negative self-talk

The Pitfalls of Trying to Eliminate Negative Self-Talk and How to Manage It

by John Nolan
23rd January 2025

Trying to eliminate negative self-talk can backfire, making the negative thoughts stronger. Instead of fighting negative self-talk, try using techniques such as acknowledging and labelling thoughts, defusion, reframing, and focusing on solutions. These tools help to manage the impact of negative self talk in a more compassionate and effective way.

Navigating the Landscape of Unease: Nervousness, Worry, Anxiety, and Panic28th January 2025
Nervousness, worry, anxiety, and panic exist on a continuum of unease, each with unique characteristics while sharing common threads. These experiences are linked by physiological responses, patterns of thinking, emotional regulation issues, and avoidance behaviours. While traditional approaches emphasize reducing negative affect, SFBT and ACT approaches seek to increase positive affect and acceptance. Approaches such as mindfulness and deep breathing can help to calm physical symptoms of anxiety. Questioning thoughts can assist with perspective taking, and exposure therapy can help people with avoidance behaviours.
Overcoming Burnout at Work: Advice, Support, and Transformation28th January 2025
Overcoming burnout requires acknowledging the problem, taking steps to reduce stress, and seeking support. By making key changes you can move from burnout to a mentally healthier place with greater passion, resilience, and life satisfaction. Key strategies include creating boundaries, prioritising self-care, seeking support, reframing your approach to work, and learning to manage your responses to stress.
Enhancing Mental Health Through Mental Freedom: The Role of an Anxiety Coach28th January 2025
Mental freedom is about not being controlled by your own thoughts and feelings, and instead observing them without judgement. It is about choosing a life directed by your values, rather than being dictated by your anxiety or depression. An anxiety coach helps individuals to develop mental freedom by using a range of tools and strategies, including mindfulness, acceptance, defusion and value clarification. By working with an anxiety coach, individuals can expect to experience a reduction in avoidance and an increase in self-compassion and resilience. They can also begin to move towards a more meaningful life.
How a Depression Coach Facilitates Change in Habits, Beliefs, and Behaviours28th January 2025
A depression coach works with clients to help them recover from depression by changing negative habits, cultivating new beliefs, and adopting new behaviours. They use a range of techniques, including goal setting, motivational interviewing, cognitive restructuring, behavioural activation, mindfulness, and positive psychology. By using a collaborative approach, the coach enables clients to feel more empowered and in control of their lives, moving them towards a more positive and fulfilling future. A key element is enabling a client to see that they have the power to direct their own lives and that they are not defined by their depression.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of NLP for Anxiety and its Application by Anxiety Coaches27th January 2025
NLP offers a unique approach to anxiety by reframing it as a learned skill and a sign of adaptability, and by emphasising that clients can have agency over their own state of mind. An NLP coach uses a variety of techniques to help clients manage their anxiety, including identifying triggers, reframing beliefs, creating anchors, and altering submodalities. NLP is based on the idea that by understanding how someone organises and processes information, it is possible to change behaviours and mental states. While it is not a guaranteed cure, it can be a useful tool in managing anxiety when combined with other methods, and it enables clients to regain agency and control over their own minds.