This content was created by Natalie Moore, LMFT. This content was uploaded by Natalie Moore, LMFT. This is a YouTube video titled "Simple Tool to Change Your Life 🛠" (uploaded 2019-04-05) featuring Natalie Moore, LMFT, speaking directly to viewers in a self-help/psychotherapy format. She discusses how the words people use to describe themselves (e.g., "I am an addict," "I am a perfectionist") can be disempowering and recommends reframing them into less-identifying, more empowering language (e.g., "I have tended toward addiction," "I have lacked motivation at times") to increase agency and support behavior change. The excerpt is a solo-presenter piece offering practical therapeutic advice and inviting viewer engagement.
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LMFT. Hey guys, Natalie Moore here, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and today I want to talk about the power of the words that we use to describe ourselves and the words we use to describe the issues that we face. So this is something that I bring up a lot with my psychotherapy clients when I hear them use language like, "I am an addict." or "I am a perfectionist," or "I'm a pessimist," or "I'm too lazy and not motivated to get things done." I really call them out and I ask them to bring more awareness to how those statements make them feel in the moment. And usually statements like that are going to be disempowering. They're going to make us feel more constricted and kind of more tense. And those kinds of statements are really going to hold us back from what we actually want and need and would like to create in our lives. So I kind of help them reverse this. I help them reverse it by asking them, well, how do we phrase this in a more empowering, more positive way? One of the ways of doing that is to change your language to, I have tended toward addiction, or I used to fall into perfectionistic behavior, or I have lacked motivation at times and have found it difficult to get the things done that I wanted to do. Yes, it's a little bit more wordy, but I promise you it will be worth it. Because what does that do? That opens up an opportunity for us to see that as past behavior, and it shows us our agency for how we change our current and future behavior to move us in a direction of where we want to go. So I hope that this video was helpful for you. Please comment, like, subscribe, and if you have a request for a video, please leave it in the comment section. I love doing video requests. Okay, take good care, and I encourage you to practice this strategy. Okay, take care, bye-bye.
