If I asked you to summarise mental health and well-being in a single word, what would that be? Positivity? Resilience? Stability? A friend of mine said something recently really stuck with me - that at the very core of all mental health is communication*.
On an interpersonal level, the way we communicate to our friends, family, teachers, employers, partners, kids, and the ways in which they communicate to us define our relationships and our well-being. On a global level, the messages communicated to us by our society have an enormous impact on our state of mind, and the ways in which we communicate who we are and what we stand for to the world define our identity. On a micro level, even mental health medications such as stimulants and anti-depressants are about changing the way different parts of our brain communicate with each other. But above all, the way we communicate with ourselves is the most crucial.
If we’re honest, most of us would have to admit we’re not great communicators, and nowhere is this more true than in the conversations we have with ourselves. Here’s an example. Imagine you’re studying for a difficult subject and you’ve had to submit an assignment. You put a decent amount of effort into this thing – maybe not as much as you could have, but you really did try and you can honestly say that you gave it a good nudge. You get the assignment back. You’re feeling nervous. You’re feeling excited. You check the grade - and you’ve failed. Where does your mind go in that moment? Where does your mind sit for the rest of the day, or even the rest of your life, in response to this? Have you ever caught yourself thinking any of the following?
“You lazy ****”
“You’re an idiot. What you do even bother?”
“You really stuffed up this time”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Here’s another scenario. Imagine there’s someone you’re attracted to and you muster up the courage to ask that person out. This person politely declines. What’s the dialogue going in your head look like afterwards? Are there any of the following thoughts going through your mind?
“You never had a chance”
“What made you think this person would be interested in you?”
“No one’s ever going to want you”
I could go on with these scenarios, but you get the picture. All of us, at some stage in our lives, face situations of failure, rejection and so on. Most of us have also fallen into the trap of speaking to ourselves in this way in the aftermath, at least on occasion. Some of us go to this place of judgement by default. Now imagine these same scenarios, but instead of yourself as the narrator, it was actually a friend speaking to you like that. How long would you keep that friend around? My guess is not very long, and if you would, I’d encourage you to take a good, hard look at the company you keep.
My point is this: most of us speak to ourselves in a way we’d never speak to our friends, family members, or even people we don’t like very much. This type of thinking is also more difficult to shift once it take hold – our minds can easily go off on their own tangent before we’ve had a chance to catch up, as thought processes flow much more quickly than actual verbal conversations. Before you know it, you can find yourself running a depressive internal dialogue that’s closer to a country & western broken record than a piece of self-awareness.
So how do we lift the needle on the stereo and put on something with better clarity, melody and lyrics? I’ve found the following to be useful:
1. Give yourself positive but balanced feedback
As much as the negative inner dialogue above needs to be replaced, it’s not very realistic to replace it purely with empty platitudes of “positive thinking”. If, for example, the thought processes after failing an assignment are “I’ll do better next time”, or “I still love myself”, there’s no real growth here. A more effective way is to look objectively at the things you can comme
nd yourself for (gems) and the areas where you could use some improvement (opportunities). Better yet, write them down. An example might be:
Gem: “I put aside an hour each afternoon last week to work on it”
Gem: “I feel like I understand the main concepts”
Opportunity: “I could have gotten someone to proof-read it”
Opportunity: “I could have gotten started on it earlier”
Gem: “I submitted this one on time”
Gem: “I’m getting better at structuring assignments”
Note the emphasis on “gems” versus “opportunities” – I’ve found a good ratio for personal growth while practicing self-compassion is 2:1. Also, try to start and end the analysis with positives.
2. Look for exceptions to the “rule”
There is really nothing in life that is “all-or-nothing” (except for this sentence, perhaps), but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking like this when things don’t go well. The reason for this is that when we’re in a depressive mood, all we think about are the other times in our life when we’ve been in a similar state, and we start to generalise a temporary mood across a permanent timespan. When we’re not in a depressive mood, we usually don’t notice. This can play out in our reactions to situations and outcomes, and can be remedied by looking for exceptions.
For example, if your thought process after you’ve been rejected is “no one wants anything to do with me”, or “I’ve never been good with conversation”, then look for times in your life when this hasn’t been the case (Amen, 1998). Again, write them down if your thoughts turn into rumination (persistent negative thinking over the same episode).
3. Don’t make an identity out of an action
There is a general rule of thumb when it comes to relationships, conflict and communication that says to focus on the behaviour and not the person, and the same goes for communication with yourself. If you’ve made a mistake or missed the mark, it’s perfectly normal to feel some sense of guilt or failure, but to then turn that mistake into who you are as a person is a whole different game that you really don’t want to play.
There is a world of difference, for example, between “I failed” and “I am a failure”, or “I didn’t work as hard as I could have” versus “I am lazy”. One of these is rooted in guilt – our conscience reminding us that we’ve got more to offer. The other is rooted in shame – a deeper sense that we’re not a good person and that we’ll always be like this. The former can give us a kick in the right direction for next time, the latter can have us believing we’re “broken”, and it’s much harder to shake. To avoid falling into a shame spiral, try to keep things in perspective. Remember, even Shane Warne bowled the occasional wide!
These are just a few ways to shift that inner voice into something that looks more like a benevolent king than a vicious tyrant. If you have any strategies of your own that are useful, drop them in the comments below.
*Thank you to Craig Johns for his “Wellbeing at Work” series.
References
Amen, D.G. (1998). Change your brain, change your life: The breakthrough program for conquering anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, lack of focus, anger and memory problems. Harmony Books.
Great post Nick. Our self-speak is critical to our self-image, that person we believe ourselves to be. In his book Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz, MD speaks about changing our self-image and he makes this point about our thoughts:
"...Our brain doesn't distinguish between imagination and reality; instead, it acts based on the information we send it through our thoughts."
We need to understand how important our thoughts are, the influence that they have on us and be gentle with ourselves.