Why Am I Like This?!
We are a therapist and a psychiatric nurse practitioner and we want to share a simplified view of these complex concepts that are often misunderstood, avoided, and even feared.
This is a podcast about being human, adapting to life, and learning from our unique experience.
We try to provide the answers to question: Why am I like this?
Why Am I Like This?!
Why Are My Thoughts So Negative?!
Have you ever wondered why your brain seems wired to focus on the negative? Join us as we unravel the secrets of negativity bias, an ancient survival mechanism that shapes our thoughts and perspectives. Hosts Laura Wood, a trauma therapist, and Michaela Beaver, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, engage in a heartfelt discussion about how past hardships can leave a lingering shadow on our mindset. Drawing from personal stories and professional insights, we explore the impact of depression and hopelessness on negative thinking patterns and highlight the transformative power of hope and gratitude as tools for a positive shift.
Maintaining positivity isn't always easy, especially when negativity feels like a natural inclination. We delve into the effort required to shift one's mindset and the pivotal role therapy can play in this transformation. From the common practice of negative commiseration in social settings to understanding the brain's survival-driven focus on negativity, we uncover the complexities behind these thought patterns. Together, we examine how childhood reinforcement and evolutionary predispositions contribute to our tendency toward negativity, offering strategies for overcoming these barriers, particularly for those grappling with depression.
Explore the paradox of how negativity can feel productive, tracing this perception back to childhood and ancestral roots. We discuss cognitive behavioral strategies and the importance of affirmations and mantras in building inner strength and reshaping our outlook. By embracing positive self-talk and envisioning the best version of ourselves, we foster resilience and success in challenging situations. With encouragement to harness these practices, we invite you to engage with our content, share it with friends, and embark on a journey toward a more optimistic mindset.
Laura's Free Course on Emotional Development and Regulation:
https://benavieri.com/neuroception-sign-up/
This show is sponsored by:
Benavieri Counseling & Coaching
www.benavieri.com
Active Healing Psychiatric Services
www.activehealingpsych.com
Hello and welcome to. Why Am I Like this, the podcast? Who didn't get enough hugs as a child? I am Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist.
Michaela Beaver:And I'm Mashaela Beaver. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Laura Wood:So, M, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela Beaver:I'm so glad that you asked. We want to help you understand yourself a bit better, how the things you learned about yourself and the world and childhood are still affecting you today. We want to figure out why are we like this, those random things about ourselves we might wonder about, like why am I so jumpy? Why am I so anxious? Why do we take everything personally? Why are my thoughts so negative? Why do I feel like I have to fix everything all?
Laura Wood:the time? Yes, and we are talking about our attitudes today, and we're going to try to answer the following questions why are my thoughts so negative? What is the negativity bias and how do I start looking on the bright side? So let's get into it. Why are we so negative? What's going?
Michaela Beaver:on. Man, this is a hard one because I think I'm an optimist. Like I'm optimistic, like I think, uh, I don't know, my brain just does not work that way. Yes, I see the negatives, yes, I know that there's like things that can happen, but ultimately I'm always like hey, I got this right, like we're going to get through this, and I think of all the like ways that I can like counteract those negative thoughts. So, um, yeah, I don't know, like why are people having struggles with these negative thoughts and unable to like move their brains?
Laura Wood:I think so. It's funny. I've actually been told I'm very negative, but I don't see that in myself. I think maybe that's like an old version of me where in the past I know that I've been somebody who is just kind of on the downside of things, like looking at the not right side, always thinking what's the next thing that's going to happen. Everything is bad. Everything bad happens to me Like I can't catch a break, just like that feeling of like dredging through, like I used to say, like just clawing my way through every second of every day, like trying to make it and trying to get out of this like hole that I'm always in, like I used to feel that way, um, and so I think I had like a really bad attitude at that time.
Laura Wood:And I think a lot, there's a lot to be said for changing the way that you think so that you can change the way you feel. Like you can't change your immediate reaction, like your first thought, you can't change that, you can't control that. That's going to happen, but you don't have to go with that. So I always think the main reason why we're so negative is and I think there's plenty of other reasons too, but for me. It's that negativity bias and it's a survival skill. So if you are constantly looking for the negative thing, like then, you won't get blindsided by it. You're always going to be able to be prepared for the worst thing that could happen, the worst case scenario. It's a survival skill for those who have been through really negative experiences, like over and over and over. It's just this validating thing that keeps happening. That keeps happening, and so they start to skew the way that they see the world into this negativity lens that, basically, is designed to keep you alive in a weird way.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, that's so interesting. So I have gone through several hard things and I don't know, like through that, I've always just been like pick yourself up, keep going. What are my options? Look at the next thing, right. And I know several people that have gone through really hard things and they also have that. Like you know it's they can still. They don't lose their hope in things. Do you think it has something to do with, just like that, being able to have hope? You know cause? Some of depression is like hopelessness and not being able to see your way out of it. Do you think it has something to do with that?
Laura Wood:Yeah, I do. I think, um, depression has a big part of this. Like, I think, if we're thinking, if we're hopeless all the time, if we're feeling like there is no way out, if we're feeling like there's nothing we can do, if we're feeling like, you know, everything we try doesn't work, I see that a lot, like well, I tried this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, and so I can't, I can't, I can't, is going to turn into I won't, I won't, I won't, and then I just am constantly like reinforcing my hopelessness. Right, and so I think having hope is a good antidote and a good solution. That's why they say a gratitude journal is so helpful and important, like a practice. I said journal specifically. That's an, that's a technique, but a gratitude practice in general is something that can change our entire mood, like we can feel better on a regular basis because we're training our thoughts to go from that negativity bias to this positivity bias, like a gratitude practice builds a bias on the other side.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So our positive you know, you always hear people say like it takes 10 positives to discount one negative, right? So those negative things are just really sticky. They stick to us and the positive things we just like minimize them, right, like that's a cognitive distortion minimizing and maximizing, right, we minimize the good and we maximize the bad things and our brain tends to want to stick to those things.
Michaela Beaver:While you were talking, I was also wondering if you know if it I believe it's probably something tied to childhood as well right, why we're so negative, right? So if we have one person who got a lot of positive reinforcement in childhood, you know, hey, you got this, you can do this, you're, you know you're, you're stronger than you think, right, like you get a lot of positive reinforcement, then you are going to be inherently more likely to believe that you can be okay. Whereas if you have another kid, even from the same family sometimes, where you know the there was a lot of butting of heads, they were, you know, more likely to get in trouble. They were constantly being told stop that, don't do that, don't touch that. You're never going to get it. Why can't you just listen? Maybe that's it that person's up that person up for maybe having more likely being on that negativity bias versus the positivity bias.
Laura Wood:I think that's right. I think the way that we're trained in childhood to look at the world it shapes our worldview right. So if I'm constantly getting reinforced that I'm bad and that I'm doing something wrong and that nothing good is happening and I'm not doing good enough, I'm already sort of seeing the world from this negative lens, like I'm not somebody who is going to have the option to think positively because I never learned it. You know, when kids are exposed to chronic toxic stress and like chronic negativity, they're going to embody that later on. There's obviously some exceptions, right, like you have, people who come out of really, really horrible circumstances with like grit and resilience. But I also think sometimes that has a lot to do with at least one role model. If we have at least one role model from any perspective that is telling us or showing us a positive way forward, we can leech onto that and we can follow that and we can really say, okay, that's possible. If it's possible for them, it's possible for me. We can internalize those messages and we can make that our reality. But I also think it's temperament. So I think we're born with a positive or a negative sort of view on the world, like I think we have, like some people are born with this the glasses half full kind of perspective and that can change over time. Like I think that can be trained out of somebody. It can be broken down. Anybody can be broken down. It can be trained out of somebody, but it can also be trained into somebody.
Laura Wood:Like I think, depending on who you ask, you might get a different perspective. Like somebody might say about me specifically, depending on who you ask, you might have somebody say oh well, that person's really negative or that person's really positive, depending on, like, the situation that I'm in, and so like, depending on the relationship that I have with them. So that's kind of what I mean. Like we're born with like a little bit of something and then we train into the positiveness or we train into the negativeness.
Laura Wood:Like for me, I think I don't know for sure, but I think I'm kind of a glass that's half empty, maybe, and then I'm trained into a glass that's half empty maybe, and then I'm trained into a glass that's half full. That's why, like in some relationships, depending on my situation, you might feel me as somebody who's negative, like somebody who's always kind of down or whatever, but then in like my work, life or my um, you know, when I'm trying to raise my kids or I'm trying to push forward, like I'm always trying to say like it's, there's always some it's possible, right, I there's no no, for me it's always possible.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, do you think that because you were kind of like that um half empty train to be half full? Do you think that it it still takes more energy for you to kind of flip that mindset, depending on the day?
Laura Wood:I do think that's true. Yeah, I've never really thought about it like that, but when you put it that way, I think that makes a lot of sense. Like it takes and I hear this from clients it takes a lot of energy to like reground yourself in the opposite state that you're sort of used to being in.
Laura Wood:So like if my baseline, my baseline, is like down here and then I'm constantly trying to and this is an audio medium, so you can't see me but if my baseline is like, let's say, like a one or a two right, and then I'm trying to sort of perform at a five or a six all the time, that balance takes work, it takes effort and it takes energy to get there. One thing that helped me is therapy. I know we talk about therapy in every single episode, but therapy helped me retrain my baseline. So I think my baseline is higher than it used to be. I think it used to be down at a one or two. Now maybe my baseline is already kind of like a four or a five and I'm trying to perform at like a five or six. You know what I mean.
Laura Wood:So it gets. I'm a little bit closer to where that is and so it's more natural for me now to default to when I have that negative thought. You know the initial negative thought of like oh, this is such a disaster, like why can't anything work out. I can easily flip that thought into okay, what do I need to do? How do I move forward? How do I change this? Like, how do I get out of this situation?
Michaela Beaver:this Like how do I get out of this situation? Sure, yeah, that makes sense. So this makes me think about like a time where I was in a situation with a group of people that there was a lot of negative things going on at the we're in the work environment and we kind of came together and did a lot of commiserating, like we were just kind of like this is so terrible, how are we going to get out of this? Whatever, and like I think that I was driven to the social connection piece of it.
Michaela Beaver:But after I left it I felt so icky, like, so gross, like that negative, that negativity, like it didn't feel good, it felt so, I don't know, opposite of how I wanted to feel or how I wanted to view things. Like I wanted to be, like I got this, I'm going to move forward, here's my plan. But like, for some reason, I still find myself drawn to people, even when it's like that negative, like drama, whatever, like. And also I think it's because I want to solve a problem. Like I want to be there, I want to help you, like let's figure this out together, you know, kind of thing.
Laura Wood:Well, yeah, I mean, it sounds like the problem that you had, the reason why it felt so icky, is because the other people maybe didn't want to solve the problem. Like sometimes misery loves company and we just want to commiserate in like the crappy stuff. And sometimes, you know, I talk to parents about this. Sometimes when kids have a bad day, or when kids come home complaining about their teachers in school or complaining about their friends in school, like sometimes we just need somebody to co-sign on our rage. Like I need somebody to say, yeah, that's the worst, right. Like I need somebody to validate that and then I can pick myself up and move myself through it.
Laura Wood:And I think people have that capacity. But if we're not getting validated, then we don't have the ability to move forward. And then there's also some people who are just they're kind of stuck in the negativity and don't see a way out. And so if you're in an environment where you've got a whole bunch of people who don't see a way out, and then you are like, yeah, I can validate that this is terrible and I can commiserate, but then I want to take that next step and nobody else is taking that next step with you, that could feel really icky.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah for sure, so so. So when we are stuck in this, you know this makes me think of, like you know, the brain and the way that it works. You know I think about different parts of the brain that might keep us stuck. You know I think about, like, people that come to see me for depression, for example, and you know we try to manage their symptoms of depression, maybe take the edge off with a medication or a supplement or something you know like that. But when we are stuck in these negative thoughts, I don't really I don't see medicine moving that needle. You know I don't see that it helps. And so we talk a lot about, you know, trying to change our thoughts and try to look at things from different perspectives. But some people just feel very stuck, like their brains are very hard to move and you know what options do they have when they're just so very stuck in that mindset?
Laura Wood:To me. I always wonder why are we like that? Like, why are we stuck? What's helpful about seeing things on the negative side? And so if we can uncover that somebody's brain is thinking negatively as a survival skill, and they can like get that insight, sometimes that insight is really helpful. Like, oh, because if you ask somebody, well, why are you thinking that way? They're going to be like well, I don't know, I just am, that's how my brain works, right. But if you say, okay, if you could guess. Sometimes, if we just ask ourselves what's the first thing that pops up, even if we A don't agree with or B, it doesn't make sense to us what's the first answer that we get. Sometimes it's because if I'm negative, like if I see these negative things that could possibly happen, I can be prepared for them. I hear that all the time.
Michaela Beaver:But I think it makes people stuck and to the point where you know they just can't even take any step forward because one they believe that they believe themselves so strongly right that they don't, they cannot see things from other perspectives, or that they have talked themselves out of starting any direction because they just see that it's going to fail no matter what. So they're hopeless, like why even try?
Laura Wood:Yeah, and I think what our nervous system needs in that moment is to understand that hypervigilance, this hyper awareness towards like the negative, and or this shutdown of like resigned to just feeling crummy, because I feel crummy and I'm never going to feel better and it's always going to be this way. What our nervous system needs to recognize is, in the present moment, like nothing really bad is actually happening or is you know for the most part, like, let's say that, let's say that we're just sitting around kind of talking and having you know, commiserating or whatever. Let's look around. Is it safe here? Do I really need to like be constantly aware of this negative thing that's in my life right now? Like for, for example, right now my son's car won't start, so I have.
Laura Wood:So this is just like a real life example of one of those things that comes up and you're just like WTF, why is this happening to me? What am I supposed to do now? I have to work, I have all these other things going on. I don't have time to deal with this right. Like so I could go down this rabbit hole and then it could be constantly on my mind as I'm trying to work, as I'm trying to get through my day. I could just be spinning and ruminating on it.
Laura Wood:But when I stop and think, like, okay, during this hour, you know that I'm getting to chat with you, does this have to be at the front of my mind, am I going to die if I don't like remember that this is happening right, this second. I'm not saying, like in an hour from now maybe I do need to think about it in an hour from now, but right this second. I don't have to think about that, I don't have to focus on that. I can focus on what's going on right now and I can look around me and find maybe a thing or two that is positive. Like, oh, I'm getting to talk to my friend. Like, oh, I'm home today and so my dogs are right here, so that's fun, you know, I can focus on a couple of things that are decent, and then I can just feel a little bit of a shift, and in the beginning that's not something that happens automatically. That's something that requires a lot of effort to do.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, it sounds easy, but it's actually not that easy when you're in that moment when you cannot stop thinking about that thing. Yeah, I also think like it's an avoidance strategy. So if I can find all of the negative things and all the reasons not to move forward, then I don't have to feel the feelings that I feel when I think about, like you know, like that, when I what that would mean, like if I, if I go out and I try to make friends, for example, I can figure out all the reasons why I can't go do that, because if I'm actually in that situation, that's going to be uncomfortable and so I don't really want to do it and so I'm trying to avoid it. So I'm coming up with all these negative thoughts about it and why it could go wrong, so that I don't ever have to go into that situation.
Laura Wood:Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So when we're thinking negatively, I remember this one time I was having like a really tough day, maybe feeling really down, and I was going to therapy. That day my therapist asked me like well, what's helpful about thinking that way? Like what's helpful about this feeling that you have, or being down today? Like what's what's important about it? What would you have to deal with if you weren't? That was the question that she asked me, and I was like, well, I would have to deal with this feeling that I don't want to deal with, like I would have to feel sad or I would have to feel disappointed. I think is what it was, cause I can't remember the exact situation, but I would have to feel disappointed in this situation and I don't want to. So I'm just going to sit here and be, like you know, despondent about it instead.
Laura Wood:And that's we think it's kind of like logically, when we talk it through, it's counterintuitive, right A hundred percent, but internally it's instinctual, it's part of our limbic system, it's part of our amygdala is reacting. So like our information comes in through our limbic system, which is in our brainstem, and that information gets passed in, passed through the amygdala, and the amygdala is what reacts to it emotionally. And then so when we've got this emotional reaction happening, our, our thoughts haven't come online yet, but our emotions are then going to drive our thoughts into oh, this is bad or this is good, and then we can choose to either go with that thought or change that thought, and so that's really one of the biggest things that helps you kind of start looking on the bright side is like you don't have to go with your first thought, you don't have to make that emotion, that feeling doesn't have to become a fact.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, I love that. I use that a lot in talking to different people. Whatever it may be, it's like, yeah, you could go with that. That's an option and you get to choose. Right. It is a choice. At some point you know whether you stay in that or not. And, yes, it takes time to learn how to get yourself out of that, because we are drawn to what is what we're used to and how we're used to doing things.
Michaela Beaver:To what is what we're used to and how we're used to doing things, how we were kind of trained to do things, or what our biology wants us to do. But it is ultimately still a choice and we can learn to think about it differently or to try something new.
Laura Wood:Does having a bad attitude make us feel like we are being productive, or like having a negative outlook, or like making up complaints about things or coming up with reasons why something is bad? Does that make us feel productive in any way? Like, do you feel like I wouldn't think so? I don't know. Like I'm thinking about how, if I don't have anything to do, then am I being like if I'm just like sitting around, like being happy and relaxed and like enjoying myself? Am I I being like if I'm just like sitting around, like being happy and relaxed and like enjoying myself? Am I not being productive enough? And I need to like come up with a list of things that are going wrong so that I can fix them.
Laura Wood:Maybe, I don't know. I just sort of I'm thinking about that as we are talking through the avoidance strategy. It's almost like it's both. You know, it's both the avoidance strategy and it's the production strategy. It's like we have to be doing something all the time, like there always has to be something wrong that we can just deal with and fix and like address.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, Say more about that.
Laura Wood:So, like, if you're a kid and you're sitting around on the couch or something and watching TV, like, and your parents are telling you all the time, like, get up and go do something you know there's tons of stuff to do Like, what are the things that we have to do? Well, like, if, what does your parents say when you're telling them that you're bored? Go play with your toys? I was thinking go clean something. So that's the difference between how we grew up so like but that's fine.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, that was what we were told, like go outside, go play.
Laura Wood:So, like when I said I was bored, it was like I was bored. It was like, well, I can give you a list of chores to do, like I can give you a list of things to do, right. And so in my head then I think the learning is we learn that sitting around is bad and like relaxing, so like relaxing is bad. We can't just do nothing, we have to be doing something. And if I don't have any problems to solve and I never really learned how to like go outside or like go play with my toys, like that was never, those were never options. It was always like go solve a problem, right, that's so. That's kind of maybe where I'm getting my negative, like glasses half empty kind of vibe. And maybe that's where you get your glasses half full kind of vibe, like go find something fun to do. Is your answer Right?
Michaela Beaver:Well, and also you think about like ancestral, like history.
Michaela Beaver:So you know, back in, back in the day, you know, if you know things were really hard, you know, maybe it was adaptive to, like you were saying, you know, be on edge, be looking for something bad, or to go like get, give yourself a burst of energy and go like forage for food, right, so it was so like you have two options, right.
Michaela Beaver:Like you could have been like, oh, I'm going to look out for danger because there could be berries. And this guy's like, oh my, I saw this person eat these berries and they died, right, so everything's dangerous. And then on this side they're like, oh my, I saw this person eat these berries and they died, right, so everything's dangerous. And then on this side they were like, oh, we went out and forage for food and we, we, we caught some fish and we won, right. And like we saved our village, right. And so that those epigenetics are flipping on different strategies and different, different parts of our genes to help us adapt to those specific situations. And so now, years later, we're passing down these, these same strategies, to our children.
Laura Wood:Yeah, absolutely. Like you can go and find like the bright side of things, the good stuff. You can go and find, like, how successful you were. Or you can go and find how dangerous things are and how horrible things are and how scary things are. And to go back to like that's part of the negativity bias is like I'm constantly on alert for danger, like I'm seeking out danger all the time just in case, so that I can make sure that I don't die, so I don't fall in that hole. I have to be aware that that hole is there and so I have to be paying attention. And if I'm not paying attention then I'll die.
Laura Wood:Like I think I hear that argument a lot and I know that it sounds silly to say like, well, I'll die, but like we really jumped to, I'll die like super fast. It does not take much for us to think that we're going to die and that for us to think something's dangerous that's not actually dangerous. I've heard a lot of people explain to me what is dangerous when it's really just it's difficult, like it's difficult, it's not dangerous. And so that's another way that we can kind of curb our negativity is by saying like, oh, this is difficult. It's not dangerous, so that means it's possible.
Michaela Beaver:I like that. Okay, so we can, you know, tell ourselves it's difficult, not dangerous. We can also use like a cognitive behavioral strategy type approach. We kind of talked about changing our thoughts a little bit, so like if I'm thinking, hey, I don't want to go hang out with these people, they're going to make fun of me and I'm going to feel sad, it's not going to be fun, whatever, like, it's just going to be. I'm so tired, I don't really want to do it. So we're thinking of all these reasons not to go hang out with our friends. You know, we could use some of those thought changes to say, well, what was the time that we went out with our friends and it wasn't that right. Okay, I can think back to this other time that I did have fun.
Laura Wood:So maybe it's possible that I could have fun this time, right, yeah, so that's something called a mastery resource, actually like thinking of a time that you actually did this well or that this thing went well, and like picturing yourself in that position and recognizing like, oh, I have had this happen before and it has gone well and that means it's possible that it can go well again in the future. Right, so it's a really good option. You know, another thing that we can do is we can play the worst case scenario game. Do is we can play the worst case scenario game. So the worst case scenario game is sometimes the friend's example that you gave. Like, okay, it's going to be awkward, or I'm going to feel bad, or whatever. Like somebody is going to say something to me. Okay, what's the worst thing that could happen? Somebody says something and it makes you feel sad. And then what could happen? Somebody says something and it makes you feel sad.
Michaela Beaver:And then what? Well, I'll just feel sad, like, okay, nope, then I'll die. I can never show my face again, I can never see them again, because I totally embarrassed myself so, so much that I'm going to have no friends and I'll die.
Laura Wood:Yeah. So is that really true? No, no, it's not true. So we can back that up and recognize, like, okay, so the actual worst thing that's going to happen is that you feel sad. And then what can you leave? Can you call someone to come pick you up? Can you go talk to somebody else? Can you, you know, bring somebody with you so that you have a buddy to go with in the first place? Like, can you, you know, make a joke, you know? And in response to the thing that they say, so there's all these different options that you can go through. So when you play the worst case scenario game, you realize that the worst thing that's going to happen is probably not as bad as you think it is. Also, it's very it's not as probable that the worst thing happens. It's possible, but it's not probable. Most of the time it's not the worst case scenario. It can be bad, but not usually the worst.
Michaela Beaver:And it's not probably the best. You're probably not going to go and be the life of the party and everybody's chanting Laura, Laura, like you're the, you're the most amazing, right. Like that's not it, it's not going to be that either.
Laura Wood:No it's definitely not going to be that. It's going to be somewhere in the middle and I'm going to survive it, and that's the thing. We have to be okay with feeling awkward. We have to be okay with feeling hurt or embarrassed or sad, like those are. So awkward and embarrassed are really hard feelings to feel. I've learned that people do not like to feel this way.
Michaela Beaver:No, because it means something about them.
Laura Wood:Ah, okay, like what.
Michaela Beaver:One. I don't like how it makes me feel physically right, because those are negative feelings, they're distracting, and then it means that I'm a loser, it means that I'm worthless, it means that I'll never fit in.
Laura Wood:Yikes, okay. So if it means all that, that's a big time. Yeah, that's really bad. But guess what it doesn't mean any of that about? Yeah, people are people and they're going to do peopley things and they're going to say and do whatever they say and do, and that's not about you. So, like, if I'm somebody who says mean things to people to hurt their feelings at parties, that's a thing that I do. That's not something that I'm doing because of the person I'm saying it to. That's just that I I do. That's not something that I'm doing because of the person I'm saying it to. That's just that I have that mood which I don't, by the way. I don't say mean things to people at parties.
Michaela Beaver:But I think then and also you have to flip it around and say, like, why does that person need to do those things? Why do they need to say mean things at parties? Well, because they feel awkward, because they feel better about themselves when they are making someone else be the person that's awkward, and so it has more to do with them than it does with you. And the other thing that you said that I want to make sure that we highlight is that you can handle it. Our fears and these things make us feel as though we're not capable of managing how that feels and how terrible that is, and I can't handle it Right. But that's not true. There's plenty of times that we've gone through these same things and we've been able to handle it and we'll continue to be able to handle hard things. It's not fun to do, but we survive and we adapt.
Laura Wood:Yeah, and we can't avoid the things that make us feel bad all the time, like we have to be able to develop resilience, and the way that we do that is by facing hard things and by getting through hard things and by coming back and trying to do it again and not giving up and not thinking that we can't do it and not, you know, feeling hopeless about it. We have to be able to say I can do this, I've done it before. And when that doesn't feel true, channel some kind of like symbolic resource, right, channel a symbol of something that is powerful and that maybe is more powerful than you, and you can sort of draw from that strength and power. That's a symbolic resource that you can use, or the best version of yourself. Or think of a soundtrack, like think of a song and like play it in your head. That like makes you feel good at, like your height, music. You know stuff like that. Sorry, my dog's barking.
Michaela Beaver:Those are all really, really interesting. I'd not heard of that before. That's a new, new one to me, and so that's really cool to think about. You know, channeling something that's more powerful and helping you, you know, maybe feel more powerful as a result.
Laura Wood:Yeah, and you can draw from that. You can suck in that power and be like okay, I can take some of this because this all powerful thing is going to give me a little bit of what they have and it's going to help me out what they have and it's going to help me out.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, that's really cool. And, from an adult perspective, you know doing my own work in therapy and things. I think that you know knowing, knowing and finding ways, through therapy and your own to to recognize why these things began in the first place and being compassionate to that part of you that developed that that fear in the first place. Right, because I think that you know we we spend a lot of time really disliking this part of us and disliking that we can't just be normal, right, or we can't just like why did I, why does, why do I have to respond in this way? Right, like as part of you know, if you think about, like, social anxiety, right, and they're thinking all those negative things about, you know, being judged or and having all those negative beliefs about themselves, right, you know you think about, um, that's not a fun thing to experience.
Michaela Beaver:You think, why am I, why am I like this, right? Why do I do this? Right? And so, looking in and finding out that, like, this really happened for a reason. And you know, kids do things differently than adults do, they think about things differently than adults do, and so these strategies were developed in childhood. They've been there for a long time and they were developed for a reason and it it helped you in that moment. You may not understand it or really it doesn't make sense now as using your adult, you know, fully formed brain, but it did make sense at a time in your life and that, like having that compassion, can help you kind of move through some of that you know discomfort a little bit easier.
Laura Wood:No, you're absolutely right. That relationship with yourself and that compassion for yourself is so incredibly important that if we don't have that, you know, then we're always kind of banishing and like hurting that part of us that's already feeling negative and already feeling bad, and then that's just going to perpetuate the negativity. Right? If we're going against our own self in those moments, then we're not going to be able to see things for the way that they really are. We're not going to be able to get into the present and see the bright side. As the adult that we are today, that's a really good one.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, anything else that you can think of that we could do to start having a brighter side, looking at things on the brighter side.
Laura Wood:I think this one is everybody hates this, but affirmations, okay, like everybody gets mad at me when I tell them to do affirmations, but I promise affirmations really work.
Laura Wood:So we've got our gratitude, we've got being compassionate toward ourselves, we've got challenging our thoughts and really playing the worst case scenario game. There's so many different tools that we can use mastery resources, symbolic resources of like something that just makes you feel, something you can believe a little bit, even if you don't fully believe it. You believe it a little bit. That makes you feel like you're capable and competent and you're able to move forward. So like even if you're just saying to yourself you know I can do this, um, I am strong, I am capable, um, I am stable, something like even saying something, something as neutral as like I'm emotionally stable, I'm capable of managing my emotions. You know I have power over my emotions, just those basic things Like. I know it sounds so silly, but if you say that stuff to yourself and like go into a situation, you really will have just a tiny bit more fuel to be successful.
Michaela Beaver:Yeah, I love that. And affirmations, mantras, like all of those things are so helpful and every you can you have to, you can re-engage them. Every time that negative thought comes in, right, like it's going to happen a lot, that thought is going to pop a lot. That thought is going to pop back in If you're putting yourself in in a, in a place where you're feeling negative or you're feeling uncomfortable or you're having a lot of negative thoughts like you're going to have to tell yourself over and over again some of these things and um, but they do like they do make a difference.
Laura Wood:They really do, yeah, so I think we've got lots of tools to start looking on the bright side. So this is good, very good, well, so thank you so much for listening to. Why Am I Like this? If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share it with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, laura Wood and Michaela Beaver. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick as Seas, and a special thanks to Benevary Counseling and Coaching and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring our show.
