A fast way to reprogram your self-talk to regulate your emotions.
How to shift your emotions quickly when times are tough.
Photo credit: Arthur Hidden / Freepik
Everyone I know is afraid and heartbroken by what’s happening in our world. Each one of us is experiencing some negative emotion—fear, anxiety, worry, or despair. Some of us are working to have our voices heard by making calls, writing letters, or attending town hall meetings, while others are pulling inward.
Even though I’m an eternal optimist, I’ve been moving from fear and despair to hope and finding beauty—but it’s hard work! I work daily to put things in place to help me regulate my emotions. I listen to calming music while I work, meditate, and, most importantly, get out in nature with Teddy, our Labradoodle. I’ve also worked on cultivating my friendships by staying in touch.
Recently, I learned a quick and simple tool to help regulate emotions.
Psychologist Dr. Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on emotional regulation. He’s an award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business. Kross studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions, and relationships. Dr. Kross is the author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You and Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.
Kross says research proves that one-third to one-half of our waking hours are not focused on the present. We think about other things. Once we find ourselves drifting away, we talk to ourselves silently and listen to what we say.
A key to managing your emotions is understanding how to harness the voices in your head.
Most of us have an inner voice that talks to us all the time and an inner critic. Your inner voice helps you keep information in your head for short periods, such as remembering your grocery list when you run into the store. Kross says we also use our inner voice to control and motivate ourselves.
Our inner voice helps us make sense of the chaotic world we live in.
When we experience challenges, we tend to turn inward to work through them. Our inner voice helps us create stories that shape our sense of self. Kross says that when this tool jams up, we experience chatter and the dark side of our inner voice. Your inner critic berates you for making a mistake or saying something wrong.
We all can experience chatter. It’s one of the challenges of the human species.
What does chatter do to us?
It makes it hard to think and perform. Chatter consumes your attention if you don’t remember what you’ve read in a book.
Chatter creates friction in relationships. Naturally, we want to talk about the chatter we’ve experienced to vent our emotions. But if we process too much with people around us, it can push them away.
Chatter impacts our stress response, creating cardiovascular disease or cancer.
In Chatter, Kross uses groundbreaking behavioral and brain research to explore the silent conversations we have with ourselves.
Research demonstrates that speaking to yourself in the third person can reduce anxiety and worry when you hear your name - as if you have an internal coach.
You can use your name to shift your perspective. When you need hope, try this:
[your name], remember that what you’re going through is temporary. Brighter days will return. It might not feel like it right now, but it will get better.
By recognizing negative self-talk and learning how to tame it, you can experience growth, focus, and understanding, which can all help with mental health.
Is talking to yourself normal? The truth is that we all have a voice in our head. When we speak to ourselves, we often hope to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead. When facing a challenging task, our inner coach can buoy us up. For example:
Sherold, it’s ok that you made a mistake; that’s how you learn.
But, just as often, our inner critic sinks us entirely: I will fail. They’ll all laugh at me. I don’t know how to write. Who will read it? What’s the use?
If you catch yourself talking to yourself in your head, flip it around, speak compassionately, and insert your name.
This simple tool gives you the power to change your most meaningful conversation each day - the one you have with yourself.
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P.S. Register soon for my new offerings for March.
Women’s small group coaching
Starting on Thursday, March 20, 27, April 3 and 10, 2025
4 - 5:30 pm PDT / 7- 8:30 pm EDT
Investment: $97.
*For $50, you can become an annual subscriber and attend all Sunday Salons for free for the year.
March Sunday Salon with Sherold
Your Body is Innocent
Sunday, March 23 | 1 - 2:30 pm PDT | 4-5:30 pm EDT
March online workshop FREE for paid subscribers.
Registration link for non-subscribers: $49
*For $50, you can become an annual subscriber and attend all Sunday Salons for free for the year.
Questions? Email me at sherold@sheroldbarr.com.