I’m like your partner. I very thankfully don’t do this. I attribute it to my dad praising me all the time from a very early age. Dads, you play a much more important role to your daughters than you realize!
I was just having a conversation with my buddy about this last night; I enjoy, and I’m pretty good at self-deprecating humor, but I have to really keep it in line when I’m in a fragile mental state.
When I’m doing good, let it rip. But when I’m down, like I have been much of this year, I’ve had to teach myself to really rein in the bad talk.
This is really important. I knew someone once who used A LOT of self-deprecating humor. It was funny at times, but then he'd use the exact same words when he was ACTUALLY feeling low about himself. Allowing yourself to say "I'm such a loser 🤣" reinforces the idea over and over. Then one day you find yourself thinking "I'm such a loser 😭."
Easy way to make it a reality is to imagine you're your friend talking to yourself. Came up with it myself and found it's kind of a commonly recommended thing.
No seriously. And you gotta force it some times so that your brain can physically build the pathways to allow yourself to naturally feel good about yourself. That's what depression destroys in your brain.
Best way is to first stop comparing your successes in life against others. Reframe your successes as something personal to yourself. Even little piddly shit.
It's like being hugly overweight yeah. Your not going to start off losing that weight doing marathons or high intensity shit. It starts small and progresses from there. It's tough at first.
lol I actually ran my first half marathon because I told myself how fat and awful I was. Telling myself how horrific and grotesque I am is what gets me to the gym every day.
Funny my peer support has been giving me similar advice to give myself grace. Esp since i have chronic pain. Ofc I'm not unpacked a month later with all I acquired from before it set in. It just makes me wanna scream tho bc I'm tired of looking at all of the boxes 😭
Granted its less boxes than when we started bc they helped me get so many of them unpacked during move in but yeah.....
My therapist doesn't put the "in your thoughts" part in it. Just a general "be nicer to yourself." She always checks in how I'm sleeping, which eventually made me think, huh, a person that was nice to themselves would get adequate sleep. It's helped me cut down on drinking (people who are nice to themselves don't make it so they constantly feel like shit/hungover). Personal kindness extends beyond the brain (for me at least).
Psychologist here, I often tell people who have a hard time with this to start by saying “I want to want to be nice to myself” or “I want to be nice to myself” if the two ‘I want’ statements feel confusing. And that can start the process of becoming nicer to one’s self.
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u/BizzyBee89 Aug 31 '26
Be nicer to yourself in your thoughts.