Mindfulness & Mental Health
Never Say “But” Again: The One-Word Switch for Self-Validation
I Revolutionized the Way I Talk to Myself with One Simple Technique
The Way We Talk to and about Ourselves Matters
Are you just… sort of… mean to yourself? Me, too. It took a long time — years of therapy — to break the habit of criticizing myself outright. But in the past couple of years, I found one sneaky way I was still managing to bring myself down: using the word “but.”
Thoughts matter. Words matter. The way we “talk to ourselves” affects our feelings towards ourselves and our sense of being capable or not. It alters or solidifies our sense of being a generally good or bad person, and whether we even judge ourselves in the first place.
How we talk about ourselves and our experiences matters, too. The way we talk to others about our lives, our internal worlds, and our experiences reflects — and affects — our perception of ourselves.
Self-Validation Matters
In a therapeutic context, validation means taking a person at their word that they are feeling a certain way, that they had a certain thought or impression in response to an event, or that they…
