Hey phreaknbz !
Anne-Marie posted this in 2002... I thought it was pretty cool...
In my little experience.. I find the blahs go away as fast as they come.. and occur once a week or so.. no biggie.. better than the alternative.
In many emails, I�m asked and told the following. �How do I get out of the blah slump? I�m stuck and can�t seem to shake it.�
Consider that for years many of us smokers practiced and rehearsed negative self-talk. Recognize this? �Quitting is too hard. I can never do it. I tried it and failed.� After hearing people say this and after echoing it over and over in our own minds, we built up an assortment of resisting thoughts and failure scenarios, even though we don�t really want to feel that way. So many of us begin a quit dead scared and fearful, don�t we?
We taught ourselves certain negative scenarios and now we want to quit successfully.
Countering Negative Self-talk
Negative self-talk consists of those thoughts that we say to ourselves that contribute to depression, to anxiety and to low self-esteem. We don�t usually notice it when we do it, but when we talk negatively to ourselves, it causes us to react to it. Self-talk is connected to our feelings. Just as we learned to talk negatively to ourselves as smokers, we have to learn to talk positively. It takes a lot of practice. Here�s a quick, simple lesson.
There are four common basic sub-personalities that contribute to this negative self-talk: The Worrier, the Critic, the Victim and the Perfectionist.
Recognize any one of these in particular? The strength of these inner voices varies for different people, so it might really help for you to rank them from the strongest to the weakest in yourself:
- The worrier thinks in terms of �what ifs� and worse-case scenarios. �What if I have bad days?�
-The critic is hard on himself: �I�m so weak. I am a loser,� etc.
- The perfectionist uses �should� or �I have to�: (�I have to quit without gaining a pound�)
- The victim: �My friends offer me smokes. Sooner or later I�ll take one and slip.�
1. Whatever negative self-talk you say to yourself, concentrate on identifying it, first and foremost. Stop and identify something you may have said to yourself this morning or