“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

How many times have you heard that classic phrase? Perhaps as a child when you were caught being less than kind to a sibling or a friend, but childhood is not the only time when silencing negative thoughts is essential. As we mature and learn to keep our unkind thoughts TO ourselves, we sometimes learn to keep our worst thoughts FOR ourselves.

Negative self-talk is a prevalent and insidious habit that can derail and dismantle confidence, creativity and joy. Like a random song lyric that won’t be ignored, negative self-talk drowns out all else, sapping enthusiasm and our desire to engage. Rather than noticing the negative thought, questioning its validity and choosing to silence our faulty conclusions, we fall into line and perpetuate the climate of negative thinking and mood.

For example:
Upon receiving an invitation to the annual neighborhood block party, negative self-talk asserts, “I shouldn’t go. All of my neighbors already know each other. They won’t welcome me into their clique and I will feel awkward and unwelcome. I’m not good at making friends.”

Intervention begins with 4 steps: notice, separate, talk back, replace

1. Notice the negative self-talk as it occurs. We are constantly engaged in an inner dialogue and may not initially notice that the negative voice has taken the mic. Try to be aware of mood changes and feelings of anxiety that are the fruit of negative self-talk. Once we learn to be aware and really hear our negative voice chattering on, we can learn to push the mute button.
2. Challenge yourself to separate yourself from the negative voice. Oh, there you are again (even give the voice a name to further separate it from yourself). My inner Eeyore is at it again, time to shut her down!
3. Understand that the negativity is a pattern and decide that you are ready disrupt it.
   I refuse to listen to your anxiety today. You do not speak for the real me.
4. Practice self-affirmation by using some positive self-talk to establish a new pattern.
   Create an inner voice, a mantra or an affirmation that you can use to rewrite the negative self-talk script.
   “I am a positive person and I want to live an engaged life.”

Remember that judgement and unkind thoughts are not only harmful when directed towards others, but they will be profoundly destructive when directed inward. Battling negative self-talk begins with awareness and ends with training yourself to rewrite your internal script. Practice makes perfect or at least it makes us more open, more engaged and much more kind to ourselves.