excerpt from 10 Simple Solutions to Worry

Why do worry exposure?

There are several reasons why purposely exposing your self to your worries can be beneficial:

• Confronting your worries allows you to practice using the skills that you’ve learned, such as relaxation techniques or cognitive challenges to distorted thinking.
• Intentionally worrying allows you to practice focusing on one thought at a time so you can habituate to the specific worry.
• Because worry exposure decreases anxiety in response to specific thoughts, you’ll be less fearful when those same thoughts arise spontaneously.
• Avoiding thoughts, or using techniques like distraction, maintains fear and can even cause more anxiety and worry. Directly confronting your worries stops that negative cycle.

excerpt from Visualize Confidence

Self-confidence affords you the belief that, within reason, you do have the ability and skills to accomplish what you envision for yourself. Since confidence isn’t with each of us all the time and in all situations, our beliefs and behavior can change according to the tasks and situations at hand. You can be confident in one area of your life but not in another. For example, you may be confident in math but not in biology. You may be confident in your academic abilities but not in sports. You may relish the excitement of giving a talk before a large crowd but feel awkward going on a first date.

Since self-confidence exists within the context of your own beliefs, self-image, self-esteem, self-efficacy, memories, and perceptions, it can be summed up in three terms: attitudes (how you feel), behavior (what you do), and cognitions (what you think).

excerpt from Visualize Confidence

As children we start out full of confidence in our abilities and strengths, with unlimited creative imaginations. Free from self-doubt, we are eager to try out new things and explore new worlds. It’s only as we grow older that we start to evaluate our behavior, second-guess ourselves, and judge ourselves against others. And, as a result of hard knocks and disappointments, our self-confidence takes a beating. Self-doubt comes first and foremost from our inner critic. Let’s consider how the inner critic sabotages our confidence.

excerpt from 10 Simple Solutions for Building Self-Esteem

Let’s explore the basic types of distortions and how they can be modified. Because there are only a handful of distortions, you can learn them and their replacement thoughts so you can prevent yourself from falling into the common thinking traps. With practice you will learn to replace distortions quickly and without much effort, because this is what stressful situations often require.

• All-or-Nothing Thinking
• Labeling
• Assuming
• Making Unfavorable Comparisons
• Shoulds, Oughts, and Musts
• Catastrophizing

excerpt from 10 Simple Solutions for Building Self-Esteem

How might we make the world a better place? There are many ways. When someone asked Mother Teresa how he might help her, she simply said, “Come and see.” We can simply observe what needs to be done, and do it as best we can. This might mean providing physical help (such as cleaning or giving a ride) or giving a smile, a listening ear, or encouragement. Simple expressions of help can be given to family, friends, coworkers, or strangers. Or, if we have the means, we might donate time or money to a worthwhile cause (such as a soup kitchen, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Habitat for Humanity, or a political campaign). Further, you can think of your job as a way to contribute. For example, one janitor might view his job as simply cleaning and getting rid of trash. Another might view it as creating an environment that helps educators teach and a generation of children to learn.

Another way to make the world better is to beautify or improve our environment for the sake of others. This could involve artistic expression (such as painting or poetry), inventing, sprucing up your home or workplace, or picking up litter on your walking path. Additionally, you can think about what it would be like to be in another person’s shoes and see how your behaviors affect that person. Plante (2004) reminds us that the hotel housekeeper cleans up others’ messes and might be ignored by the guests. Perhaps she would appreciate receiving a simple greeting from the guests she cleans for. A salesclerk might be tired after a long day of dealing with demanding customers. An empathic smile or a word of thanks for her service might go a long way.

excerpt from Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice by Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D., Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., and Joyce Catlett, M.A.

How is it that we can be so turned against ourselves? Where did this enemy within come from? How did we end up with this critical inner voice? The answers lie in the past when, as children we were trying to cope with our lives in the best way possible.

The nature and degree of this division within ourselves depends on the parenting we received and the early environment we experienced. Parents, like all of us, have mixed feelings toward themselves; they have things they like about themselves and they have self-critical thoughts and feelings. The same negative feelings that parents have toward themselves are unfortunately often directed toward their children as well. Therefore, parents have both loving feelings toward their children as well as critical thoughts and negative feelings toward them. Mothers and fathers who feel that they are bad find it difficult to believe that something good could come from them. In addition, children, just by their presence, tend to stir up in their parents the feelings they had when they were children. If a parent has unresolved feelings from their trauma or loss in his or her past, these feelings will impact his or her reactions to his or her children.

excerpt from Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice

All of us divided ourselves and have a basic conflict in relation to our goals and aspirations in life. On one hand, we have feelings of warm self-regard, and we have traits and behaviors that we like or feel comfortable with in ourselves. We have natural tendencies to grow and develop and to pursue our personal and vocational goals, as well as desires to be close in our relationships and to search for meaning in life. In this book, these tendencies are referred to as the real you or your real self, because they are made up of friendly, compassionate view of yourself.