What to say when you talk to yourself
By: Prili Beba Freedives
Tags: Self Help Books, Positive Thinking, Mental Health, Self Care, Self Help

What to say when you talk to yourself

The cover of Shad Helmstetter’s book “What To Say When You Talk To Your Self”

My previous post about sh*tty therapist was a gloomy one, but this post will hopefully leave you in a happier place. Here, I’m going to share to you a simple way to increase your mental health and wellbeing: read and apply the tips from the book What To Say When You Talk To Your Self and do the ”work”. Yes self-care is not about indulgence but doing the works. Before I explain further, let me tell you first the story about how I come across these two points.

I first know about the What To Say When You Talk To Your Self from By The Book Podcast. I was so interested to read the book after hearing the good feedbacks from the Jolenta and Kristin the podcast’s hosts. So I googled the book to find out more, which led me to find the link to actually download the book for free! (Click the link I’ve attached when I mention the title of the book in this post).

If I remember, I left the book unattended for quite some times, until after I received a homework from my psychotherapist. So after my contract in a toxic office ended abruptly which means I lost my job at the end of 2018— which I feel grateful about now, more story about that later — I’ve decided that I needed to find a new therapist because I knew my therapist was shitty. I found out that the university that I attended for my bachelor degree — a.k.a. the best university in the country, and happens to be situated not far from my parents house where I live — has a psychology clinic with quite affordable price. The clinic is actually intended as a “lab” for therapy master students to learn, but the good thing is we can choose to be handled either by real therapist or master students. If we were handled by master students, there would be a real therapist as their teacher who would supervise their works.

After waiting for more than a month (since I called them and put my name on their waiting list), I finally got a therapy schedule. When they told me my therapist’s name, I felt that was a familiar name. Turns out, she was a kid star, a host of the TV show for kids that I always watched when I was little! At that moment, she had been a psychotherapist for more than 10 years (or more!). I was thrilled to meet her, which I expressed on our first meeting.

The first session lasted for only around 45 minutes, way less than my sessions with the shitty therapist. That was not only time-efficient, but also cost efficient. At first I thought getting therapy at that clinic would be more expensive because I was told that the cost for 1h session at this clinic was the same as the minimum donation at the pro-bono clinic where I met the sh*tty therapist. However, at the end I only paid the same, with way better result. The first 30 min was just me crying while telling what happened to me, and the next thing after that was she paraphrase what I’ve told her, then at the end she gave me a simple homework.

She told me “from today until our next session, I only want you to do one thing, only one. Only talk positively to and about yourself. If you can’t find anything positive to talk about, just be silent.”

I was a little bit surprised because what’s the connection between my problem and this suggested solution. But, I’ve read many research told that there’s positive benefit for our body and mind from talking positively (or in other words, I haven’t heard negative impact out of it), so I agreed to do that homework. I also thought, that was the great time to start reading the What To Say When You Talk To Your Self book (and FYI I didn’t tell my therapist that I had this book to read).

How I applied what to say when you talk to your self

“You will become what you think about most.” — A quote from the book What To Say When You Talk To Your Self, page 25

The main argument of this book is you always have to talk positively to and about yourself. That also means to create a positive sentence starting the word “I” followed with whatever you want to have or get or feel (e.g. “I am rich”), and avoid negative word (i.e. can’t, don’t, etc.). What blew my mind the most when I read the book how positive self-talk is about make your subconscious or unconscious mind — more discussion about this later, because I LOVE talking about subconscious/unconscious mind a.k.a. shadow work. There’s one story from the book about how a husband’s behaviour changed only because his wife played a recording of voice reading positive sentences repeatedly.

I will let you read the book to get the whole idea, but what I’m going to share here is how I applied what the book told us in daily life, for two weeks. Only two ways: sticky notes and Insight Timer app. I used sticky notes to write positive sentences starting with “I” (1 sticky note per sentence), and I placed all those sticky notes across the walls in my room. In additions, I do more by utilising the Insight Timer app — explanation about this app on my next post. I used Insight Timer app not only for guided meditations but also to find guided meditations on affirmation. I played the affirmations when I was taking shower — yes I bring my phone to the bathroom, and I’m still doing it until now to listen to podcast — and when I was already in my bed and about to sleep. So, I kept the affirmations played for 2 hours (depends on each meditation’s length, of course) even after I was already asleep. That is because I read from the book that our subconscious/unconscious mind is still working, and thus can still be molded, when we are sleeping.

How was the result from doing those for 2 weeks? I went back to meet my therapist, for our second session, after 2 weeks doing that. After I told her what I had been doing and how I did feel — which was, so much better — the first thing she told me was “I’m so proud of you!” I was surprised. There I was, jobless (and I used to think that being jobless means I was unworthy) and depressed, and yet she was still proud of me?

She told me, ”your progress in the past two weeks is normally a progress that someone would need to take for 2 months of 6 sessions. So well done!”

I felt uplifted hearing that. She further explained that she thought I already had the tool to be resilient in facing life challenges. So eventhough at that moment I didn’t know when and how I would get a new job and new income, I was already resilient, whatever happens to me.

Self-care is about taking action, so do your work

“that’s because you really did your homework” — my therapist

That was one thing that made my therapist was proud of me, I did my homework. I even went extra mile to read books and did more than she asked.

That, my friend, is my top tip for mental health and well-being. If you think self-care is about going to the spa, getting nails done, taking bath in rose water or bubbles while drinking wine (to be frank, I never did any of those. I only got spa-like massage once), you’re wrong. Those are indulgence. Self-care, on the other hand, is about taking action, which sometimes really hard when you’re too depressed, that leads to improvement in your mental health and well-being.

I have a friend who complained to me that he felt depressed. But when I gave him advice to “heal” (apostrophe because I also believe that we, all of us, are not “broken”) his depression such as going to the clinic I went, he had so many excuses not to take any (maybe because he didn’t like my unsolicited advice? Oops my bad). I don’t know his condition or situation as of now, but I knew he was still depressed for quite some times because we met and still talked once or twice after that meeting. I also knew that up until now, he still hasn’t achieved his big and fabulous dream he shared to me, which I assume (I could be wrong) is because he hasn’t taken any necessary actions towards that goal. If you meet him, and if you are sensitive of energy like me, you would probably also feel negative energy around him. Does that feel good to be him or to be anyone around him? No. Will his laziness to take actions to improve his mental health and wellbeing bring positive change in his life? No.

I, on the contrary, am a kind of person who have been starting to actively search for new tools, learn new skills and knowledge (thanks to internet) since I realised I had mental health problems. Whenever I face a problem, I will find the solution from social media, internet, and book. You would probably notice this from my previous post about The Science of Happiness Online Course. And as proven from my therapist testimony, my way has been better and more successful to improve wellbeing. So, my friend, I encourage you to have a problem-solver mindset to improve your mental health and well-being.