Self-talk refers to words, phrases and stories that we tell ourselves. These are often thoughts that flash through our heads, which might seem of little importance. Occasionally, we may find ourselves saying the words out loud, perhaps criticizing ourselves for doing something poorly.
The way that we think isn’t trivial. Our thoughts have direct impacts on our bodies. Thoughts can easily make us much more stressed, to the point that even our physical health suffers.
Our thoughts also influence the way that we see the world. Negative thoughts make us tend to believe the worst. We become more likely to notice the bad things too.
Thankfully, the reverse applies as well. Positive thoughts help us to see the good things. They make us less stressed and more resilient. It ends up being easier to cope with the challenges that life throws at us.
Now, I’m not talking burying your head in the sand and pretending the world is rosy when it is not. Effective positive self-talk and thinking is still realistic. In fact, it’s often more realistic than thinking bad things all the time.
Types of Self-Talk for Caregivers
Self-talk falls into two general categories – stressful thoughts and resilient ones.
Stressful Thoughts
Stressful thoughts have a resistant quality. They’re thoughts that have a strong negative view of the current situation.
The thoughts may be directed at yourself (which can lead to guilt), at the care recipient (which may contribute to resentment), at other people, at God or even just at life in general.
- Some play into the idea of unfairness, like “why do I have to deal with this”?, “this isn’t how my life is meant to go”, “it isn’t fair that I’m the only one doing the hard work”
- Stressful thoughts may predict the worst, like “my life is over”, “everything is going wrong”, “it will never get better”
- Others are self-limiting, like “I can’t do this”, “there’s no way that I can cope”, “it’s too much”, “it’s impossible”
- Some such thoughts might assign blame, like “I’m useless”, “I couldn’t even prevent my mother from falling, what kind of a daughter am I?”
- Jealousy plays a role too, like “why do I have to be the caregiver, why my brother does nothing?”, “why don’t I get to have fantastic adventures around the world too?
- Another style focuses on the behavior of other people, like “they should move into a smaller house”, “he should help out more”, “he isn’t being reasonable”
There are many other patterns too, but I’m sure you get the picture.
It’s worth mentioning that some of the thoughts might be accurate. For example, your mother downsizing to a smaller house could well be the best possible outcome. It might even be something that you need to talk to her about and work on.
However, dwelling on the topic frequently in your mind isn’t going to help anything. Even if she did downsize, that decision wouldn’t fix every issue. Other problems would arise over time and you’d quickly find some other area to dwell on.
Resilient Thoughts
Resilient thoughts tend to be more positive. They’re also kinder and are often more in-tune with reality.
- Resilient thoughts can remind you that the situation isn’t as bad as it seems, like “this will pass”, “the world isn’t ending”, “we still have each other”
- They can help strengthen our resolve, like “I can do this”, “I will find a solution”, “we’ve been though worse”
Resilient thoughts aren’t focused on sugar-coating the world. They still consider the challenges that you are facing. The difference is that resilient thoughts tend to focus on solutions or managing the situation – rather than pretending it isn’t happening.
The Impacts of Thoughts
Stressful thoughts and resilient thoughts have noticably different impacts on the body.
When you focus on stressful thoughts, like “it’s not fair”, it can often feel like your body has tensed up. You’ll often find that you feel stressed or highly emotional.
Negative self talk tends to bring you down. It can make everything feel much worse.
When you’re already thinking about the negative things, it’s easy to focus in on them – creating a feedback loop where everything just keeps feeling worse.
Resilient thoughts have a different physical impact. Sometimes they might make you happy, but more often they’ll give you a sense of strength and empowerment.
What You Can Do
So, how do you improve your thought patterns?
Explore Your Thoughts
Being aware of your thoughts is one of the first steps. Think about a recent difficult situation, one where you were stressed, and try to recreate it in your mind.
As you do so, pay attention to anything that you thought, felt or said, especially words or thoughts that used concepts like:
- Should (like, Mom should downsize)
- Shouldn’t (like, Mom shouldn’t behave like that)
- Can’t (like, I can’t do this)
- I wish or if only (like, if only life wasn’t this difficult)
These are all particularly strong types of stress thoughts. They’re problematic, because they often create a large and apparently unsolvable problem out of your current situation.
Pay attention to how you feel physically and emotionally when you think like this.
Now, take the same situation and change the way that you think. More resilient concepts include ideas like:
- “It is what it is”
- “It’s ultimately Mom’s choice, not mine”
- “I can do this”
- “The worst will pass”
Thoughts like this tend to relieve tension and give you a greater sense of control. While the effect may not be strong at first, you should see more benefits with time.
The process also gets progressively easier.
Over time, resilient thoughts start to become more automatic when challenging situations arise.
Focus on Positive Self-Talk
Positive self-talk is another important area. This is more than just resilient thinking. Positive self-talk also includes reminding yourself of the things that you do well.
The process can feel a bit strange at first. Once again, it is something that become simpler and more automatic over time. Some examples include:
- “I did well supporting Mom today”
- “That news wasn’t nice, but it could have been worse”
- “Today was hard, but I got through it”
Decrease Negative Self-Talk
Lowering the amount of negative self-talk is an equally important area.
Replacing negative thoughts with resilient and positive thoughts is one approach. There are also others that can be effective, such as the following.
- Interrupt negative thoughts. The word ‘stop’ can be a simple and effective way to interrupt a stream of negative thoughts, especially if you can say it out loud. You might find your own word or phrase instead.
- Use body movements. Using a physical movement to interrupt negative thoughts can also be effective, especially in conjunction with a verbal approach. Pinging a rubber band around your wrist is a common technique. Others include making a slicing motion in the air or clicking your fingers together.
- Use milder wording. The words you use can make a huge difference. Swapping to a milder version can often decrease emotions. Think about switches like hate to don’t like and angry to annoyed.
- Use your name. Surprisingly, calling yourself by name (rather than “I”) can help decrease stress. This may be because it is often easier to be kind to someone else than to yourself.
- Use questions instead of limiting statements. For example, instead of saying “I can’t do this”, ask “How can I do this?” The switch is powerful because saying that you can’t do something shuts off possibilities, while asking a question encourages you to find solutions.
These approaches are all ones that can start off slowly.
It will take time to see the full effects, but the trick is to keep at them.
Be Kind to Yourself
The final area to highlight is self-compassion. Be kind to yourself. Caregiving is a difficult role. It can feel overwhelming at times and that’s okay.
Also remember that you’re a person too. You’re not going to get things perfect all the time. Challenging thoughts aren’t likely to go away completely. Instead, you’re goal is simply to decrease their frequency.
