Stop Telling Yourself Stories That Hurt You

The majority of the emotional stress people experience is self-induced. The good news is, this can also be managed fairly easily.

There are 2 specific factors to emotional stress, objective and subjective. Basically, there are things that happen to you, and then there are the ways you interpret what happen to you.

You cannot remove all emotional pain from your life, but you can significantly decrease it. I'm showing you how

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Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.

But I do care.

[bonnacon]

In short, "don't turn a feeling into a story".

[JeffreyKnuppelMD]

The worst thing is when we not only believe the stories we tell ourselves and make ourselves feel worse but when they become our identities and we don't know who we are without them. Then healing becomes a real challenge.

[Lexington]

Mark Twain said, "The worst things in my life never happened to me."

[marlenechicoine]

I heard it said, 'Don't believe everything you think.' 😮

[anaisninapup]

My exboss was verbally abusive, nothing i ever did was right, I once got called into her office and belittled while i cried for an hour because i didn’t print her a piece of paper that she didn’t ask me to print, for 3 years i put up with it because i was right out of college and she made me think i could never find anything better, left and found an amazing job but that trauma is still stuck with me, im trying to heal and this video is very eye opening, thank you

[gazelle]

I'm so depressed. I have no one. I need to move from a toxic living situation but I have financial anxiety about doing that. And so depressed its so hard to function. No one to be there for me.

[cakensteak]

We suffer more in imagination than in reality. --Seneca

[williamwallace]

These videos have done more for me than therapy ever did.

[claireschweizer]

"being a pemissimic, cowardly worse case scenario negative person is an evolutionary necessity and defense mechanism" holy shit... you're so right. My mind is blown. I feel so validated, thank you ❤️

[ryster]

I’m 31 and have never been in a serious relationship.

Unsurprisingly, this has caused me to draw some pretty negative conclusions about my datability and overall self worth.

When my family started making comments expressing their doubt at the prospect of my finding a wife, it validated all my doubts and fears in the worst way possible and led to it being the main driver of my depressive episodes, which usually revolved around the broader theme of feeling like a failure/behind in life in several aspects.

My father said something about it being particularly important for me to stay in good shape since I’m probably not gonna have kids to look out for me in my old age.

That comment threw me off the deep end into a depressive episode that lasted for weeks.

I say this to illustrate the point that words, no matter how untrue can impact you very deeply, and this goes triple for people who struggle with depression.

[patrickgreene]

I'm having a depressive episode and I'm so angry at myself because I want to succeed so badly and I'm so close, but I'm falling apart at the finish line.

[Violet_Moone]

When you’ve been in a state of overwhelm & struggle for so long, that turns to burnout.. it is so hard not to make an identity out of all the bad shit that has happened, & past a certain point it becomes extremely difficult to believe it actually can get better.. I had a TBI, & then 2 kids & left my abusive bf, have never been able to get back on my feet & my head above water.. the mental & neurological help I need is behind a paywall, & it’s taken all my energy & resources to keep up with parenting, running a household & pay bills so I also have no friends, never mind dating. At 42, I’m totally burned out & exhausted, Just found out I have a neurological condition that requires brain surgery & I just want to give up, it feels hopeless that I’ll ever have the financial means to get out of survival mode 😞

[melindastclair]

Don't gaslight yourself. Trust what's true for you.

[tom-nwi]

It seems like a lot of times peoples personal trauma is invalidated by other people. What I mean is that people often seem to say things that make it not ok to feel bad about some event. Like "there is always a person out there who suffered a really bad trauma and so since theirs was so much worse your trauma isnt valid".  

It's almost like human competitiveness about who is the bigger victim.

Well, I get the feeling that our brains and bodies dont really recognize so much the extent or degree ones residual trauma as a result of an external event. But rather something bad happens, we feel trauma, and that feeling is not necessarily proportional to the degree of the bad event. For example, does it hurt more or less to loose a job with a $20 / hour pay check or a $40/ hour pay check... In other words, it doesn't hurt twice as much....

Another example, Does it hurt more to be divorced or widowed?
Does a 20 marriage ended hurt 10x more than the ending of a 2 year marriage?

I dont think the brain and body recognizes the extent of a bad feeling proportionally.

Therefore: Since A person who fails an important test in school may be experiencing as much pain and sorrow, in a physical sense, in a moment, as a person who was just had a spouse die or that the degree of the loss may not be proportionally reflected in the level of pain experienced. A persons pain is valid regardless of the degree of the trauma that caused it.

I just dont know how to say it in English right.

[DiscordBeing]

I told myself stories for years that I was unlikeable based on a few instances of dysregulated CPTSD that haunted me. These were stories years ago people forgot even happened. When I stopped telling them, the stories stopped.

[searchtech]

When my husband left me after 20 happy years for a woman half my age (I was 10 years older than him), when I asked him why he said "if you don't know I'm not going to tell you."
What a cop-out.
This was the big trauma that changed my whole life.

[TinaSotis]

My psychiatrist called me out on the negative stories I tell myself just this morning. It was hard to hear, but she was right. I keep thinking I can't overcome my anxiety and depression because "Im different from everyone else." "I'm a freak." "There's something wrong with me..."

What you're saying, and more importantly, what I can actually take in, is that my distress is NOT MY FAULT. It's due to things that happened to me when I was too small to push back.

Thank you so much for this. I just found your channel - what a gift. Your compassion and wisdom shine through.

[tinywalnut]

When I broke up with my ex, even as the instigator, I really struggled with the fallout afterwards.

I wrote a list of all the stories I was telling myself, as well as things he had said about me that were untrue. I then followed each item up with the objective reality.

For example: "I have nothing left in my life and I can't live without this person."

"Reality: I have a successful job, friends, people who love me, hobbies, passions, interests, and good habits. I am the same fantastic person that entered this relationship 15 months ago, and I am still that person; I just need to rediscover the things about me that I love."

I wrote down every story as it entered my head. The list was so long. When a story reappeared in my head, I would read what I'd written, and effectively reinforce the reality rather than the story.

Highly recommend this practice.

[BrightnessFilms]

Practical, non-patronising, no-bullshit, articulate, highly intelligent professional. I'm running out of space from bookmarking all your videos!

[KARIS]

God, every single thing you said is going on in my head. I can’t imagine believing that I’m not a broken mess.