How to stop your Negative Self-Talk
When things don't go right, do you sometimes find yourself getting stuck in a loop of negativity, telling yourself that the world is stacked against you and you just can't cope? For instance have you waited for a half hour to talk with customer service, only to be told that they can't help you?
That's what happened to me. This podcast is about using Dr. Low's tools to climb out of the emotional pit of negative self-talk. Check out how you can restore a balanced view of yourself and life by changing your script.
Topic references:
MOTIONLESS SITTING
… control of restlessness and agitation through determined motionless sitting
Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 41, Sabotage Method No. 9: Failure to Practice Muscle Control, page 327 in the 3rd edition
For a detailed description see Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 56, There Is No Hopeless Case (part 2), pages 352-353
ATTITUDE
What is of importance is not the event but the attitude that you take to the event. And I want you to distinguish clearly and energetically between the event that happens in environment, either in outer environment or in inner environment, and the attitude which you take - not the event, but you. The attitude is yours. It is not of the event. And if you bungle, it's due to your attitude, and the attitude can be controlled, can be changed, can be improved. It can be omitted, it can be adopted, it can be manipulated. The event usually cannot.
Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 19, The Purpose of Life Is to Maintain Peace, page 108
SELF-INDICTMENT
And once you indict the character of somebody, again, that’s this somebody’s business and not mine. But if you consider yourself always wrong yourself … or you consider yourself wrong most of the time, then you indict your character, and that’s bad. That’s what we call the inner temper. Not temper against anybody outside you, but against yourself, against your own character. If you do that, then you are consistently tense, you can’t relax.
Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger, lecture 24, Temper, Temperament and Self-Blame, page 146
PESSIMISM
Their pessimistic views have gained depth and strength. Their pessimism has become a habit, hardened and crystallized by continued practice. Such habits pervade the organism, color every move and thought of the person, and are not easily dislodged.
You can observe such habits of thought everywhere and at all times. These days particularly, it is not difficult to spot prophets of doom right at your elbow, at home, in the neighborhood, in the shop. You have heard all kinds of gruesome predictions in the past few years. Things, in general, were painted as utterly hopeless. The country is going to pot; inflation is certain to come, or it is here already to stay; democracy cannot survive.
Mental Health Through Will Training, chapter 7, Helplessness Is Not Hopelessness, page 98 in the 3rd edition