Is it True?

Do you catch yourself talking to yourself in negative destructive ways? 

Are you saying any of the following or similar things to yourself?

“I can’t”

“I’m so stupid”

“I always say/do dumb things”

Claire has already mentioned a really powerful question to ask: “Is it useful?” 

Clearly these are not useful things to be saying to yourself and there’s also another question that you can ask: “Is it true?”

Sometimes people who are really good at beating themselves up will respond with “Yes, its not useful, but it’s true!” But I would them challenge them to really look at that statement.  If we ask “Is it really true?” we can really start to look at things in more useful ways.

Saying “I’m a stupid person’ is suggesting that you are always this way, that you were born stupid and can never change. Looking at things in this way undermines the argument that “It is true”. 

We then need to look for and find evidence that challenges that belief, for instance remembering a time when we handled a situation in a resourceful way, or handled a tricky situation calmly.

We also need to be able to distinguish between the person and the behaviour. I can recognise that I might sometimes do things that are a bit daft, but that does not make me a stupid person, it’s a comment on how I perceive my behaviour.

It is also useful to remind ourselves that we all make mistakes: no one on the planet is perfect!

Simon Pimenta