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Distracting yourself from your negative thoughts as you suggest doesn't actually help at all. It simply avoids the problem, and delays making any real change. Take depression for example. Beck's cognitive behavior theory of depression says that people who develop depression have a negative bias in how they look at things, even neutral things. They interpret events negatively, expecting bad things to happen. Negative outcomes become confirmation, and positive outcomes get ignored or explained away as one-offs or the result of random chance. Eventually seeing everything so negatively depresses the person's mood, and the negative bias to their interpretations keep them stuck in that depressed mood.
Positive self-affirmations are an attempt to change that mental habit of seeing things negatively. Change the negative bias, even if only to a neutral view of things, and you disrupt the cycle that sustains the depression, giving the person the opportunity to lift their mood for the long term. That's why Beck's approach to treatment includes gathering objective evidence for expected outcomes and reality testing the assumptions you make about yourself. And yes, it also includes positive self-affirmations, as hokey as they sound.
Have you ever actually tried cognitive behavior treatments? (I haven't kept up with this thread, so maybe you have mentioned trying them before without success.)
THIS. I listen to an audio track of positive affirmations, and I do believe it helps me to focus on the positive. If we applied the mantra we teach our children "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" to the way we talk to ourselves, we'd all be much happier.
I love this nonsense. Not one of the people commenting have actually claimed to try repeating "I love myself" over and over. Yet they all "know" it doesn't work. Lol. It has worked wonders for me. I would hate for others to be deterred from trying something that might work just because these "experts" "know" it won't work without actually trying it.
This questioner had a sincere question and these responders spoke arrogantly without even trying it out.
My advice if you want to try it is stick with it for at least an hour. It'll become a mental habit with its own momentum.
I was reading a book recently about trying to be positive about your life and liking yourself. One thing it recommended is to keep telling yourself "I love myself."
The question is, do you believe a person can get out of a negative state about themselves if they repeat something like this and try to only think positive things about themselves?
Not really. I think we learn to respect and love ourselves when we grow up and handle tasks as adults should. Or, when we accomplish something hard.
Telling a kid "good job" over every little thing is not the same as allowing the kid to actually do things by himself. Its the same with adults. We need to experience accomplishment, rejection, hardship, good times, difficulties and good luck.
One of the most meaningful things I did as adult was graduate from graduate school. It was hard for me to do on several different levels, but I would not give anything for the experience. I had to push myself. Doing this did wonders for my self respect.
I guess you can tell from my answer that I equate self respect with self love.
" I love myself"..the words alone, no..actions speak louder than words. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a pep talk to boost your self-esteem though. But if you are unhappy, that is something you have to understand and come to terms with first before going about ways to change your situation to make you happy, to make you feel good. I also will say that growing up, and breaking some habits never hurt anyone either. Make time for yourself, do something for you and allow yourself to forget about the world for a while.
Yes, I do. Maybe being more specific might be more helpful. Of course, this is only for certain situations. I was involved with a man for a while who was critical of me in various ways. Some criticisms were masked as teasing, others were outright criticisms.
So to recover from his repetitive criticism after the relationship was over, I had to remind myself of all the good things about myself...and they had to be true, of course, or that wouldn't be helpful. So that was one way to begin loving myself after being torn down for so long by someone close to me. It did help to remind myself of these things. Constant criticism does have an effect on a person, even if they don't realize it at the time. So I didn't exactly say "I love myself." I was more specific. And yes, it helped.
I was reading a book recently about trying to be positive about your life and liking yourself. One thing it recommended is to keep telling yourself "I love myself."
The question is, do you believe a person can get out of a negative state about themselves if they repeat something like this and try to only think positive things about themselves?
NO I certainly do not.
Learning to love yourself is a process, a long, hard lived and hard learned process. If you don't love yourself in regard to self esteem, there are reasons for that and they can be corrected by therapy. You cannot go around patting yourself on the back and telling yourself that you love yourself, that would be like telling a stranger that you love them.
The term "love yourself" really means being happy within yourself, by yourself. Once you accomplish that and have a truly fulfilling, happy, meaningful life, you have learned to love yourself.
This is something you, as an individual, are going to have to figure out yourself. I hope you can.
This is something you, as an individual, are going to have to figure out yourself. I hope you can.
I'll bet they did, as this is over a decade old.
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