I find myself engaging in negative self talk from time to time (you know, like, "I suck," "I'll never be good at xyz," or whatever). Maybe you do too. If you find yourself doing this, do you believe in the negative self talk? If you do, what makes you believe in it?
I attended a webinar the other day given by a money coach who helps people adjust their attitudes towards money so they can be smarter with their finances and their businesses. One of the techniques she uses to help clients adjust their attitudes towards money is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), aka "tapping." The technique involves repeating certain statements regarding the client's feelings/beliefs/attitudes while tapping one's fingers on certain spots on the face and other parts of the body. They start by tapping while repeating the negative statements that describe the problem the person is wrestling with and later move on to tapping while repeating positive statements that would constitute a solution. Proponents of EFT claim the technique is evidence-based, and many people will tell you it worked for them, but the field of psychology overall does not consider it supported by the research. I personally do not believe EFT is supported by science (and I don't particularly recommend it over other therapies or coaching), but I still believe it can be effective for two reasons: because of the placebo effect of the tapping, and, more importantly, because the statements that are made out loud are a way for the client to bring invisible thought to light.
In this particular webinar, the coach was using EFT to address the problem of "impostor syndrome," which, if you're not familiar, is when a person believes themselves to be undeserving of the position they are in or the success they have attained. She asked us to imagine a scenario involving a networking meeting and how we would feel in it. Then she had us tap while making statements about how we were (presumably--she was the one who decided what each statement would be) feeling. One of the statements she has us say (after phrases mimicking negative self talk such as, "I'm a fraud," "I don't belong here," etc.) was, "It's the truth, and I know because my nervous system is blasting. My whole system is telling me to stop." And I thought to myself, "There she really hit the nail on the head."
How could our nervous system blasting be a proof of how good we are at our job or how deserving we are to be in a networking meeting? Yet often that's how we interpret it. We allow our feelings to convince us that the thoughts in our heads are true. We believe that our nervous system "blasting" is a signal to us that a thought that we have is the truth, when in actuality, it's merely--our nervous system blasting. Having a feeling--even a very strong one--is not a proof that our thoughts are truth. It is thoughts that result in feelings, it is not truth that results in feelings.
Let's try to keep this in mind the next time we start to believe in our own negative self talk!