Talking Back to Internalized Negativity
- Dr. Tom Wagner
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
What do you do when the harshest voice in the room is the one inside your own head? This reflection explores how to notice internalized negativity, talk back to shame, and choose words that open up possibility.
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Talking Back to Internalized Negativity
A colleague of mine once said that resilience researchers are like structural engineers who enter earthquake zones in order to study the structures that remain standing against all odds. They’re not interested in examining the wreckage so much as answering the simple question, “How did those buildings that remained standing manage to do that?”
For the last several weeks, SMC returned, again and again, to examine the life of Larry, a man who overcame almost unimaginable obstacles to lay claim to a successful-by-every-measure kind of life. In collecting and sharing his story, a resilience researcher, like me, simply wants to know, “How’d he do that?” Among other ingredients responsible for his resilience:
an aunt’s ongoing, “no matter what,” kind of love;
an ability to engage in imaginative play;
a band of brothers who shared a common suffering;
an unnamed nature mysticism at a quarry pond;
and finally, an accidental encounter with the Divine, which gave way to seeking and finding ongoing healing encounters with God in the middle of the ocean.
The great Holocaust philosopher, poet, and prophet, Elie Wiesel, once said, “At the very least, never let anyone be humiliated in your presence.” The problem for many of us, including Larry, is that we’ve lived in environments where those who should have known better were all too happy to humiliate us. To make matters worse, that kind of abuse has a way of making its way into our bodies, into our minds, and into our souls, forming unfortunate habits of self-recrimination, shame, and negative thinking.
This week, Sunday Morning Café will continue our focus on resilience by reaching back into the library and pulling up a video that’s all about talking back to internalized negative messages. As you’ll see, it was filmed during the pandemic lockdown, when many were left alone with their thoughts, and were surprised by the dark turns that the human psyche can take. Thanks be to God, the Pandemic is behind us. For better and for worse, our human nature is impossible to leave behind. I hope you will find this video helpful in dealing with the annoying part of human nature, given to self-recrimination, shame, and catastrophizing. See if you can walk away from this video with at least one experiment you can try on for the following week.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading. See you next week.
Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.