How To Cultivate a More Helpful Inner Dialog

Using science-based practices, my self-talk became notably healthier—as did my self-esteem in general

Does your inner dialogue sound something like your most shit-talking nemesis?

You’re not alone. I personally relate to being berated by my own thoughts, and many of the clients with whom I work in a private practice psychotherapy setting also describe this experience.

Studies have shown that the majority of our thoughts are repetitive in nature. We also know from research that the more worried, ruminating, or self-blaming thoughts we have in general, the higher levels of anxiety and depression we can expect to entertain (see “The structure and consequence of repetitive thought”), although tolerating any level of depression or anxiety is anything but entertaining. These conditions are uncomfortable at best, and they can range anywhere from mildly annoying to unbearably painful.

And this correlation between negative repetitive thoughts and mental stability makes sense, doesn’t it? Imagine your thoughts are a record, or a CD, perhaps, depending on what era you’re from. Maybe all your musical access has always been through a less tangible Wi-Fi cloud of some sort. Whatever. Just imagine that you’re stuck — what feels like permanently — on the same track. You also have no stop button or volume control. You will only hear one thing, over and over again, and the thing you’re stuck listening to is, well, a mantra of put-downs, judgment, and shit-talking. Sounds awful, right? Of course we’d end up feeling anxious and depressed. Who wants to live with a soundtrack like that?

Luckily, studies have also shown that qualities like self-awareness and practices such as radical acceptance and mindfulness can help interrupt these painful thought-cycles. Over time we can create a whole new soundtrack, and we can learn how to pause the whole thing whenever we’d prefer to be more present and less stuck-in-our-heads.

Here are some tips that have been helpful around what used to be my own self-deprecating, sometimes abusively dark inner dialogue.

Notice the Run-On Thought Sentence and Apply a Generous Dose of Curiosity

Various aspects of our troubling experiences can happen to grab our attention first. Sometimes I first notice the shitty thoughts running rampant through my mind, e.g. I’m a terrible mom or I’m not good enough at my job (insert flimsy evidence here).

Other times I might be alerted that something is amiss by a heavy feeling I experience, typically felt in the body somewhere. I tend to notice tightness in my jaw, knots in my stomach, or constriction in my chest.

Perhaps the first thing blinking on my radar is neither thoughts nor feelings, but instead, I become aware as a result of the interesting coping skills I’ve adopted in response to hard times. For example, I might realize that I’m staring at my phone again, checked-out, unconsciously trying to escape my discomfort. Back in the day, I would have been coping via cigarettes during the day and switched to alcohol once the sun went down.

Whichever of these pieces we happen to notice first — thoughts, feelings, or behavior — instead of staying sucked into whatever consuming vortex of story, sensation, or activity that feeds the same old loop, we can notice we’re stuck and then choose to hit pause.

Pausing for the sake of curiosity creates the spaciousness we need to look more closely at what’s actually happening in any given moment. Some helpful questions to ask in the space of the pause are things like, what is the evidence that these thoughts are true? And conversely, what is the evidence that these thoughts are not true?

If helpful evidence that we are neither ‘terrible’ nor ‘not good enough’ seem unavailable or unconvincing, perhaps it’s time to assess the expectations — what are they, where’d they come from, and are they realistic? If not being a ‘terrible mom’ means never losing my patience or needing quiet-mommy-time to recharge a dangerously low mommy-battery, then my definition of a ‘good mom’ is absurd. I need to reality-check these nonsensical expectations. Then I can move on to other useful questions — what needs am I trying to get met, and how can I do that in a healthy way?

In the ‘not good enough at my job’ example, I might realize that my need is to be good at my job because I really care about the work that I do. I might recognize this as an indication that my ethics and integrity are intact, and that that’s a good thing! Unlike the repetitive-thought soundtrack that I’m an absolute fuck-up, it turns out that I’m actually just really passionate about my job. Perhaps what I need, rather than continuing to privately doubt myself, is to seek more support around my work. Maybe what I need is more guidance and feedback from the outside and less time alone with these thoughts causing turmoil on the inside.

Support is an appropriate need. From where, now that I’ve identified this need, can I attempt to get this very valid need met? My pause-and-inquire technique has led me from self-degradation to self-compassionate problem-solving.

Another benefit of the pausing-to-be-curious technique is that the simple act of naming an emotion can help us respond to the emotion in a more helpful, less activated way. When I’m operating from the “fight or flight” part of my brain, I mostly have access to “all or nothing” or catastrophizing types of thoughts. When I name the emotion I’m experiencing, I can enlist the help of the higher functioning part of my brain.

This labeling may be the reason mindfulness is so effective for such a wide range of conditions. Mitch Abblett, in “Tame Reactive Emotions by Naming Them,” describes it this way:

“Research has shown that mere verbal labeling of negative emotions can help people recover control. UCLA’s Matthew Lieberman refers to this as “affect labeling” and his fMRI brain scan research shows that this labeling of emotion appears to decrease activity in the brain’s emotional centers, including the amygdala. This dampening of the emotional brain allows its frontal lobe (reasoning and thinking center) to have greater sway over solving the problem du jour.”

Ride the Wave of Emotive Release

Sometimes I continue to feel stuck on a subject even after reflecting thoroughly on a reaction I’m having to an adverse experience. I’ve paused and assessed. I’ve applied all the reframes, understanding, and problem-solving I can muster. Still, I seem to dangle helplessly as if caught on a hook.

What’s unresolved in these moments is the need for cathartic release. That’s right — sometimes we cannot logic our way around having our feelings. I mean, I suppose we technically can, but this is where we might feel especially stuck with the same old thoughts and behaviors with which we might rather not be stuck.

Circling back to the previous examples, let’s say I successfully stopped the cycle of internalized criticism around my parenting, vented and received support from friends, and gained useful ideas from books or experts. But I still keep ruminating on that time I was inadvertently unkind to my sweet child. When I remember that painful moment, I feel those sensations in my body — the tightness, tension, or heaviness still lingers. What I probably need is to cry about it. I need to create an opportunity where it is safe enough to lean into the image and the feelings this memory evokes and allow myself to weep. After which — what I’ve personally experienced — is a sense of relief, plus, low and behold, the cessation of those dreaded thoughts.

Likewise, despite all my efforts to gain support around my work, I could very well continue to feel insecure or — maybe even more embarrassing — jealous of others’ success. Rather than try to live in my mind just above all those feelings, I can switch gears entirely. I shift away from the thoughts and stories and instead bring my awareness to the places in my body where those feelings come to life. Like a searchlight on a rescue mission, my awareness, now pointed directly at those feelings, can cast them into such brightness that they can finally be seen and known. I can connect with feelings of envy, rage, fear, desperation, longing, or grief. I can feel these emotions on my mission to feel more peaceful as well as for the sake of feeling more alive. And yet I don’t need to act on these feelings in any way. (These feelings may inform wise-action, but that’s different than acting directly from the place of those feelings.)

The more deeply honored they are, the more fully these feeling states can be released. Not released like into the wind and gone forevermore. But released of their power and allowed to be integrated as if folded neatly into the rest of my being. When I move through a cathartic release of any kind, I relish in the wisdom I’ve gained from having surrendered to and survived such a beast of a wave. One less thing to be scared of or resistant to in the future. And one more thing to feel compassion around when recognized in others.

The studies and understanding around cathartic release are mixed. There was a time that it was widely accepted among mental health professionals that crying helped to relieve stress. Today the evidence is much more complicated and points to important considerations around for whom, in what circumstances, and how much crying might really be helpful. Still, this comprehensive investigation concludes that there “are still some good reasons to seriously consider the hypothesis that (specific components of) crying may induce actual mood improvement.” (See Is crying a self-soothing behavior?)

Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield speaks beautifully to this point about feeling our feelings. He says, “We can name each one and see which ones we are afraid of, which we are entangled by, which generate stories, and how we become free. “Free” is not free from feelings, but free to feel each one and let it move on,” (see “A Full Awareness of the Feelings”).

Write Out Your Self-Judgment, Then Re-Write to Yourself As Kindly as Possible

A lot of folks benefit from pretending to write as if to their very best friend or favorite person in the world. This is because so many of us can’t fathom speaking to ourselves as kindly as we would to said other person in our lives whom we unconditionally adore. But just like anything else, with practice and repetition what initially feels awkward and unnatural may eventually feel automatic and second nature. Besides, who deserves your own relentlessly positive regard if not yourself?

Examples of rewrites:

I’m an idiot becomes despite my best efforts, I made a mistake and this is what I learned.

I’m terribly embarrassed by how I handled that becomes I had a really hard time! In hindsight, I can see how deeply challenging that was for me.

I made a commitment to quit (any number of common unhealthy habits) or do (insert one of many touted healthy habits) every day — and I failed! I suck! becomes Well, I have really healthy intentions and I might need more support and more gentle baby-steps to reach my goals. And that’s OK.

Litmus test: If you wouldn’t say it to someone you love and to whom you’d always give the benefit of the doubt, don’t say it to yourself. Again, it’s OK if this kindness toward yourself feels disingenuous. This self-compassionate response most definitely felt foreign to me when I first gave it a whirl. But it’s been worth it to keep trying.

Surround Yourself With People Who Are Nice to You

This might seem obvious, but sometimes it’s actually the things that are closest to our faces that are the hardest to accurately see. Not unlike the Boiling Frog Syndrome, wherein the frog is brought to a boil so gradually they don’t perceive the rising danger until it’s too late. Let us assess not only what’s going on internally but also what we’re subjected to externally that might be contributing to our distress, or boiling us alive, as the case may be.

May we lovingly remember that these changes in self-talk can and usually do take some time to establish. In the meantime, notice who you’re spending your time with and how they respond to your needs and vulnerability. Having reinforcement for the way you’d like to respond to yourself can help strengthen your new habits.

For example, the last time I was having a supremely challenging time in my life, I also happened to be enjoying a fairly new friendship with someone who was simultaneously having a really hard time in her own life. We recognized our mutual need for additional support and began communicating more frequently, exchanging regular check-ins, swapping empathy and encouragement. Over the year or so of consistent contact with this friend, I realized that her unconditional kindness and relentlessly supportive responses were beginning to show up in my own inner dialogue.

When overwhelmed and stressed to my max, I noticed that my thoughts toward myself became more aligned with the style of caring feedback she had so often provided. I also noticed less tolerance to the kinds of responses that were more similar to the type of self-talk I’d prefer to leave behind. If another well-intentioned friend or family member lacked the understanding I needed, I began to be able to say, “well that’s not really helpful,” either directly to them, or at the very least, I could point this out to myself. This boundary, whether applied internally or externally, helped prevent additional shame, blame, or guilt that might have previously been heaped onto my existing burden. Where or with whom do you feel the most accepted, respected, and safe? And how can you spend more time there?

Avoid Media That Reinforces the Old Messages

This is really a progression of the previous point. While that referred to people in our actual lives and how their attitudes impact our wellbeing, this is speaking to the implicit and more culture-wide messages that we can breathe in without even knowing.

This is about the collective biases that assign value to some people more than others through privilege and prejudice. This ancient trauma is not resolved. We can inherit old messages and we can internalize hatred and discrimination and hold it against ourselves, sometimes without even knowing that we’re doing it. While there is an evolving awareness around this stuff, there are also a lot of folks invested in perpetuating these harmful beliefs because there’s money to made off insecurities and power differentials.

Back in the day, I invested time and money on regular salon appointments where I’d spend hours having my hair done by talented hair-do people. What I noticed, though, was that salons were the only places where I leafed, slowly and attentively, through women’s magazines. By the time I absorbed hours worth of ads, plus the ads disguised as articles, I’d leave the salon with a slightly new hairstyle and a long list of new things around which to feel insecure, as well as products I temporarily believed I needed to buy for each perceived personal defect. Skincare, nail care, hair products, body-hair hygiene, tanning lotions, wrinkle creams, diet systems, accessories galore. The list of idealized looks seems endless, as does the money one could spend trying to achieve a supposedly desirable appearance.

But eventually, I noticed the correlation between consuming those magazines and the increase in my critical self-talk. Having clocked this unhelpful phenomenon, I can now gravitate toward media, be it for information, connection, or entertainment, that is in alignment with my values. I seek sources that inspire or awaken versus discourage or disparage.

They’re out there. We just have to be informed and selective consumers. Likewise, I began to question the values of the various subcultures in which I participated and spent less time in the ones that harbored any number of biases that made me feel bad about myself or felt toxic for the world as a whole. Now I feel aware of the impact when I make appearances in some of these formerly frequented subcultures. I notice because the old thoughts, mostly retired by now, make a special guest appearance when I’m revisiting a culture that feeds those thoughts like an all-you-can-eat buffet. And because I don’t hate myself anymore, I try to get out again before I make myself sick.

Spend Less Time in Your Head and More Time Engaged in What Your Body Is Actually Doing

Classic mindfulness — these instructions are both simple and challenging. Being present in the “here and now” means pointing our focus, with intention, toward the sensations by which we are anchored into the only moment in which we really exist. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, or even taste in any given moment?

With this practice, I’ll sometimes notice that my mind will inevitably wander back to the spinning wheel of thoughts, that repetitive record from which I strive to break free. I might observe, while trying to enjoy the sensations of swimming, gardening, cooking, cleaning, stretching, running, or whatever movement might be the source of my living-meditation practice, my awareness of the present moment fades away and drifts into those winding loops of thought.

But I know that I’m not alone in this. Minds are in the habit of creeping back to familiar and well-established patterns of thought. All I can do is notice, come back to the intended point of focus, celebrate the noticing, and begin again. Eventually, I may feel so engrossed in the moment that there is a merging between awareness and the currently transpiring experience that is completely free from thought. This connection with the flow of life and living is often the highest level of relief from those relentlessly sticky thoughts.

I tend to notice this enjoyable cessation of thought when I’m visiting or exploring a brand new place, the newness grabbing my awareness in a way that familiar places fail to do. I also tend to feel this relief when spending time outdoors. This can be attributed to the way our senses are all so highly stimulated in a natural environment (see “Nature experience reduces rumination”).

When there are expansive views to admire complete with chirping birds to overhear, wild herbs to breathe in, cool or warm breezes brushing by, and depending on where you live, poison oak to avoid, what space is left for meandering thoughts? Where do you feel most aware of what you’re doing, in touch with your body, and present with the sensations of the here and now? Spending more time cultivating this connection to your felt, physical experiences will help stop the internal dialogue altogether, including, of course, the self-directed shit-talking.

After honoring these six practices as often as possible over the last few years, I’m ecstatic to report that my self-talk, and self-esteem in general, have become notably healthier. There have been challenging moments along the way during which I didn’t always register that change was actually happening. Yet slowly but surely, a significant shift has undoubtedly taken place. I know with certainty that I’m living with more self-compassion when I feel resilient in the midst of hardship.

Life is still hard sometimes, but I don’t add insult to injury (like I used to do — quite literally) by beating up on myself when enduring a rough patch. Practicing kindness means that I can feel better much faster than I could when I operated from mistrust around my own goodness. When I make mistakes I can tolerate feedback more comfortably. And when I discover blind spots, instead of feeling ashamed for their existence, I feel excited by the opportunity to learn and grow.

This phenomenon brings to mind a most poignant quote from Carl Rogers: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” Like a vulnerable seedling aspiring to thrive, we humans benefit from thoughtful conditions, love, nurturing, patience, and positive regard. We cannot prod or stomp ourselves into growth. But when our self-talk resembles the metaphorical equivalent of the right amount of water and sunshine, nutrient-rich soil plus adequate time and space to grow, what a strikingly beautiful life can be revealed.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.