cooking, crochet, drawing, basketball, video games, whatever it is. Encourage people to try something new, even if it means trying asparagus. Having them keep a list of those things that they have the ability to do and they like to do is really important. Keeping a list of, okay, I tried this. I liked it. I may not be great at it yet, but I liked it. Or I tried this and not for me. So people can go back and look and go, oh, wow, look at all these skills that I do have, or at least I have a little bit of that I could nurture. I. I like to paint. And, you know, good old Bob Ross, if I wanted to learn to paint more, I'd probably go back to watching his videos because he makes it seem somewhat easy. You know, all mistakes become little birds. But nurturing those aspects of yourself, when you have time, and a lot of people do have some time right now, and it's important to encourage them to recognize their own abilities as well as the abilities in those around them, the next thing is, I am. That's different from what I can do. I can do all these things, but I am creative, kind, compassionate, curious, a good listener. This dovetails off of acceptance and commitment therapy. Go into Google or DuckDuckGo or wherever and search for list of values and print that out and have people identify their top five values, the things that are most important. If, depending on who you're doing it with, some people might not like this phrasing. You can figure out different phrasing, but I've told my, my groups before. Think about what you want on your headstone, what you want your epitaph to read. Do. Do you want it to read, I was the richest, grumpiest person in the whole world? Or what is it that you want to be remembered for? And those are your top five qualities that you can remember and remind yourself of. You can also make a bracelet that has a letter that represents each one of those qualities that you have that you think are wonderful about you. So kind of like the old WWJD bracelets, you can do the Same sort of thing with your own inner quality. So when you're having a moment, you can look down and see those letters. Remind yourself that there are awesome things about you. Keep a daily journal or account of your successes, good qualities and accomplishments. What you did right that day. You may not have a super accomplishment every day, but one of my accomplishments, and this is not an uncommon accomplishment for people to think about right now, is getting through the entire day with patience. Y' all know I've told you before, that's not one of my virtues. And a lot of people are struggling with patience right now. So being broad in what you term an accomplishment, I got through the entire day, I was patient. I, you know, got my goals done for work, whatever it is. But encourage people to do that. In a family situation, you can share at the dinner table, for example, what was one of your successes or accomplishments or nice things that you did today. And I want to put in here, include in here random acts of kindness. Sometimes it's not about, you know, patience or, or something. Sometimes it's about I did something nice for somebody, I held a door, I helped somebody change a tire. Whatever it is, it's important to do that every single day in order to remind people, even on their worst days, that they were a beacon of light in at some point, being aware of what you say to yourself, journaling with restatements, when you notice that you are bad, bad mouthing yourself, having a response to that. And I tell my clients, you know, think about if your child said that or if your best friend said that, what would you say back to them aside from no, you're not, what would be your response to that negative statement? And I want you to put that in your journal. Encouraging people to become more aware of their negative self statements is one way to do it. You can also have them create a mantra such as I am good enough, I am beautiful, I am a warm and loving person that they repeat to themselves every time they have a negative self statement that reminds them that they are awesome for who they are and irrespective of what just happened. Use your own love languages to love yourself. Love languages have gained a lot of traction over the past few years in order to improve communication between people. Communicate caring, communicate compassion, and whatever. But it's also important to use love languages to communicate to yourself that you are worthy, you are lovable. Not everybody shares the same love languages. If you, if yours is acts of service, you know, maybe if it were somebody else, you would want them to clean your house for you. And that would be an act of service, an act of love, so you didn't have to clean the house. Okay, well, how can you do that for yourself? Hire somebody to come in and clean the house. You know, there, if you can afford it, there are things that you can do. You know, think about what you would want someone else to do and figure out how you could do that for yourself. Quality time. What does that look like, spending quality time with yourself? Maybe that's a bubble bath. Maybe that is a hike in the, in the woods. What does that look like for you? Words of affirmation. You know, keep a list of 10 mantras or, or statements of affirmation that you can read to yourself. We're going to talk about some of those in a few minutes. Gifts. Gifts are not bad. Sometimes you deserve to give yourself gifts. Gifts is not one of my main love languages. But the other day, you know, I was just feeling kind of snarky and I decided, you know what? I deserve this. So I ordered the whole Bewitched and I Dream of Genie series on dvd. And that was a big deal for me because I hate spending money. But I was like, you know what? I deserve this. And it's important occasionally to be able to treat yourself again either with acts of service. Quality time gifts. Physical touch. If you would want somebody to give you a hug, how can you give yourself a hug? For me, it is wrapping up in a big, warm, fuzzy blanket, especially with my dog on my lap, with. But there are different ways that you can accomplish that. If a massage would make you feel better, going out and getting a massage, that can be a way of accomplishing that, that physical touch. You want to think, what is the benefit? What is, what am I looking for out of this? Love language. Physical touch, if it is to make you feel better, okay, you know that you have a category of stuff over here. If it is to improve oxytocin in your body, then you may need to look for other things like petting an animal and snuggling with. Snuggling with your four legged friend in order to get the benefit of that oxytocin. But recognizing that you deserve the time, you deserve to spend 10 or 15 minutes just hanging out with Fido or get a pedicure. There you go. Don't wait until you're stressed. This is another thing that I really think is important for us to teach kids from the time they're, you know, little, don't wait till they're stressed to start trying to be nice or practice stress. Management, we want to prevent it. Practice positive self talk throughout the day. Every single day. There are a lot of apps that you can get on your mobile device that will provide information about positive thinking, that will provide prompts for positive thinking and mindfulness. And that's great. You can set a reminder in your phone to periodically review your mantras that you have written down, such as I am capable, I am lovable. Today is going to be an awesome day. I choose to be present in all that. I do, feel energetic and alive. I can achieve my goals. I love challenges and what I learn from overcoming them. And just simply, I've got this. You don't have to repeat all of them. Pick one, you know, for whatever you're facing at the moment. Like in the morning when I get up, at when I get ready to get up out of bed. Today is going to be an awesome day. That is the first thing that I tell myself to kind of get myself going in the right emotional and mental direction. Later on in the day, if I run into challenges, I may say I love challenges and what I learned from overcoming them to remind myself that I can do this and I may not succeed this time, but I can learn from it and it's a growth experience. Encourage children to keep have mantras that they keep with them in their, in their mobile device or whatever they have with them at school that they can remind themselves that they can do this. Remind themselves that they are worthy and lovable. Even if they are not the best student in class, even if they are not the best football player, even if they're not the best whatever. They are lovable for who they are as a person. Visualization. Now, this is my spiderweb analogy. The more we think about something, the stronger the neural connections are. They've shown this in, you know, pet scans and stuff. Spiderwebs. Think about a spider and the spider goes from point A to point B, then C, then D and you know, all over the place. You end up getting a very beautiful web, but it is one thread thick. If the spider goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth over the same spot, what's going to happen? That area of the web is going to be much, much stronger than the other areas of the web. The same sort of thing happens in our brains when we have a thought. I like to think of it, you know, just going from front to back. Short term memory, long term memory because I put my long term stuff back there. That's not exactly how the brain's set up, but it helps me Visualize it. When we think about something that's in our, in the front of our brain, in our short term memory, in that area of prefrontal cortex impulse control. The more we think about it, the stronger the connection gets with whatever memory we're drawing from. If that memory keeps coming to the front we think about it makes that pathway stronger. We want to address which pathway that we actually use. Visualization helps people's brains see and even learn in some ways how they can succeed or fail. There are a lot of athletes that use visualization to see themselves completing the perfect dive or golf swing or swing of the bat or whatever it is that they do. The more they envision it, the more their brain is primed to help their body go through those motions. Negative self talk, on the other hand, teaches the brain that negative things will happen, which increases anxiety, distress, reduces concentration, and increases a sense of helplessness. When you strengthen those negative pathways, then that's going to be the go to, you know, that's where the, where your energy is going to go is where that strongest pathway is. And if the strongest pathway is a negative one, then you're going to keep your stress up. Positive self talk helps people's brains see that success is possible, happiness is possible, and that they have power. I see in the chat you guys have also suggested keeping post it notes on your mirror to remind you of certain mantras that help you and having index cards in your pockets. A lot of schools won't let children have their mobile devices with them, so index cards are something that they still can carry around. That's what we used to use back in the 80s. So those are really awesome, awesome ideas. Whoops. So when we talk about visualization helping you see that something is possible. This is a little clip from my daughter's black belt testing. And you know what she was getting ready to do at this point? She was, you know, five, 410 pounds soaking wet. And you'll see the stack of boards she's getting ready to break is about 4 inches thick. So that was my little princess, but I can't imagine doing that. But she was able to visualize breaking those boards and bada bing, she did it. And it's important for people to realize that they can do things. Visualization combined with desensit, desensitization can help reduce anxiety and distress around public speaking, tryouts, job interviews, driving, starting a new school, taking a test, or even right now, going out in public. There are a lot of things that cause anxiety and negative self talk. When you're telling yourself, I'm not going to be safe, I am going to fail, I'm going to mess up, I'm going, something's bad's going to happen. If you visualize what's going on and combine that with breathing so you can reduce your stress levels. Remember desensitization. When you start to get upset, you practice breathing until you get your stress level down to a 1. On a scale of 1 to 5, as you visualize, for example, public speaking, you may get up to a 4 or a 5 or some people say a 6. Practicing desensitization, practicing relaxation techniques. Until you can envision, until you can visualize public speaking and you don't go up to a 4, 5 or 6, you stay down. Around a 1 or a 2 can help you train your brain and recognize that it is not as threatening as you would once thought. Another thing people can do is watch others who are successful at doing it and role play to use that data to visualize. Look at somebody who is great at public speaking. Obama was great at public speaking. So watching him, watching his mannerisms or picking anybody else, look, looking even at some TED talks and watching people who are speaking there, using that information that you glean from them at how they're successful at public speaking. Reading about people who are successful at public speaking. Because there's a lot of people that say, here are my tips and tricks. This is what, what helps me that can be helpful. If you find someone who's already able to do it and you say, okay, let me learn from you. We want everybody, adults and children alike, to recognize that we're not born with all the skills. It is super helpful to learn from other people. Try to learn something every single day. Environments surround yourself with positivity. If you surround yourself with negativity, you're going to probably speak to yourself with negativity. If you surround yourself with positivity and you model positivity, you're probably, probably going to speak with more positivity. You can listen to positive songs, for example, Jimmy Eat World is one of my favorite. And they have a, a song called the Middle and it talks about, you know, you're just in the middle. You've got a long way to go. This is, you're hitting a bump in the road, but you're going to be fine. High hopes with Frank Sinatra or some people call it the Rubber Tree Plants song. High hopes by Panic at the Disco if you, if you like more heavy metal stuff. Indestructible by Disturbed or defeated. Undefeated by Skillet I Am Woman by MC Light Me or Shake It Off, Taylor Swift, I Love Me by Meghan Trainor. I'm All Right, Jody Messina. So you get a little country in there. Stronger by Britney Spears, Flares by the Script or Light behind your eyes from My Chemical Romance. I know a lot of my clients really like My Chemical Romance and Jimmy Eat World. It's important for people to be able to listen to songs that help them get into a mental space that they want to be. There's a time and a place for, you know, all the different genres and, you know, potentially all the different songs. But when they're trying to enhance that positivity for finding songs that they like that speak to them is really important. You can go online and search for things like empowering songs to help you through a breakup, songs to help you through anxiety and depression. Those were two searches that I did. And people have already made playlists. They've already made lists of these songs, and you can go through and cherry pick the songs and the genres that you like from it and probably download it on. Download those songs onto your mobile device from whatever service that you use. One activity that I like doing with the family is to have family members bring a positive quote. It can be, you know, a literature quote or something or song lyrics with them till dinner once a week that they can share that emphasizes the positive, and they can explain, if needed, why they chose that song for that week. And then you put that song or quote on the fridge, so everybody's seeing it, and everybody's, you know, getting that little dose of positive positivity every time they go to the fridge. Encourage people to give themselves a pep talk every morning. If you remember the old Saturday Night Live, many, many decades ago, when Stuart Smalley would said would stand in front of the mirror and say, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. You have to be able to believe whatever you're saying. And I never got the sense that he believed that. But looking in the mirror and giving yourself a pep talk is so important, even if it's just to say, you know what? You got this. It doesn't have to be a long thing. Keep a success wall or a scrapbook. Not everybody wants to have everything up on the wall, but some people have a wall, even if it's in the back of their closet because they've got roommates or whatever, where they have their successes. They have things that they're proud of. They have pictures that remind them of Positive times in their life. It's great if you are willing to do this in a place where you can see it like all the time. But not everybody's willing to do that now. Some negative self talk comes from cognitive distortions. When people take things personally, they're often assuming they have control over how other people feel or react or the way things happen. We don't. We don't have control over the way people react. If something happens like, Sally didn't text me today. She must be mad at me. Wow, that's a leap. Sally didn't text me today. I wonder what happened. Maybe her phone died. Maybe she got busy with something. Maybe she's sick. Doesn't necessarily mean it has anything to do to me. Encouraging people to find three explanations other than them for what happened. I didn't get that job. They must have hated me. Well, okay, maybe they did. Or maybe you weren't going to be a good fit for that particular team. Or maybe they thought that you actually were overqualified for the position so you'd get bored and quit. Or maybe I don't know what the third one would be right now. But there are alternate explanations for why things happened. Encourage people to look for three alternate non personal explanations and examine the facts. Did whatever happened necessarily have anything to do with you? You know, if your dad was in an awful mood all day long, does that mean you did something wrong? Or does that mean that maybe he got, you know, a note from the insurance company in the mail that said your insurance premiums were tripling? That would put somebody in a bad mood. So you don't necessarily know what's going on in somebody else's head without asking. It's important to develop assertiveness skills and ask people if there's something wrong instead of assuming that it's about you or assuming you know why they're upset. Ask. Catastrophizing means expecting the worst. Encourage people to evaluate facts and the probability that whatever it is is actually going to happen so they're not telling themselves that the sky is falling. And encourage them to make a plan B. For example, if I ask him out, he's going to laugh in my face. Okay, yeah, that's possible. Evaluate the facts. Would you actually be asking somebody out who would be that rude and insensitive? Probably not. What is the probability that this person that you know that you actually want to spend time with would actually laugh in your face? You know, gauging the probability. There is a always a chance. We can't anticipate Other people's reactions all the time, but recognizing that that's probably a slim probability. And make a plan B. If I ask him out and he laughs in my face, how am I going to handle it? What am I going to do? How am I going to recover from that? I'm sure I'm gonna bomb that audition or try out. Okay, again, evaluate the effects and probability. Have you rehearsed? Do you feel like you are a good candidate for this? You know, if you're going into a tryout and you know that you've never done it before and you have no skills, then there's a good probability that you probably are not going to do well. But if you have been rehearsing, if you've been practicing, if you've been taking lessons and you feel confident enough to try it, then chances are that you will not bomb it. You may not get the part, but you probably won't bomb it. So encourage people to evaluate the facts and probability. And if they do bomb it. Sometimes you go in there dance tryouts, and you're in the middle of the routine and you totally forget the next step or you fall down or something else happens. Okay, if that happens, how do you recover from it? What is your plan B? Magnification is focusing on the negative aspects of an event. Encourage people to change the negative to a neutral or even a positive or a challenge. There was a time when I made this presentation. I had just sprained my ankle and I was frustrated. I couldn't run because I sprained my ankle. Well, I guess it's a recovery day since my ankle is sprained. Instead of getting upset, I said, okay, well, the neutral is I needed a recovery day anyway, so this is one way to force the issue. Another response or a challenge would be, what else could I do for cardio today that doesn't put weight on my ankle? So challenge me to get outside my routine of running. What else could I do? Jake said no when I asked him out. I'm mortified. Okay, well, I can see where somebody would might be mortified. What is the neutral or the positive? I can ask somebody else out. It doesn't mean that nobody will ever go out with me. And, you know, turning it around, he'll never know what he's missing out on because I have a lot to offer. That's the positive. It's also important for people to come to the acceptance that there will likely always be someone out there better than you at some things. You know, just recognizing that I am not going to be the Best anything probably ever in my life. I may be really good at something, but. But it is really hard to be the absolute best at something. So. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay if I'm not the best. Do I want to be one of the best? Well, yeah, maybe, but I don't have to be the best. And I recognize that. I focus on being the best person that I can be today and better than the day than I was the day before. Remembering what I do well, which we already talked about in an earlier slide, what I did well yesterday and what I could do better today. So I start out the day thinking, all right, you know, today's a new day, and I can, you know, move forward from where I was at. I can be a better parent. I can be a better friend. I can be a better instructor. What can I do to work towards being the best parent, friend and instructor that I can be? Global statements generally start with I am or I must. They are all encompassing, and that is exhausting. I am stupid. I must have this. Well, we're not always going to get what we want, and generally there are specifics. Encourage people to focus on what is specific and changeable. How does it feel different if you say I'm. If you want to use the word stupid, you know, I. I left that in there so you could see the difference. Instead of I am stupid, maybe saying, I am stupid at math. Now, I would prefer to take the word stupid out of there completely because I don't like that word. But I am not good at math. I am good at other things. So I'm not globally stupid. I am just, you know, adding those Greek letters through me for a loop. I am ugly versus I look bad in this outfit. You know, we all have outfits we put on and we're like, oh, no, no, not Most people don't look good in every single outfit they try on. And that's okay. That means they may not look good in that outfit. It doesn't mean they're ugly. So focusing on specifics instead of the global, I am useless. Well, okay, that's pretty global versus you know what? I'm not sure how I contribute to this situation. There have been times where I have been in committee meetings or in situations where I'm just kind of sitting there wringing my hands, going, I have no clue what to do. I don't know how I am helpful in this situation. And then there are other times where I am, you know, Johnny on the spot and, you know, a leader in that situation. Recognizing that there are times like, you know, when we have a plumbing problem at the house. I am useless when it comes to plumbing because I know nothing about it except for how to turn off the main valve. I'm so. I am not good with plumbing. I'm not sure how I contribute to helping the situation when there's a plumbing problem because I just kind of stand there dumbfounded. And finally, I must be the best versus I must be the best that I can be. Instead of the best out of everybody, everywhere, all the time, I am the. I need to be the best person that I can be. So I'm only comparing myself to me instead of the whole world. Locus of control is another way we can help people improve their self talk too. Internal of a locus of control means that the person tries to control everything, including everybody around them. Encourage people who have too internal of a locus of control. They're. They're too controlling to identify parts of the situation they did not have control over. When they say I should be able to achieve anything I try to do, well, there's that should word for one. That's a problem. How many of us are able to achieve everything that we set out to do? Dare I say, none of us. But you know, maybe there is some person out there who's exceptionally gifted. Recognizing that, you know, bringing up Michael Jordan again, even people like Michael Jordan who are exceptionally gifted in some areas are not so much gifted in others. And that's okay. That's what makes the world go round. We all have our talents. It's my fault that my mother got sick. Now this is one of those that we hear sometimes from children because they have that egocentric, dichotomous thinking. Mom got, you know, I was, you know, acting out. I made mom mad. Then all of a sudden she got sick. So it's my fault that she got sick. Encouraging children to understand what parts of the situation they did not have control over is really important. Especially when it's something like a terminal illness or an autoimmune disease that starts to flare up, you know, something that may have lasting effects as opposed to, you know, mom got a cold the next day too. Internal of a locus of control means people feel that they have no control over things too external. Encourage them to identify the parts of the situation that they did have control over. Some examples of external locus of control include I only did well because of luck or it was just bad luck that I fumbled the past. Whenever you hear the word luck, that's a clue. Just my luck. The Teacher collected homework today or I got demoted because my boss has it in for me. You know, those are all very external things. Things in the environment, things in other people that controlled my outcome. Encouraging people to look back and think, you know, okay, I did well. Now, part of it could have been luck. You know, I'm not saying that luck doesn't necessarily exist, but what did I bring to the table? You know, I did well because I tried my hardest, because I practiced. It was bad luck that I fumbled the pass, you know, what parts of that were within your control. And, you know, sometimes it is not. It's just bad luck, but other times it's not. You know, you, maybe you and the quarterback were not in sync because there is such a ridiculously accurate timing that has to be held for people to make those long passes. Just my luck, the teacher collected homework today. Well, you know what? There's a good chance the teacher is going to collect homework. So if you do your homework, then you're not going to get caught without having it done. Encourage people to focus on the present and improving the next moment, recognizing in the present how they feel. I feel angry, I feel anxious, I feel content. Whatever you feel, that's great, you know, it is how you feel. How can I. How can I improve the next moment, recognizing the things that I do and the things that I don't have control over? Minimization of the positive. Too often people focus on what went wrong or what, what they don't have. Such as, you know, when they got their evaluation, they had 17 fives and two threes on it. And so they focus on those two threes that they got or how much money they don't have or the relationship that they don't have instead of the relationships that they do have. Encourage people to spend 10 minutes a day focusing on what went right. Help them find the silver lining in the bad. Embrace the bad with the good. Embrace the dialectics, and remember that all other things that are okay, even when one thing goes wrong. So they may have a lot of things in their life that they're committed to. Remember Kobas's theory of hardiness, Commitment, control and challenge? You know, I'm committed to my family. I'm committed to my job. I'm committed to, you know, my. My pets. I'm committed to other people's welfare. There are things that I am committed to. And, you know, one day maybe the job doesn't go so well. Okay, you know, well, we'll mark that one off. But I also want to remember the Other things in my life that did go well and not just get tunnel vision and focus on that one thing that went poorly. So these little things over here are different examples of what you can do to help people focus on the positive. I, I love Shrinky Dinks. You know, I'm a child of the 70s, but they are the little plastic things that you can put in the oven and they, you color them and then they shrink. I like using them as sun catchers. And sun catchers bring the brightness in, it brings the positive in having people create Shrinky Dinks for all of the positive things in their life. And they can do it, you know, maybe they want to. Each positive thing is represented by a different butterfly. Or you can do, you can get sheets of the Shrinky Dink paper online and make your own decor. You know, you can draw a flower and cut that out. You don't have to use ones that are pre made. So if there's something specific that you're looking for, like a horse or a dog or a unicorn, you can do that and hang those in a place where they catch sunlight. Same thing with mobiles or wind chimes or whatever you want to call this. Each string that comes down represents something that is good in your life, that is important. So each string represents an aspect of your life. And along that string there are ornaments that represent good things that are happening in that aspect of your life. So for family, for example, you, you know, I would have one string that's family and then I would have some sort of ornament for my husband, for my daughter, for my son, for our animals. You know, they're, they're part of the family. And that would be one of those strings that I can look at and go, hey, that's pretty full. I like doing things that help people visualize all or nothing. Thinking usually contains the words always, never, every, nobody, etc. Encourage people to become aware, and I think we talked about this last time or in the class before, have them flip a coin. And if it lands on heads when they flip a coin in the morning, that means all day that day. They need to be cognizant. They need to be aware of when they use extreme words like always, never, every, but nobody, etc. Etc. And when they use one of those statements, then they need to look for exceptions and soften the words instead of saying that always happens, saying that often happens, and find ways to remedy the issue. For example, if somebody says, nobody ever calls me to go out on the weekend, well, first I would say Are there any exceptions to that? And if there are, great. What was different that, you know, prompted that person to call you? If there aren't, or even if there are, encourage them to think about how can you remedy that issue? Nobody ever calls me to go out on the weekend. Well, how do they know you want to go out? What can you do to prompt people to encourage people to call you? I never can seem to lose weight. Okay, how can we remedy that issue? What is it that is serving as your, as your blockage to that? And sometimes people don't know. So they may need to talk to a dietitian or, or a counselor in order to identify what is keeping them from achieving their goal. The more we set goals and fail to achieve them, the more it hurts our self esteem, the more we have a sense of helplessness and hopelessness and negative self talk. So when people are identifying things that are not going in their direction, especially when they're using all or nothing terms, it's important for them again to find the exceptions and to look for ways to remedy the issue that they haven't already tried. You know, if you've maybe my grandmother used to lose weight, bless her heart, she would lose 50 pounds and then she'd gain 60 back. And she just did that her as long as I can remember. And you know, that was really frustrating to her. It would have been helpful if she would have been able to look and say, you know, I can't seem to keep the weight off and go to an expert, you know, I theoretically a dietitian who would have been able to help her identify the reasons that was and and adjust her behaviors and goals accordingly. Sometimes we need to learn new skills in order to make certain things happen. Emotional reasoning is important to point out. Sometimes we feel scared that because for some reason people told us we should feel scared, sometimes we feel bad about ourselves, we feel depressed and we're not exactly sure why. So we start thinking about why am I feeling depressed? And we find reasons to support our feelings instead of feelings to support our reasons. My son, bless his heart, is still terrified to drive. He has this concept in his head that driving is dangerous. Now he has never been in a car accident. And you know, we've gone out driving before and he's been through driver training and he hasn't had an accident, but he is still terrified to start driving. There's a lot of emotional reasoning there because he sees every other driver as so much of a threat instead of recognizing what he has the power to control by being a Defensive driver Encourage people who use emotional reasoning to find three alternate explanations to evaluate the facts of the situation to check for all or none thinking Sometimes, you know, everybody says that this is dangerous. Well, let's check that everybody thing and see if they're confusing high and low probability events. You know, I've told you all before, I am terrified of roller coasters. Now do I really believe that there's a high probability that I'm going to die if I get on a roller coaster? No, that's a really low probability event. However, that thought goes through my head and I recognize that, you know, roller coasters themselves are not unsafe for kids. You can do a lot of different things you can do. I I don't remember what these little things are called, but we called them fortune tellers when I was growing up. You can make fortune tellers for them. You can put positive notes in their coats, lunchboxes, etc give them kudos. Or for the younger kids, stars for just being the best that they can be. For telling you what they did to try to be the best that they could be that day. Keep a good things jar for each person in the family. Each time they do something well or helpfully, they get to put a penny in the jar. This reinforces that even if they don't succeed, if they did the best that they could do, that there will be benefits. And you know a penny is pretty a pretty small token. But it does help people see as those pennies build up that they do do nice things, that they do do things well. And it can be just things that they do that are helpful like sweeping the floor without being asked. Oops. Positive self talk helps you feel empowered and do and and good about being the best that you can be. We want people to feel like they are capable. We want people to feel like they are lovable. We want people to not feel like they are in danger, like they are threatened. If we feel like we can embrace the world, if we feel like we can handle whatever the world throws at us, then we are not going to be ramping up that HPA axis and increasing our stress and our cortisol levels. Feelings of empowerment reduce feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and can protect against depression, anxiety and a host of stress related issues Illnesses. Positive self talk is not only about self esteem. It's also about encouragement and telling yourself that you can tolerate the distress or you can accomplish your goal or that you can keep yourself safe. Positive self talk does not mean ignoring the negative. It means embracing the good with the bad. Recognizing that there's always a yin and a yang, learning to evaluate situations objectively, seeing failure or the potential for failure as a learning opportunity and fully recognizing your strengths and capabilities. Are there any questions? Between writing notes, filing insurance claims and scheduling with clients, it can be hard to stay organized. That's why I recommend Therapy Notes. Their easy to use platform lets you manage your practice securely and efficiently. Visit therapynotes.com to get two free months of Therapy Notes by just using the promo code CEU when you sign up for a free trial at therapynotes. Com.