You’ve seen it on Instagram: “talk to yourself like you’d talk to your best friend.” So hard to do! And even harder if some of that internal trash talk comes from comments people have made to you about being chronically ill or from things you’ve heard or seen in society about illness and disability. Here are three simple (although not necessarily easy) strategies that won’t take too many spoons to do::
Tip One: Start Wishing
I don’t know about you, but the word “should” never seems useful. It inspires feeling bad about ourselves or bad about someone else. Here’s a switch: try the word “wish” instead and see what happens. Take “I should have gone to Eli’s birthday party,” try telling yourself, “I wish I had been able to go to Eli’s birthday party.” Transform“Jessica should have known that purple is my favorite color,” try “I wish they had known that purple is my favorite color.” Just a wee change.
Tip Two: Ditch the Binary
Our self-talk tends to go to extremes, or at least mine does! Words at the far ends of the spectrum are extreme, like “no one” and “every time.” They’re good clues that something isn’t true, since these extremes are pretty rare. Next time you spot a word like this in your mental chatter, try trading it in for a less binary one, such as “few people” or “most of the time.” So it’s not “I always cancel on plans with friends,” it’s “I sometimes cancel on plans with friends when I don’t have the spoons.”
Tip Three: Thank You, Not I’m Sorry
Try this tip both inside and outside yourself. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but apologies can become automatic. Then we start apologizing stuff we can’t even control, like being sick. This kind of chronic, unnecessary apology doesn’t help anything, and it makes the needed apologies seem weaker. AND it leads to us shrinking back, full of guilt, and getting nowhere. Your spoonie challenge here is to try thanking people the next time you feeling like apologizing unnecessarily. Here’s how it could go: If you’re coming into a meeting late, you might feel like saying, “I’m so so so sorry I’m late.” See how it feels to replace that with “I really appreciate your patience” or “Thank you for waiting for me.”
Short and sweet: three tips to change how you talk to you and to others so you can change how you see yourself. Like anything else, they take some time and practice to reach maximum effectiveness, so hang in there. You deserve to have a better relationship with yourself and others.
Who am I? I’m Dr. Jo Eckler, a licensed clinical psychologist and chronic illness coach who loves helping professionals with invisible chronic illnesses befriend themselves, do the things, and love their lives. Want to learn about your spoonie superpower and get personalized suggestions? Take the chronic illness coping style quiz here.
