Change your self-talk

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled. Have you no shame in that?” ~ Epictetus

What essentially makes you depressed or anxious or angry? Most would say it’s what happens to you that determines how you feel. You were retrenched from work today and are devastated. You were abused by a friend and feel angry and sad. You were ignored by your partner and feel rejected.

Many people, however, including psychologists, now recognise life events play only a small role in how you feel and behave. The real culprits are your thoughts. It’s not what happens to you but how you interpret and think about what happens to you that matters.

Many of our interpretations of events are distorted and this is where cognitive therapy comes in. Cognitive therapy is not about positive thinking. It’s about rational thinking. It’s about learning to identify our interpretations of events, otherwise known as our self-talk, and then learning to challenge the self-talk by