by Jennifer Shindman, M.S.
A few weeks ago, at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) conference, I attended a very interesting talk. At one point, the speaker talked to us about an experiment he suggests to his clients. Treat yourself the same way that you would treat your best friend; give yourself the same advice that you would give a best friend or a loved one about a difficult situation or the way he/she perceived it. Next, treat all friends and loved ones the way you treat yourself. Will these people still be around after this treatment? If the answer is no, stop being so mean… to yourself!
REBT therapists use a similar technique known as the “friend dispute.” Using this dispute, a therapist may ask a client something like, “What would you tell a friend in a similar situation?” The goal of this technique is to help clients see that they have the ability to generate solutions or alternative ways of thinking and problem solving. It can also help show clients that they would never think about or treat others as harshly as they do themselves. I particularly liked the speaker’s method of illustrating this point. I have heard people say many times, that we should treat ourselves the way we treat loved ones, but the suggestion to treat others the way we treat ourselves was a new one. A small tweak, but an important one, and it really drove the point home.
Once our clients are able to understand how mean they are, they are more likely to be ready to explore the irrational beliefs they are holding and then work towards changing them. Once you realize that you would never tell your best friend that she is total failure because she did not get that job, you will also hopefully be ready to think about changing the way you talk to yourself. Instead of rating yourself globally based on one negative event, you will be more open to adopting the view that your mistakes do not define you as a person. You are worthy because you are alive and human, and as such, you are fallible. Maybe you did make a mistake during that job interview, but if you understand that you are not a total failure, and instead a fallible human being (like the 7+billion people out there) you will probably be more likely to try again next time. A total failure would never be able to do anything right because he is just that, a total failure.Thus, if your goal were to find a job, accepting yourself as someone who made a mistake, rather than letting your mistake define you, would best help you meet this goal.
So next time you start to feel an unhealthy negative emotion (anger, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame), ask yourself if you would say the same things to others that you are saying to yourself at that moment. If the answer is no, then STOP BEING SO MEAN!
