What steps are you taking to end how you negatively talk to yourself?

In my last blog post, I talked about the importance of ending harsh self criticism, and the idea that even though you cannot control that you feel or how you feel, you do have some measure of control over how you think.

Now, let’s take this idea one step further. When you put yourself down, it looks like you can be in control of just how bad you’ll feel because you are in charge of your self critical thoughts. This includes:

• When you start and stop thinking them
• How frequently you think them (hourly, daily, weekly, etc)
• The intensity with which you think them (just how mean you are)
• The duration or length of time you think them

I call this the “delusion of control,” because all the ways you can be in charge of your self-critical thoughts (e.g., frequency, intensity) make it appear as if you are in charge of an experience (your spontaneous reaction of feeling disappointed or frustrated) that you actually had no control over.

Not only does harsh self-criticism act as a thought-hijack of unpleasant feelings after something hasn’t worked out the way you desired, but, much like anxiety, it can also act in a preemptive manner.

In this case, your harsh self-criticism shows up as self-doubt, thus inhibiting you from pursuing what is important to you. Due to your own doubt, you hold yourself back and are reluctant to take risk.

Negative self-evaluation or harsh self-criticism can be a rather elegant, yet profoundly destructive strategy for disconnecting or distracting from the eight unpleasant feelings.

Some researchers have described it as a strategy for safety and self-protection. In an odd sort of way, your harsh self-criticism may protect you from the critiques of others, but it also prevents you from fully expressing yourself with others, or in expressing yourself in life.

This weeks action step:

What did you notice about your own patterns of harsh self criticism or negative self talk?

Stay in the practice of catching yourself using negative self talk and bringing yourself back to the unpleasant feelings underneath. Then, use these feelings to determine whether you need to make any decisions, express yourself, or take action.

Wishing you the best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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How can you learn to end harsh self criticism, and why that is important for emotional growth?

As we start to round out the last quarter of the year, I want to start talking about the notion of emotional control, and the perception that goes along with it.

Before we start, I want to impart an important step when learning to understand your emotions:

You are not in control of what you feel or that you feel.

Since most people don’t like feeling something unpleasant that they cannot control, many people resort to harsh, punitive, critical, or cruel self talk or self-evaluation at the first indication of unpleasant feelings. What then, is the effect of thinking in such a negative manner over an extended period of time? Simply put, you don’t just end up feeling bad; instead, you end up feeling markedly worse.

Initially, it seems to mimic the same kind of “bad” feeling you experience when you first start to feel anything unpleasant about your situation, but harsh self-criticism ends up taking you to a much darker and more painful place from which an exit seems long, arduous, or nonexistent.

Harsh self-criticism is a way to disconnect or distract from unpleasant feelings.

Other than riding the 90-second waves of feelings once they arise, you have no way to prevent and control those spontaneous unpleasant feelings, no matter how much you would like to do so.

However, you do have some control over what and how you think, which means you have control over what you think about, what you say to yourself, and how you evaluate yourself. The element to keep in mind here is that you’re not in control of your feelings, but you are in charge of your thoughts.

Next week, I will go over the what I call “the delusion of control”, and how that plays in to ending harsh self criticism.

Wishing you the best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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How do you define vulnerability?

Earlier, on social media I shared a wonderful video by noted research professor, Dr. Brene Brown, where she talked about the “Power Of Vulnerability”. In this video, she touched on the lessons and strengths that vulnerability gives us.

In previous emails, I have discussed what I have learned about vulnerability. I’ve talked about how vulnerability is the most unique among the 8 unpleasant feelings, and also how vulnerability plays a particular role in the experience of emotional strength.

The relationship that vulnerability has with other emotions, is of a dual nature, such that vulnerability can be considered both your greatest emotional strength and likewise be associated with emotional weakness.

“I believe that we are at our greatest emotional strength
when we make the choice to be vulnerable”

My understanding and research on vulnerability and the other 7 unpleasant emotions, are not absolute, nor should they be. In my 30 plus years of work as a psychologist and professor, I know that life presents you with a multitude of teachers. How you feel these unpleasant emotions, how you choose to respond, and how those experiences mold you, are yours and yours alone.

I would like you to reach out to me, whether it be through email, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and I would love to hear your definition of vulnerability.

What moments in your life make you feel vulnerable? In your own words, how does vulnerability make you feel stronger? Or does it make you feel weaker?

My hope, is that by defining your own vulnerability, and sharing it with me, you will develop greater feelings of capability and resourcefulness.

Sending my best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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How to Create a Confident, Resilient, and Authentic Life of Your Design.

These past few months, I have been humbled and blessed by those who have been touched by my work, people like you, who are reading and learning from the methods that I have created over the past 30 years. Some of you reading this today, are seasoned supporters of my work, for which I am eternally grateful.

Those of you who are joining me for the first time, I wanted to take a moment in this week’s email to go over the core principles of what I teach and how they can help you live the life you love. And for those of you that have already been learning from my work, please use this post to help remind you to incorporate these ideas into your daily routine.

How to Create a Confident, Resilient, and Authentic Life of Your Design

Encapsulated below are the ten essential keys for developing emotional mastery and creating a confident, resilient, and authentic life of your design. If you are following along in the book, I will include the chapters below in which you can find the related content.

1. Check your attitudes. (Chapter 9)

• Resolve to be curious, open, and flexible in the face of change and adversity.
• Exhibit a willingness to learn from every life experience.
• Commit to having an optimistic attitude, perseverance, and the mindset to become a life-long learner.

2. Choose awareness, not avoidance. (Chapter 2 and 3)

• Be aware of and in touch with as much of your moment-to-moment experience as possible.
• Master the eight difficult feelings using the Rosenberg Reset – this is the essence of feeling capable in the world. Lean into vulnerability – make it your greatest strength.

3. Diminish distractions. (Chapter 4)

• Do what you can to live fully present and aware.
• Identify your distractions, notice what they help you avoid, and move toward the unpleasant feelings.
• Relieve anxiety by identifying and experiencing the difficult feelings underneath.

4. End faulty thinking and harsh self-criticism. (Chapter 6)

• Break free from cognitive distortions and use of “Bad Emotional Math”; redirect to more constructive, expansive, open, and optimistic thinking.
• Notice your harsh self-criticism and use it as a signal that something hard to bear is making itself known to you.
• Ask yourself, “What is difficult for me to know, feel, or bear right now?” and bring it more fully into consciousness. Then use the Reset if painful feelings surface.

5. Speak. Take Action. (Chapter 7)

• Approach others and speak from a positive, kind and well-intended place.
• Speak your truth so that you can live your most authentic self.
• Decide what you want to pursue or achieve, identify the first small step, and take it.
• Identify the next step, and take that one, too. Keep taking action and persevere until you reach your goal.

6. Release your old story. (Chapter 8)

• Make sense of your life stories.
• Let go of grief and disguised grief.
• Forgive. Embrace a new story.
• Access joy and deepen connections.

7. Ask for help. (Chapter 1 and 9)

• Know that asking for help is the essence of resourcefulness and a key aspect of emotional strength and resilience.
• Draw from the experiences of prior successes.
• Create a social safety net. Develop closer relationships with family and friends.

8. Accept and absorb compliments. (Chapter 9)

• Understand that compliments are a reflection of you and update your self image.

9. Live by a code of high values. (Chapter 10)

• Be congruent. Make sure your words and actions match your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values.
• Generate the values you want to embody. Live who you want to become.
• Be intentional: think, speak, and act only in the direction you want your life to go.

10. Design your life. (Chapter 1 and 10)

• Create your future. Imagine what you would love. Write down what you have envisioned. Who and what do you want to become? What will give you purpose and meaning?
• Engage in daily practices of gratitude, setting intentions, and reviewing your vision and wins to establish the momentum you need to achieve your goals and dreams.

It’s important to understand that life is dynamic, creative, and changeable – almost as if life has a life of itself.

As you demand more of yourself, you’ll demand more from life – and that’s how you will influence life’s unfolding, into creating a life that you love.

This weeks action step:
Pick one category for each week in the month of August. Identify for yourself the action steps you can put in place to make these ideas come alive and be part of your daily practice.

Sending my best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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Solving the equation for Bad Emotional Math, can start today, all you need to do is take that first step.

Surprisingly, equations are an essential part of everyday life. They help us find things on Google, and help us find directions when we drive.

There are a hidden set of equations that can increase your anxiety, or constrict your thinking, and thus lead to a more depressive reaction. I have affectionately called these equations “Bad Emotional Math”.

Bad Emotional Math
Who I am = How I think other perceive me
Who I am = What I accomplished
Who I am = What others say about me

If you closely read the above three statements, you will notice with each statement that a person is hinging their sense of self on only one aspect of who they are, and how they behave in the world. It’s this type of thinking pattern that leaves people feeling constricted and trapped into only one way of functioning in the world.

Every one of these beliefs can be changed.

To end some of these faulty thinking patterns, let’s start with addressing one of the biggest hurdles involved with Bad Emotional Math:

“You get into the habit of making things equal, when they are not.”

Spend a couple minutes now actually studying the statements above.

As you proceed to look at each one of your belief systems that lead to “Bad Emotional Math”, you will start to see, for instance, that you are so much more than how you think people perceive you, more than your accomplishments, and more than what others say about you.

Good Emotional Math
Who I am > How I think other perceive me
Who I am > What I accomplished/expressed
Who I am > What others say about me

By replacing your thought patterns with good emotional math, you will be able to let go of a lot of pressure that you put on yourself. Hopefully you will find that you can relax with greater ease, be calmer, and happier. Addressing each belief, and how you can change the related thought patterns that go along with them, will go a long way in relieving stress, so that you can find a greater sense of inner peace.

Changing your thinking – and thus, changing your experience – often requires untangling the layered knot that includes what you feel, what you think, and how you think. Doing so will help you find an inner peace, that leads to an understanding of why you feel the way you feel.

The process to living a life you love all starts with practicing “Good Emotional Math”, and I know that you can take those steps starting today.

This weeks action step:
For each Bad Emotional Math belief you have, ask yourself how you might have developed it. Write about the disadvantages you have faced by holding this belief. Then write about what new thoughts you may need to think to maintain the practice of Good Emotional Math beliefs.

Sending my best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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What is bad emotional math, and how does it apply to you?

If I were to ask you whether you tended to think more negative thoughts or positive thoughts, what would your answer be? Your manner of thinking really makes a difference in how you feel and the two are uniquely intertwined.

Positive emotions can help broaden and build constructive thinking patterns, while negative emotions can narrow your focus and overall life fulfillment.

This way of thinking and mindset, for most people, isn’t new information. It is well known that your mindset has a direct influence on your physical and emotional health, so let’s take a look at the kind of negative thinking that undermines your confidence, health, and overall sense of well-being – and what you can do to effect positive change in your thinking patterns.

Bad Emotional Math
One bad thing = All bad things
Always was = Always will be
Past = Present

Good Emotional Math
One bad thing = One bad thing
Always was ≠ Now or future
Past ≠ Present

Negative thinking will reinforce and strengthen memories of a difficult past and previous toxic thinking patterns. All of your prior learning, difficult experiences, and memories, will then affect how you perceive and interpret the present.

Consequently, if you are locked into recalling these types of memories or engaging in these kinds of thought patterns, you are preventing yourself from living fully in the present and from experiencing contented, satisfied, or happy states. Negative thinking only leaves you agitated about a painful past or anticipating a bad future with nothing to appreciate, look forward to, or celebrate.

Dealing with negative thinking is different from dealing with unpleasant feelings, though negative thinking is linked with and often generates many unpleasant feelings. Negative thinking colors the way you interpret everything else and, like the repetition it takes to learn a skill, it generally requires repeated efforts to train your brain to engage in positive thinking.

We will take another look next week at more “Bad Emotional Math” and “Good Emotional Math” equations.

This weeks action step:
Take a curious, kind, and gentle look at the way you see yourself. What do you think about? What kind of thoughts predominate? Do you notice any common themes, patterns, or trends?

Sending my best,
Dr. Joan Rosenberg

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