Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 3: Assess your negative inner dialogue
• Method 2 of 3: Fighting negative inner dialogue
• Method 3 of 3: Accept yourself

Sometimes you are your own worst critic. If you find yourself constantly putting yourself down, then your inner critic is working overtime. However, it doesn't have to be that way. Learn how to silence your inner critic by speaking to yourself in a positive way.

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Method 1 of 3: Assess your negative inner dialogue

1. See the effect of your negative inner dialogue. Negative inner dialogue, or self-criticism, can lead to increased nervousness and other negative emotions. By understanding the personal consequences you can understand why you should stop self-criticism. In addition, it can motivate you to switch to a positive inner dialogue.
   • See how your negative inner dialogue is affecting you: Does it make you feel unhappy, angry, or worried? Is the ultimate effect of your negative inner dialogue that you cannot focus or eat properly (for example), that you drink too much, or that you treat others badly?
   • Use an ABC (Activating Event, Beliefs, and Consequences) worksheet to capture and better understand the consequences. Make three columns on a sheet of paper or on a worksheet. Give the first column the title, "Triggering Event," the second the title, "Beliefs," and the third the title, "Consequences."
     • Write your answers to the following questions in the Triggering Event column: What happened just before you started feeling this way? What were you doing? Who was with you? Where were you? When did it happen?
     • In the Beliefs column, write your answers to the following questions: What was going through my mind at the time? What did this say about me? What was the worst that could happen? "
     • In the Consequences column, write your answers to the following questions: Describe your emotion with one word and indicate its intensity with a percentage between 0% and 100%. What did you feel physically? What did you do? What did you want to do?
2. Write down your own negative inner conversations. Your inner dialogue is really just what you say to yourself, out loud or in your head (in your mind). Negative inner dialogue, or self-criticism, can even make you perform worse in certain situations (such as in competitive sports).
   • List the negative things you often say to yourself in certain situations. For example, you might say, "How stupid I am," when you drop something, or you say, "I always do this! I can never do anything right, ”if you are late for work because you overslept. These are examples of ways you could criticize yourself.
3. Keep a thought journal about your own critical inner voice to organize your ideas. You can create a thought journal by writing the answers to the following questions:
   • Describe the situation. What, where, when, with whom? What are / were you doing?
   • What critical thoughts arose in you?
   • What kind of emotion do you feel when you have these thoughts?
   • How much faith do you give to these thoughts (0 - 100%)? In this case, 0% is no belief at all, and 100% is that you fully believe in it.
   • Is this something you think of yourself? Who said these things to you?
   • Can you look at this in a different way? How would anyone else look at it and feel about it? In such a case, what would you say to a friend? Is this a fact or an opinion?

Method 2 of 3: Fighting negative inner dialogue

1. Use positive inner dialogue to silence your inner critic. The opposite of a negative inner dialogue, a positive inner dialogue, is the way to fight against self-criticism. You have to start noticing the thought first and then you have to stop the thought - if you have a negative thought, replace it with something more positive at the same time.
   • Think of your negative thoughts as a parrot that keeps saying useless things to you over and over again. You can choose to listen to the parrot, or you can tell the parrot what it is saying is wrong!
2. List positive alternative thoughts. For example, you can use the following positive affirmations: “I can do this. This will stop. I can be angry and still deal with it. At the moment I am safe. I will learn from this and it will be easier next time. ”
   • Now that you have listed the patterns that your negative inner dialogue follows, you can develop ways in which you can turn those negative thoughts into positive or more realistic ones. For example, if you say to yourself, “I'm so stupid,” if you drop something or make a mistake, you can reply right away, “That's not a good thought about myself. I'm not stupid. It's okay that I made a mistake and I will go for it to do better next time. ” In this way you have an inner conversation. The more you do this, the better you will be able to correct your negative thoughts.
   • You can use the notes of your thoughts of self-compassion to organize your ideas. With this you can identify the following things: activating events, feelings or images, negative thoughts and images, feelings, thoughts of self-compassion as an alternative to useless thoughts and images (e.g. what would you say to a friend in this case?), your understanding of the change in your own feelings and what you did that helped.
3. Practice deep breathing to release tension. Tension influences and strengthens the negative inner dialogue. The more tense you are, the more you can fault yourself. One of the best ways to stay calm is to use relaxation techniques or deep breathing techniques.
   • Sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed. Breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Only focus on your own breathing and how it feels in your body. Focus especially on the movement of your diaphragm / stomach in and out while breathing. Do this for a few minutes or until you feel more calm.
4. Worry less about what others think. Sometimes you can criticize yourself for your interpretation of how others think about you. This way of thinking is a common thinking pattern called mind reading. This means that you think you know what is going on in the minds of others. The problem with this is that you can't read minds, so you don't know what's really going on in their heads. Make a conscious choice to stop trying to be the person you think other people want you to be. It can be quite liberating.
   • If you find yourself thinking that other people have negative thoughts about you, then you should ask yourself the following questions: “Am I assuming to know what other people think? What is the evidence? These are my own thoughts. Is there another more logical way to look at this?

Method 3 of 3: Accept yourself

1. Practice self-acceptance. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of treatment that helps people to accept themselves and work towards their goals. As an extension of this therapy you will learn to accept things so that you can break through your pattern of self-criticism.
   • To work on your tolerance, try this worksheet from getselfhelp.co.uk. Fill in the empty fields:
     • Triggering Event (what happened) __________________
     • Thoughts (what went through you) ______________
     • Consequence of Believing These Thoughts ____________
     • Logical, Alternative Thought ______________________
     • How you will defuse the thoughts (see thoughts as transient and deal with them as such) _________________
2. Normalize your experiences. Normalization is a common technique in therapy because it lets people know that their experience is ordinary and normal. This in turn can make people more relaxed and more likely to accept themselves and the situation they are in.
   • For example, you are used to when you are in a group, to keep a little in the background, and you wish you could come forward with your opinion a bit more. Someone else who seems to be the driving force behind the group may want to learn to listen better.
3. Give yourself a breather. Don't be so hard on yourself. You are a uniquely human being. Everyone runs into problems in their life and has things to work on. You're on it! There is always something you can learn to better organize your life. You can learn to be more efficient, maintain healthy relationships with yourself and others, be happier and reduce tension in yourself.
   • Respond with a little self-compassion if you find yourself harboring negative thoughts about yourself again. Try to be understanding of yourself in the same way that you would be of a friend.
   • If you have high expectations of yourself, try to focus on what you have done well. Adjust your expectations if you have to and give yourself some time to catch your breath or relax.
4. Distract yourself. Distraction or grounding techniques are great for dealing with the emotional distress (tension, depression) that often goes hand in hand with critical thoughts about yourself and behavior toward yourself.
   • One way to distract yourself is to laugh. Laughter really can be the best remedy as laughter has been shown to improve your overall health. Watch a funny movie or stand-up comedy, or play a fun game.
   • Do things that make you feel positive. Doing things that make you happy is a great way to improve your mood and deal with critical thoughts about yourself.
   • Go somewhere where you feel happy. This could be a park or pet store, or to a friend.
5. Focus on your good qualities. Sometimes you can take too much of your problems without taking into account the amazing aspects of who you are! Pay attention to and congratulate yourself on your positive character traits to increase your self-esteem.
   • You can use a list of your own positive traits to organize your strengths. Determine what your good qualities are, how others might describe you in a positive way, and what others have said about your positive character traits in the past.
   • Try drawing a flower and writing one positive characteristic of yourself on each petal. Use this worksheet.
6. Don't allow others to put you down. Prevent others from treating you with condescension. The way you let other people treat you can greatly affect the way you treat yourself.
   • Find new friends if your current friends are bullying you!
   • If your coworkers treat you badly, ask yourself if it is really worth working with people who treat you badly.