I feel bad about myself: what can I do?

You know when you feel bad, but you don't want to feel that way, so you try not to feel bad, but that's frustrating, and you end up in that endless cycle of negative feelings. Is that your case? If so, science says that feeling bad about yourself when negative emotions invade you doesn't help you in the long run. Rather, research has shown the importance of feeling emotions for exactly what they are, rather than falling into the trap of feeling bad for feeling bad.

People who habitually accept their negative emotions have been shown to experience fewer negative emotions, which translates into good psychological health. In this Psychology-Online article, we tell you what you can do if in your head you have the thought of "I feel bad about myself: what can I do?"

Index

1. I feel bad emotionally: How do negative messages work?
2. How to change those negative thoughts?
3. Other tips to avoid feeling bad emotionally

If one of your recurring thoughts is "I feel bad about myself, what can I do?", You may be sending yourself negative messages about yourself. Many people do. These are messages that you received and with which you have been building your self-esteem since childhood from many different sources, including to other children, teachers, family members, caregivers, even from the media, and from the prejudices and stigmas in our society.

Once you've learned them, these negative messages may have been repeated over and over again, especially when you don't feel good about yourself or when you're going through difficult moments. You may have come to believe them, you may even have made the problem worse by making up some negative messages or thoughts on your own. These negative thoughts or messages make you feel bad about yourself and lower your self-esteem. Some examples of common negative messages that people repeat over and over to themselves include:

• "I'm an idiot"
• "I'm a loser"
• "I never do anything right"
• "No one would ever like me"
• "I'm a clumsy"

Most people believe these messages, no matter how false or unreal they are, they appear immediately under the right circumstances, for example, if you get a wrong answer you think "I am so stupid". The messages tend to imagine the worst of all, especially from you, and are hard to turn off or unlearn. You may even think negative messages or say them to yourself so often that you hardly notice them.

Pay attention to them and keep a notebook as you go about your daily routine for several days and write down negative thoughts about yourself when you notice them. Some people say they notice more negative thoughts when they are tired, sick, or during times of high stress.

Cognitive restructuring technique

Also, try taking a closer look at negative thought patterns to see if they are true or not. You may want a close friend or professional to help you with this. When you're in a good mood and have a positive attitude toward yourself, ask yourself the following questions about each negative thought you've noticed:

• Is this message really true?
• Would a person say this to another person? If not, why am I telling myself?
• What do I get from thinking this? If it makes me feel bad about myself, why not stop thinking about it?

You could also ask someone else, someone you love and trust, if you should believe that thought about yourself. Simply looking at a thought or situation in a new light often helps.

I feel bad emotionally: steps to improve

The next step in this process is develop positive statements What you can say to yourself to replace these negative thoughts every time you realize that you are thinking them. You cannot think twice at the same time. When you are thinking a positive thought about yourself, you cannot be thinking a negative one. When developing these thoughts, use positive words like happy, peaceful, loving, enthusiastic ...

Avoid using negative words like worried, scared, upset, tired, bored, no, never, can't... Don't make a statement like "I'm not going to worry anymore." Instead, say "I focus on the positive" or whatever feels right to you. Replace "would be nice if" with "should." Always use the present tense, for example, "I'm fine, I'm happy, I have a good job," as if the condition already existed. Use "I", "I" or "your own name".

In order to control negative thoughtsYou can do this by folding a piece of paper in half the length to form two columns. In one column write the negative thought and in the other column write a thought You can work to change your negative thoughts to positive thoughts in the following ways:

• Replace negative thinking with positive every time you realize that you are thinking negative thinking.
• Repeat your positive thoughts over and over to yourself, out loud whenever you get the chance and even share them with someone else if possible.
• Make slips or signs in which they appear positive thoughts, hang them in places where you can see them frequently, such as on the refrigerator door or in the bathroom mirror, and repeat the thought several times when you see it.

The first thing to do is realize that you are speaking negatively about yourself. If I say to myself "I will never do it", the result is that I stop trying, because why should I bother? Therefore, those negative thoughts prevent us from doing new things and prospering as people, that is, they interfere in our life.

Second, ask yourself a simple question. If you heard a child say these words, how would you respond? As adults with responsibilities and experiences, we forget to be kind and encouraging to ourselves. While there is a time and place for tough, reality-checking conversations, the daily dialogue that we have in our minds should focus on what is possible, and not on excuses for what we don't think we can achieve.

Lastly, he talks to someone to help you put things in perspective. Most of us have someone like that. Typically they are older with more experience in life, like grandparents, parents… You are not looking for compliments in this conversation. Instead, you are asking that person to remind you of the big picture or a time when they thought that things were wrong but that they really were not or turned out to be a learning experience significant.

Put negative thoughts in context it helps us because our choices and mistakes are rarely as bad as we think they are. Creating that positive turn is motivating and sets us up for success.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to I feel bad about myself: what can I do?, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotions.