self-help Archives - Lauren Waikart Counseling

Sometimes I’m amazed at what we let our brain get away with. In most situations, we are SO protective over what we allow to be absorbed into our head, but when it comes to vetting our own inner monologue, we seem to let anything fly. We read a book or an article with a critical eye, quickly discarding anything that seems amiss. Media headlines are screened for fake news. Even in conversations with friends or family, we’re keen to notice when the other person is off-base or just misinformed.

Assessing External Information

Take Steven. He’s sitting there, in a board meeting with his managers, supervisors and bosses, reviewing the latest sales campaign. He listens as his coworker waxes on about target numbers and audience reach and in his head he’s thinking “No fucking way. There’s not a chance we can make that happen. He’s way overselling our capabilities right now.”

Or when Kara was sitting around the Zoom thanksgiving table with family, which is a risky proposition in normal election years. She hears her aunt start talking about communists and snowflakes and about how the libtards ruined her ability to sell her house, and immediately Kara tunes everything else out. As it turns out, mute buttons are exactly what Thanksgiving has been missing.

Or how about when Hannah and Jack were having dinner and Hannah pointed out that Jack’s Movember growth is looking downright creepy and Jack just shrugs. The truth is that he’s grown fond of his pornstache.

All day every day we collect data, pass it through our senses onward to our brain where like an overzealous Tindr user, we swipe left, right, left, left, right indicating whether or not the new information is worth paying attention to.

Can I really get shredded 6 pack abs in just 7 days by drinking celery juice? No.

Will this 6-figure instagram course really 10x my sales? No

Is COVID just a propaganda stunt? nope

Will the Washington DC area be headed for unprecedented snowfall? Oh god, probably.

Assessing Internal Information

You’re a pretty smart person. No, that’s not fair. You don’t need that qualifier in there. You’re a smart person. You know this. Your friends know this. Your family knows this. You went to good schools, got the good jobs, schmooze in the “right” circles. Of course you know when someone is bullshitting (and/or is just misinformed).

You skim news headlines and think – Jesus! Who could POSSIBLY believe this crap?? How is half our country so stupid!

You listen to colleagues talk at social gatherings (wait – what are those??). Scratch that, you USED to listen to colleagues talk at social gatherings, babbling on about how this policy or that policy will revolutionize the industry. No it’s not dude.

You hear your best friend waxing on about her latest beau, who is clearly a womanizer with zero interest in any long-term, committed anything.

It’s not rocket science. You can just read through the lines. The truth just stands out to you in glowing, neon letters.

Yet, taking the words out of a must-have children’s books, you can do all this other great stuff with that brain of yours, yet you can’t filter out the same crap when it happens to originate from inside your head. For whatever reason – THAT shit is infallible.

You suck. I can’t believe you just said that. Now everyone thinks you’re a moron and you shouldn’t even be here. You’re going to lose out on the promotion to James and James is SUCH a tool! How could you wear your hair like that on Zoom and think you could get away with it? Jesus, man, you’re going to lose this account because you can’t keep it together. Oh my god – did you just let your eyes get watery?? Dammit! Now he’s going to think you’re a basket case! I can’t believe you stayed in bed all weekend – you’re such a POS!

Oh – and let’s not forget the chapter on COVID. Everything from how you’re going to get it and ruin all the lives of your family members to how your company is going to implode because everyone is stuck on quarantine and can’t properly check their systems.

Now, if you imagine those lines were spewing out of your favorite love-to-hate media personality – you would be SO quick to point out how ridiculous these assertions are. YOU KNOW NOTHING!

But, they’re note. They’re coming from YOU. We’ve already established your brilliance, so obviously your own thoughts can’t be wrong. How could such a logical, accurate and precise brain create thoughts that weren’t also logical, accurate and precise?

Bwooohahaha – cue dramatic violin music!

Your Internal Narrator Sucks

Just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you’re exempt from some straight internal bullshit.

Ever hear of self-talk? Of course you have. You probably think it’s a bunch of psychobabble. And – it is, but it’s useful psychobabble to investigate. It’s that inner monologue you got going on inside your head 24/7, the color of the lenses through which you view the world.

You may not even be fully aware of your monologue. It usually operates in the background, just under your focused awareness until you pause for a second and can hear it echoing around in there.

It’s almost like that movie, Stranger than Fiction where Will Ferrell’s character is walking around while Emma Thompson narrates his life. That basically your inner monologue, speaking softly (or loudly) in the background, commenting and passing judgement on everything you do.

Have you ever stopped to think about your narrator? A narrator is some sort of character or voice who tells us what’s happening in a story. Regardless of who the narrator is, the fact that there IS a narrator will skew how we hear the story. Narrators are biased. They can only see part of the story, they only have access to certain pieces of information, and their perspectives alter whether or not we believe what they say.

How would the story be different if a different narrator were selected? Would a tragedy be turned into a comedy? Would a drama seem less dramatic?

This conversation came up recently. I’m reading my daughter Harry Potter for the first time. She adores Harry and his friends and loathes those slimy slytherins. What she sees is precisely reflected from the narrator. But what if we weren’t seeing the story from Harry’s point of view? What if instead, it was from Snape? Or He-who-shall-not-be-named? Or just some random hufflepuff? How would our understanding of hero vs. villain and good vs. evil change?

Similarly, what would it be like if YOU had a different narrator? If instead of hearing criticism on your attire (OMG, are you wearing THAT?), you heard a warm, encouraging voice, what would that be like? Who would you want to narrate your life?

What’s your narrator saying?

If you want to play around more, try this – take a few minutes and write down every little thought that comes to mind. A stream of consciousness.

For example:

I need to be writing more. This is the last day of the month so the last chance to post in November. Besides, you need to get this done, so you can move on to the next thing. There’s at least 18000 books you still need to read. You need to sign up for that course course you wanted to do. And update your practice policies. Not to mention Christmas preparation. And OH BY THE WAY – It’s cyber Monday. In other words – BUY ALL THE THINGS. But also not buy all the things because you need to save for a car. Also, have you been a good mother, wife, friend, daughter today? Have you meditated today? Networked? You need to download the new workout plan. Did you drink water recently? (No – big sip of water). What’s for dinner? Have you sent the grocery order in yet?

The wording may look neutral. Nothing particularly malicious in there. No name-calling. But can you sense it? That drum beat? It’s like the pace starts to quicken and the volume gets louder. A background chant of dontforget.dontforget.dontforget. Almost like a really annoying high school coach and it’s sprint day. TWEET. Whistle blows. GO. Again. GO. Again. Faster faster faster.

Scanning for bullshit

Once you’ve written down your inner monologue – read back over it. What stands out? Are your thoughts equally as ‘go-go-go” as mine were? Or, is there a different theme? The critic who is telling you everything you do sucks? Or the fortune teller who is predicting all sorts of horrible things will happen? Or maybe it’s your inner brat, whining and complaining about how life is unfair. Maybe a little bit of all of these things. Does it sound like anyone?

If I look back at my life, who was the person who was always beating the drum of ‘do-more’? It’s my Dad, asking what I’ve done to be productive today. Judging me for my adolescent sloth. Where are the grades? Where is the money? Eye rolling if I’m vegging out. Sighing at my messy room. If you’re not doing then you’re not worthwhile.

That’s my current narrator. The voice who believes I need to always being go-go-go if I want to make anything of myself. Maybe you have a similar narrator. One who is keeping track of your endless to-dos, always pushing you to do more, be more. Never settling. It’s probably pushed you to success and achievement. But it’s relentless isn’t it? That quest for “enough”. But “enough” doesn’t actually exist. It’s an unquenchable drive.

Change your narrator

The problem with these different narrators is that they don’t necessarily have YOUR best interest in mind. It’s always someone else’s best interest.

What would happen if you responded to each one of those thoughts with the inner calm of your wise-minded self.

Mine would look at my endless to-do and question “Do you really need to do all of thee? It seems like a lot. What’s reasonable to work on today? Slow down. This isn’t a race. Stay with the process of what you’re doing. If you want to write today – awesome! Write! But if you don’t, that’s okay too.

Having trouble accessing a wise-minded narrator to respond to that inner monologue? Maybe it’s time to invest in some food old fashioned therapy. I offer free consults, and if I’m not a good fit for you, I’ll help you find someone who is.

I’m a therapist so obviously I’m a pro-therapy individual. I drink the therapy kool-aid so to speak.

But I get it. You may not be into the same kool-aid that I am. Maybe you’ve considered doing therapy, but you’re just not quite ready to commit.

Maybe it’s not the right time. You’re trying to keep to some sort of teleworking schedule. You’re trying to be a homeschool teacher. You’re trying to KEEP. IT. TOGETHER. I get that. Therapy is a time a commitment. You’d need the hour+ (ask me about intensive therapy options!) in addition to some headspace to practice the therapy skills in your real life.

Or maybe you don’t have the finances for it. You or your spouse has lost their job. Or you’re job is still intact but the clients have gone down, meaning your income has gone down. I get that too. I do offer some discounts, (see COVID discounts) but therapy is still an investment and you would need to decide whether you’re ready for it.

Or maybe you don’t know if you really need it. Maybe you question whether things are that bad? You compare yourself to other people and see that their life circumstances seem way worse, so who are you to complain? I get that, too. There will always be a reason to not start therapy, and very many people wait until their absolute breaking point before scheduling an appointment. Then again, there’s also the chance that what you’re going through will get better on it’s own, and you can handle it without going to therapy.

So, for those of you who are considering therapy – but aren’t ready to jump in just yet, I give you a list of exercises you can try on your own to start the process. And – bonus – should you decide to start therapy, some of your work is already start.

1. Start monitoring.

There’s a quote by business strategist Peter Drucker that says “what gets measured, gets managed.” If you’re currently dealing with a low mood,a dn you’re hoping to change that, one of the first things you can do is to start measuring it. What do I mean? I mean just jotting down on a 1-10 scale where you mood is on a daily basis. You can be more specific by rating your depression, anxiety, stress, anger, etc separately, or do your mood as one big lumped feeling. If you struggle with relationship challenges, rate that. Question whether you have disordered eating? Rate your urges to use those behaviors and whether you use them. Is there a pattern to your mood? Are certain environments, situations, or people tied to your lower/higher mood days?

2. Describe your day

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), one technique is to describe how you spend your time on a given day. Starting with when you wake up, write out your daily schedule and then rate each activity based on how much enjoyment it gives you, how important it is and how accomplished it makes you feel.

Time	Activity	Enjoy	Important	Accomplished
7-8am	Breakfast w/kids	2	6	3
8-12pm	Homeschooling	1	7	4
12-3pm	Work Meetings	4	7	5
3-6pm	Help kids w/school work	2	5	5
6-7pm	Dinner	4	5	3
7-8pm	Bedtime for kids	2	7	3
8-10pm	Work	2	8	7
10-12am	Netflix	5	0	0

Example Activity Chart

When creating your daily activities list, it can be helpful to give perspective to your rating scale. What is your maximum, minimum and middle for each rating scale? Ie, for me, dancing to 80s music is a 10, grabbing a coffee with a friend is about a 5, and managing my toddler’s tantrum is a 0. Sometimes we may describe an activity as awful, but when compared to something we really don’t like, it’s not that bad. I don’t like filing taxes, but I would happily work on my taxes over dealing with a toddler tantrum.

3. Identify mini-goals

Much of therapy involves goal setting. “What do you want to get out of counseling?”, “How do you want life to be different?”, or “If you could wake up tomorrow and the problem you’ve mentioned has resolved, what would your life look like?”, etc. Because of these big-picture questions, client identify big-picture goals: “I want to feel good again”. “I don’t want to hate myself anymore”. “I wouldn’t be stressing over every little thing”.

And these are great starting points to give the therapy some direction. A therapist would then help you break those down into small, more concrete goals, so if nothing else, you’d know when you reached them.

Fortunately, you don’t need a therapist to set goals. But, as a suggestion, the smaller and more objective you make your goals, the easier it is to identify correlating action steps, so that you can, you know – actually achieve them. So for example, maybe you’re very much aware that you’re not getting enough sleep and you would like to get more. How much more sleep would you like to get? What time would that mean you need to get in bed by? What historically has prevented you from adhering to some sort of bed-time routine? What would be all the little steps you would need to take in order to increase your sleep quantity/quality? Now, pick one of those steps to start with, and try it out this week. Life is not a sprint. It’s not even a race. It’s a journey and every step you take, regardless of how small, is still forward movement. What movement can YOU take tomorrow, or even right now, towards your goals.

4. Read your goal list daily

How many times have you decided you were going to either start a new habit or stop an old one? You start off gung-ho and super motivated: This is going to change your life! You’ll be so awesome after this! And within a few days, you’re cutting corners, forgetting what you set out to do, or, gasp – blatantly refusing to follow you’re own guidance. We’ve all been there. Establishing habits to reach our goals is hard work. What makes it slightly easier is having ever-present reminders that we want this change, AND then making ourselves acknowledge those ever-present reminders by rereading our goals. If you have a post-it note with your “drink more water” goal stuck to your coffee pot, to your computer monitor, to your steering wheel, etc. You’re more likely to 1) remember you made the goal in the first place and 2) take action to work towards that goal. Of course, if you’re at all like me, this won’t do anything for those rebellious streaks that see such reminders and shouts “Screw you! I don’t want to drink water right now! Now give me my coffee!”

5. Increase your exposure to positive messages

Look, our brains are already really good at identifying all the crap in our worlds. The news and social media echo apocalyptic visions of our socially-isolated futures, resulting in a situation in which there’s basically no way to avoid the negative spew unless you’re trying really hard. If you’re already feeling emotionally on-edge, you may be one comment away from camel back-snapping territory (as in, the back of a camel snapping under burdensome weight of life – not a broken camelbak (R)). You may not be able to control all messages you’re brain receives, but you do have some ability to combat the negative that you’re receiving. This could mean:

Limiting your exposure to people who are excessively pessimistic
Following people on social media who offer uplifting messages
Balancing your news consumption with some positive stories
Spending more time talking with friends and family who encourage and support you
Leaving yourself affirmations around your house/workplace (“This sucks, but you can do it”, “you’re freaking awesome at your job”, “this too, will pass”, etc.)
Offering those around you words of support and encouragement. We could all use a boost.

Doing the exercises above won’t replace the feedback and guidance you would get from a licensed mental health professional, but they will give you an idea of where you could use additional help. If you find these exercises challenging, or maybe life is too overwhelming right now to even attempt them, I would encourage you to reach out for help. If you’re at all curious, remember that I (and most other therapists) offer free consultations. That means you can test the waters with no commitment required.

If you’re considering therapy, what is holding you back from saying yes?

Tag: self-help

Is Your Inner Monologue Full of Shit?