If you’re one of the 20 million Americans diagnosed with depression, you know how fruitless it is to tell someone one the low end of a downward spiral to just “cheer up.” Trust me. I’ve been there. I suffered for many years with severe depression at times and just your every day blues (otherwise known as Dysthymia) on “good” days. The truth is that I got to the point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and was blessed with a moment of clarity in which I realized that the missing ingredient of my internal search for happiness was “action.”
I had to take responsibility for my happiness. One thing I did for a very long time was blame my parents’ lousy parenting techniques for my miserable state of mind. Even if I had good reason for resentment, it really didn’t matter in the scheme of my happiness. Blaming my parents for my less-than-wonderful childhood kept me locked in the past and wasn’t contributing anything positive to my quality of life in the present. In my search free myself from the chains of the past, I read countless self-help books about “letting go” and “overcoming anger” but nothing worked. You know why? Because I didn’t put any of the things I learned into action. Knowledge is only half the battle. Having a blueprint to build a house is of no use unless a you pick up the hammer and nails and gets to work.
Mental Health experts agree that the way we think about ourselves, or our self worth, is woven in early childhood. From around the ages of 3 to 5 years old, everything a child experiences is absorbed and formed into what is known as “core beliefs.” We take these beliefs into our adulthood as the filter through which we see the world and shape all of our experiences.
If a child grew up criticized, neglected or abused in any way we can see the effects of this manifested as low self-esteem, disastrous relationships and self-defeating life choices.
Although the child may no longer literally hear the criticizing voice of a parent, they will continue the pattern with negative self-talk. Many times this is unconscious. The negative filter will taint every positive experience, and the person will live as if life is an affliction to be barely tolerated.
Been there. Done that. Not knowing that my negative self-talk was contributing to my misery, I lived like that for years. Hey, what was I supposed to think? It spoke to me in my own voice so it seemed like the truth. I used to say things like, “I hate myself,” “Why was I born?” and “I’m ugly” no matter how many people spoke words to the contrary. Often, I said these things in the guise of “jest” but deep down that is how I felt. When I look back, I feel sad about that little girl who felt that way. When I got older my sadness turned to anger about it and I spent a long period of time hating my parents for their inability to, well… parent.
The anger didn’t serve me either and didn’t change my negative thinking. I was caught in the notion that if I could get my parents to validate the pain they caused me, I could finally be happy. This was a trap too. For myself and for many of us, that day never came.
Finally I had to understand that my happiness was in my own hands and although the negativity of my childhood had stopped long ago, I was perpetuating it by doing it to myself.
Negative Self-talk is like a cunning saboteur who stealthily works against our happiness. It is the programming that we adopted before we were even aware that it was being installed. Now that we’ve established this fact, let’s also establish the fact that it can be controlled.
Researchers can actually predict whether a relationship will survive by counting positive to negative comments. If the ratio is at least five to one the relationship is strong and healthy.
What can we do if the negative comments are coming from inside us?
