The unkind thoughts you have about yourself don’t have to be due to something really bad.
They could simply be that you don’t like the way you look in your new outfit, or you are disappointed in yourself for oversleeping. It could also be that you didn’t call your mother when you said you would, or that you ate the last cookie in the cookie jar. All it takes is one single negative thought to fuel the negative thinking-feeling-behaving loop.
This loop of bad thoughts leading to bad feelings leading to bad behaviors is a continuous loop of “doom and gloom” unless you do something to change it. The catch is you can’t do anything to change it until you become aware that it is happening. Remember, neither feelings nor behaviors occur by accident, even when it may seem as though they do.
• Every feeling has a source: a single thought.
• Every behavior has a source: the feeling that was preceded by a thought.
Take ownership of the way you think and feel about yourself. Wake up from your automatic pilot thinking and begin to monitor the way you are thinking about you. What kind of thoughts do you think about yourself? What is the driving force behind them? It can be hard at first to identify a thought.
If this is the case for you, the feeling you are having is your clue to the thought you are thinking. Your feelings can help you identify the thoughts that led to them. Identify the way you feel about yourself first. Once you identify the way you feel, ask yourself what you were thinking to create this way of feeling.
