I’ve mentioned before why talking to ourselves is healthy. It helps to awaken our conscious minds, as opposed to functioning on autopilot. It can assist in managing our daily tasks, and in so, alleviate anxiety.

Example: “Hey Emma, you’ve got half an hour before you need to leave, plenty of time for a quick cuppa.”

But, for those of us who live with the effects of PTSD or who are survivors of abuse, we can fall into the trap of a poor self-narrative – and much of this is habitual. It is littered with the echoes of somebody else’s narrative!

Example: “Hey Emma, you’ve only got half an hour before you need to leave, and they’ll probably think you’re too dim for them to hire you anyway. Why don’t you just call now and say you can’t make it?”

This self-narrative is obsolete. I no longer consider myself to be dim, and this unkind word didn’t originate from my vocabulary. But of course, when I’m feeling depressed, I go straight back to using those destructive words about myself.

As you go about your day, take notice of the words you say to yourselves. Check which ones may have come from somebody else’s lips.

Imagine that you have a piece of paper with the unkind words written on it in indelible ink – they won’t disappear, but you can learn to write over them with your own narrative. This is now your space to fill with healthy things to say to yourselves – practice filling it with positive things and create your own, kind, vocabulary.