What if you overheard a conversation in the street where a couple is having a fight and the wife is telling his husband that he is so stupid because he forgot to buy a bottle of milk at grocery store, that he’s worthless and that he anyway fails in everything he does, even at the most simple tasks?

What would you think?

Hopefully, you would recognize it as emotional abuse and advise that poor husband to file for divorce!

But… what if you are being that tyrannical person with yourself?

What if you are your own persecutor? Your own emotional abuser?

Are you doomed to living with this internal tormentor for forever? Absolutely not!

In this article, I want to share with you how I manage to overcome negative self-talk whenever it comes around and I’ll show how you can finally break up your negative thoughts/(break-up with your negative self)!

So keep reading! 🙂

 

1. Identify Negative Self-Talk

First things first! Because it is essential to identify negative self-talk in order to act upon and silence it, let’s then first remind ourselves of what is negative self-talk so you can identify it next time it occurs in your head.

So, what is it?

Here are the main characteristics of negative self-talk:

• “All or nothing” attitude
• Focus on negativity
• Worst case scenario thinking
• Assumption that others think negative things about you

› “All or nothing” attitude

Negative self-talk is pretty extreme in the sense that it usually is an “all or nothing” statement using words such as “always”, “never”.

With negative self-talk, things are rarely  put into perspective, but they are rather formulated under the form of extreme statements.

Negative self-talk can result in sentences such as:  

• “I am not good enough.”
• “No one is ever going to love me”
• “I’m such an idiot”
• “I can’t do this.”
• “I am a failure.”
• “I will always suck”
• “I will never be able to do this.”

› Focus on negativity

Negative self-talk really has a blinder when it comes to spotting positivity.

Negative self-talk is like putting a pair of negativity glasses on!

Through these lenses of negativity, self-negative talk is not only focused on the negative sides of a given situation, but also turns any positive element into a negative one.

In this world, there is no such thing as positivity…

› Worst case scenario thinking

This is when you start thinking about the worst possible outcome and here, believe me, your imagination can go really wild!

Whenever you experience negative self-talk, it usually tends to be quite dramatic and seems to predict how the rest of your life is going to look like.

For example, let’s say you didn’t pass your math exam.

You tell yourself you failed and negative self-talk starts to occur: you tell yourself that you failed, will always suck at math and will never be able to pass that exam.

Therefore, you tell yourself that you will never graduate, which in turn means that you will never be able to find a job and you will unemployed for your whole life.

You get the idea!

› Assuming that others think negative things about you

Similar to the worst case scenario thinking, your imagination can also go pretty wild with this one!

It consists of assumption of what people think about you, and of course, it’s usually a pretty negative one (you clearly have no idea of what the person actually thinks about you, but you still start assuming).

Let’s take a quick example!

Let’s say you have been studying Spanish for a couple of years and now you are going on a vacation to Spain.

You go to the restaurant and you take the opportunity to practice your Spanish. You order in Spanish but as you are ordering, you realize that you are making several mistakes.

As the waiter leaves thanking you for the order, you start making assumptions, such as “He must think I really suck at Spanish! That mistake was so stupid. The waiter must think I’m such a dummy! Stupid me! I’m going to feel so ashamed when he comes back.”

That is clearly assuming what a person might think about you, without basing it on the facts.

 

 

To tell you the truth, here is what most likely happened: the waiter didn’t even form any kind of opinion about your Spanish skills because he had better things to do.

As soon as he left your table, he was busy working and making sure orders are taken correctly, that customers are satisfied and that they are getting good service.

Moreover, he’s probably used to hearing foreign tourists practicing their language skills, so it was not the first time he heard less than perfect Spanish!

Finally, I’m actually sure the waiter enjoyed your courage and effort to speak the local language instead of going for the easy option of speaking English.

Hopefully, these realizations will help you to identify negative self-talk whenever it occurs so you can stop it before it starts ruining your day.

Now, what should you do to silence negative self-talk?

2. Distance Yourself From Your Negative Self-Talk

In order to distance yourself from your negative self-talk, you should understand that you are not your thoughts.

Thoughts are not objective, concrete facts.

As real as they can feel, your thoughts are not a reflection of reality.

However, the danger here is that they can lead to concrete facts: they can limit you, prevent you from taking action and pursuing your goals.

They also create real emotional reactions like making you anxious, stressed or even depressed.

So start separating yourself from your negative thoughts by understanding that your thoughts are not a representation of reality, but often rather a distortion of reality.

So, how do you concretely take distance from your negative thoughts?

› Write them down on a piece of paper

Write your thoughts down as you would take them out of your head.

Then, read them and try to look at them in the most objective way, as though you would stumble on this piece of paper in the street.

Really try to imagine that you didn’t write them down yourself.

So, how do you feel about those thoughts? Do they bring about positive feelings? Do they cheer you up? Most likely not!

 

 

Read them and realize how diminishing, discouraging and hurtful they are. Try to feel how unhelpful and abusive they are.

Seeing your thoughts on paper can be a very effective way to separate them from you by making you aware of how harsh they actually are.

› Get rid of them

Once you have realized how those negative thoughts and you can feel how they are, be ready to get rid of these negative thoughts for good!

Read them out loud, cross them out with a pen and finally… tear up the piece of paper.

Tear up these negative thoughts to make them disappear for good!

Here is a small recap to:

• Write down your negative thoughts on a piece of paper
• Read them out loud
• Feel how abusive and unhelpful they are
• Make them disappear by literally tearing the piece of paper apart
• You’re done, your negative thoughts on this topic are gone for good!

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3. Identify Your Inner Critic

Now that you have identified your negative thoughts and managed to distance yourself from them, you might wonder: if it was not you, then who emitted them in the first place? Where do they come from?

> Who is to blame?

Guess no longer, that is your good old “friend” inner critic!

Inner who? It is that little nasty, evil voice in your head telling you are not worthy, that you can’t do it…

Because all that voice wants is to prevent you from succeeding.

It wants to prevent you from feeling good and happy. It doesn’t want you to be loved, or to achieve great things.

Why?

Because if you were to fulfill your true potential, your inner critic knows how successful you would be and how much happier you would feel… and it is secretly afraid of the breadth of your success because it wouldn’t know how to handle it.

So your inner critic is that voice that judges you, causing you to doubt yourself.

It tells you that you are not good enough, no matter what.

It’s that little evil friend we love to hate…?

But don’t let it take control over you.

Don’t let it become your tyrannical king.

Instead, you should see your inner critic as an outsider, your own worst enemy.

Don’t surrender my friend, fight and shut down that voice!

 

 

It is not that difficult, as it’s just a voice. There’s not even a need for a physical fight (on a side note, I’m against any form of violence!).

Do not let that voice bring you down, influence your decisions and affect the way you think of your abilities.

> Separate yourself from your inner critic

Divorce from it for good! See it as a very unhappy, toxic marriage that has been going for too long. Time to put an end to this relationship. time to divorce!

That voice is by no means telling you the truth, it is just nonsense that you are more than welcome not to listen to, my friend.

To help you to concretize your inner critic more in order to distance it better from yourself, give it a name.

 

 

Whenever your inner critic shows up, you can decide not to meet it.

Treat your inner critic as an unwanted guest. Someone whose company you really don’t enjoy.

It might want to come back, but it’s okay, just don’t surrender.

Never give up and let it win.

And believe me, after you have turned down its invitation several times, it will show up less and less often, eventually to appear only occasionally.

When you manage to see those negative thoughts as something completely external to you, it’s much easier to push them away.

To realize that your inner critic is talking nonsense that you don’t have to agree with.

Those negative thoughts will become less intimidating and their impact on your life will become smaller and smaller.

4. Switch Your Perspective

> From negativity to neutrality

Because it might be too big of a jump to directly go from one end of the spectrum to the other, you might have to go halfway first.

That’s why I suggest that you first go from negativity to neutrality.

For example, if you are not ready to replace “I hate myself” with “I love myself”, you can start with statements that are more toned down such as “I don’t dislike myself” and gently moving towards “I like myself”.

> Talk back to your inner critic

First, dare to stand against it and tell it that what it says is not true.

That it is really losing it.

Whenever your inner critic shows up, silence and ignore it.

Refuse to start the conversation with it.

Tell it that you don’t want to hear the nasty things it has to tell you today and that it doesn’t scare you anymore, and that it doesn’t have any power over you anymore.

Finally, tell it that you are not going to feed its existence anymore.

› Dump your inner critic and embrace your new inner supporter

An even more powerful way to talk back is by being supported by your best ally: your inner supporter!

While you are trying to silence your inner critic, at the same time you can grow its opposite version and keep that benevolent friend forever.

Believe me, it’s going to be your best ally against your worst enemy.

Similarly to the inner critic, you can embody your inner supporter and give it a sweet name.

The second step is to give it a voice by assigning it positive sentences.

 

 

But how do you make your inner supporter come alive when you can’t come up yourself with a positive thing to say about you?

Write the following on a piece of paper:

• all the positive things your friends think about you – don’t be shy and ask them directly 🙂
• all the qualities your friends love about you
• your greatest achievements
• your strengths

And here you have it!

Now, gather and attribute those positive thoughts to your inner supporter, so it can remind you about all the good things about you whenever you need its help to stand against your inner critic.

You can also make your inner supporter say the exact opposite of what your inner critic says, it also works!

It is all about rewriting your thoughts with positive self-talk.

Conclusion

By first distancing yourself from your negative thoughts and slowly shifting your perspective towards a more positive mindset, you can diminish the power of negative self-talk.

You can reduce its harmful impact so it doesn’t stain your self-esteem.

Once you’ve broken up with negative self-talk, it can no longer stop you from achieving your true potential.

Was this useful? What name did you give to your inner critic? How about your inner supporter? I’m curious to know so feel free to leave in the comment section below!

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