Your relationship with yourself sets the foundation for every other connection in your life. If it’s toxic, it can lead to self-doubt, anxiety, and even impact your mental health. The good news? You can change it. In this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, I’m joined by my daughter Lily to explore the signs of a toxic relationship with yourself and how to heal. We’ll dive into where these patterns come from, how they hold you back, and the practical steps you can take to transform your inner relationship. It’s time to replace self-criticism with self-compassion, challenge negative thoughts, and reconnect with your worth.
In this episode, I sit down with Lily to talk about toxic self-relationships and how they shape our lives. We discuss:
This episode is packed with actionable insights and heartfelt advice to help you heal and thrive.
✔ Recognise Toxic Patterns: Identify negative self-talk, self-criticism, and feelings of unworthiness.
✔ Cultural Pressures: Understand how societal standards contribute to toxic self-perceptions.
✔ Healing Steps: Use self-compassion, boundary-setting, and gratitude to rebuild your relationship with yourself.
✔ Community Matters: Connection and belonging are essential for transforming self-worth.
✔ Self-Love Wins: Replace self-doubt with confidence and inner peace.
Thank you so much for listening to Ask Dr. Jodi! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
Dr. Jodi Aman: [00:00:00] Do you wanna know some signs of you having a toxic relationship with yourself? So in this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi with me, Dr. Jodi. And
Lily: Lily.
Dr. Jodi Aman: And Lily, we're gonna talk about your relationship with yourself. We're gonna get a little raw, maybe. Where's, let's see what comes out. We don't prep too much for these because we really want it to come straight from our heart and talk about what's going on in our life and what we see going on in the [00:00:30] world in ways that could help you break the cycle of this toxic relationship that you might have with yourself.
And I want you to know if you have any kind of negative relationship with yourself. It is not you. It is not you. This is a regular human response to our world because this comes from discourses in our culture to be good enough and smart enough, and young enough, and pretty enough and perfect enough.
That's in all the [00:01:00] advertisements, that's on all the magazines, that's in all of the interactions that we have. Wondering if we are enough to be included. Let's just start way back where it started. Evolution, right? Everything kind of starts in evolution. All of our behavior, all of our tendencies, it started somewhere biologically and as humans were social beings, and we had to live in a community When we were evolving, because we didn't have [00:01:30] the clause, we didn't have the. Teeth , of other predatory animals. And we needed a community to help us hunt, to help protect us, to help us, whatever. Everything that we did help us raise our young, because we stay with our babies a lot longer than other species. Okay, so more science than you wanna know about.
Lily: I thought that was because the, I thought that came first.
Like I thought that we had to raise our babies because we were.
Dr. Jodi Aman: What the theory is about that this is going [00:02:00] off a little bit, but I love this stuff so much and when I studied human behavior, I really looked at this time in evolution, I think, because when my kids were little, they were interested in evolution.
Especially my son. He loved everything about, I say dinosaurs and apes and prehistoric creatures, and we knew all of that stuff. But then I started to realize the connection between our social interactions and our behaviors. And what happened is what they think happened is because as a theory from what we [00:02:30] see of remains, we made a theory that eventually our brain got too big.
To come through a female's what is it, hips, right? So the brain was too big to, and so it had to develop outside the body. And because the brain had to develop outside the body because our hips couldn't get bigger. If we were standing upright, if we were still on all fours, our hips could grow and then we could have children that.
We're independent with within a [00:03:00] year or so, but because we stood upright, our hips had to be smaller, and so our brain, the size of our brain, had to be smaller at birth than it was later in life. And so it takes a long time to grow our brain. So that's why humans are different than any other animal that we parent for a very long time.
And in fact, our prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop till 26. So sorry, honey, not developed. It's developing. So you [00:03:30] have something, it's like nothing.
Lily: I feel underdeveloped.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, that's good. And that could be, that can be great to, if you embrace that you're underdeveloped, but really try to.
Use this time to develop and make, do trial and error of different decisions in relationships and in opportunities and in challenges that you have with yourself. That's great. It's a great time to do that. And it's also a precarious time because when people are young and they, [00:04:00] the importance of belonging in peers are higher.
Would you say probably in middle school, high school, and definitely in your twenties, it's still there. The need to that, that having a sense of belonging is so important that this toxic behavior comes out because it's something that you value and it's really important, so you're really worried about losing it, and so you're overcritical with yourself.
Now, all of us in western culture are overcritical with ourself, but it's a little bit harder when you're younger [00:04:30] because that peer relationships are so important.
Lily: Yeah.
Dr. Jodi Aman: How do you feel like when you were in middle school compared to now? Compared to, compared to high school, compared to now, in terms of that wanting to belong?
When you look in retrospect, do you see a difference? Yeah,
Lily: I mean there's a different culture in college too. There's not as much, there's not like cool kids or not cool kids, so that
Dr. Jodi Aman: There's not as, there's no cliques. There's not as many cliques.
Lily: Yeah. It's just so big. So that's like.
[00:05:00] That also helps. I don't know if it was that or like my self changing, but yeah, I was in high school, I was very aware of what's cool or what's not. And then when you go to college, it did help to you just find your people instead of whatever. But I don't know. It's tough because theater is a little different.
Like in, I'm in school for acting, so there are cliques in theater still. That's. That. I think that'll always be there. I think that's there in the entertainment [00:05:30] industry, like in general. Yeah. Because
Dr. Jodi Aman: people have these higher standards. Higher, higher and higher standards. What do you mean?
People have higher standards of beauty or success. Oh, in
Lily: the entertainment business. Yeah.
Dr. Jodi Aman: And some businesses you have a little bit more pressure to.
Lily: Also, so much of the industry is like connections and like networking. And so there is like a social part of that. So I, it's hard to tell.
It's like it's shifted, but I know that in general the college transition [00:06:00] into college is oh, you're not, you don't have to worry about being cool. You just find your set of people. So that's interesting.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. That's
Lily: cool.
Dr. Jodi Aman: All right. Is that
Lily: what you're asking?
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. No, that was exactly it.
And and then also in this culture, I feel like young people. At Generation Z, they're calling out toxic behavior and they, they're witnessing it and calling it out maybe with themselves, with other people. And so they're have a, there's a more of awareness to denounce it or separate themselves with toxic [00:06:30] behavior.
Maybe that's social media influence.
Lily: What are some like examples of toxic behavior?
Dr. Jodi Aman: That's a good question. That's what we probably should have said in the beginning, though. The episode. Okay, so some examples of being toxic with yourself is definitely negative self-talk, so negative thoughts that you might have.
Okay. Yeah. Now this, again, this comes from biology because we evolved, our brains evolved for millions of years to solve problems all day long. And so we have this capacity to have a [00:07:00] lot of thoughts, and we don't need them as much with modern conveniences, we don't need all those. Problem solving features, and so we have to make up our own problems.
Lily: We can survive on our own. Now, a lit, it's good to be with community, but we don't we're not gonna be eaten.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah.
Lily: If we,
Dr. Jodi Aman: yeah so you're not in the woods with a threatening animal as much. And actually, it's unfortunate. I think there's. There's some problems with living alone.
We have smaller and small, smaller and smaller [00:07:30] households in the US. And so I think that's a, has a detrimental effect on our mental health because if you were living with multiple generations, or if you were living with a lot of people, you don't really have much time by yourself. And being isolated is not really good for our.
Psychology. It's not good for our emotional wellbeing at all, because if you're with other people, you're brought out of your head that negativity in your head, and there's always problems to solve because there's all these people and everybody has something. So you're constantly [00:08:00] using skills and using your brain to solve problems.
And people's mental health are better in bigger households. Actually,
Lily: I okay. I know you've said that before, that Absolutely. Community is so important, but. But you're also saying right now that the, that we don't need those skills from like evolution times, but yeah. But we do need like the skills of being in a community, so how does that help your like s toxic behaviors towards [00:08:30] yourself?
If you like need to be in a community, then you actually need those skills to.
Dr. Jodi Aman: You don't. You don't. I think we think that we need skills to critique ourself so that we don't get left out.
Oh yeah.
So we think that we need these skills to critique everything about ourself that might cause us to be kicked out or excluded from the group.
And we are overcritical of ourself constantly 'cause we're worried that we're gonna not be enough to be included. But this is like subconscious really. There's too [00:09:00] many groups right now. So if you were excluded from one group, there'd be other groups that you could belong to. So it's not the same as an evolution.
There was, you had one. Community that you lived in, one village that you lived in, and there was nobody else. If you were kicked out of that village, you know maybe another village would take you in if they found you and found you. Not threatening, but maybe the, you know that the chances are so slim right now.
If you were left out of this clique, there might be another clique you would fit into, or you do have a family that you fit into or at work, you have [00:09:30] some people that. Like you and respond to you. So we're not in that same situation anymore. So we don't need those skills to constantly be like, oh, am I cool enough?
Am I smart enough? But we have these high expectations that we have that we think that there's these standards that we have to measure up to. And that we're in a fishbowl all the time in this fishbowl, that everyone's looking at us and judging us, and really they're paying attention to their own like behaviors and worries about if [00:10:00] they're being included or not.
So this is where our toxic behavior comes from. It comes from our culture. Like I said, it's a regular human response to our culture, but also if we've had bad experiences in our life, if we've had trauma, this is definitely a trauma reaction and it compounds it.
Lily: I have a question. Yeah. I'm all for, like I and I am all for, you're for it.
Having a positive relationship with yourself, like not self-criticism, but there are [00:10:30] like, I think sometimes in order to fit in you're nicer or you. You might have you might think something mean where you're like, I don't wanna subconsciously you're like, oh, I'll lose this friendship if I say it.
Which is bad. I, it's just every or
Dr. Jodi Aman: you could call that intentional, right? So you could call that intentional. Of course, there's a couple things we don't wanna worry about what everyone else thinks about us. If we're, if it's about negativity and critiquing, it's stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about you, but.
You [00:11:00] also are responsible for how you behave in the field, like how you affect other people. So you're not like, I don't care what anyone thinks. I can be mean and I don't care what people think. That's totally different. You don't care what anyone thinks if they're CRI critiquing or being negative or judging you.
But if you were mean to people. And they thought you were mean. That's a totally different situation. Is it
Lily: the, okay I get what you're saying. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Okay. If you're at like a Starbucks [00:11:30] and you're like having a really bad day, and the barista's maybe like messing up the order, like she's having a bad day too.
He or she or they then, and then they like messed up the order and they're maybe like a little rude to you. I might in my head be really frustrated, but. Also to preserve this person. Also, to not embarrass myself. I'm not gonna make a scene. And that's good. I think that is good. That's, yeah, that means you have good impulse
Dr. Jodi Aman: control, but that's good impulse [00:12:00] control.
That is an executive skill. I think a huge part of that
Lily: is also, I don't wanna embarrass myself too, like that's embarrassing and it's rude. There's two parts of it. And so like, how would I distinguish, I don't even know. This is not even,
Dr. Jodi Aman: it's such a good thing. I know it's such a good thing, so why criticize it, but is how,
Lily: if, how do I distinguish like that?
Like knowledge of you need some social awareness. Yeah, you need some social awareness to make sure everyone feels good all the time. But how do I distinguish that from oh, people pleasing, from like people pleasing.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Okay, [00:12:30] so I, I don't know if it's, I think that, I think there's a line, right?
Because if you're people pleasing, you're putting them in priority in front of you. So you're pleasing them and sacrificing something for yourself to please them.
But if you were in a coffee shop and somebody was messing up and you overrode that impulse to be a jerk, that's good impulse control.
And yes, you're, you would embarrass that's a consequence of bad impulse [00:13:00] control that you'd embarrass yourself. Yeah. And also a consequence of bad. Impulse control that you hurt somebody else. Yeah. So both of those things are good, but if you're like, okay, then what is a people pleasing, I guess if you went to a coffee shop and they really messed up your order and they gave you.
Something that is completely different than what you ordered and you just drink it anyway. Instead of saying, Hey, yeah, you're right. Sorry, this is not what I ordered. Can you remake it? And they'll remake it for you? But a people pleaser would be like, afraid to [00:13:30] do that because they're like, I don't wanna embarrass myself.
But that, that assertiveness doesn't have to be embarrassing. Yeah, you could be kind about it. Yeah. And give feedback. And if you were nice about it, they probably would be nice back and. Probably you never know what someone's going through. And if they're having a bad day, they could be a jerk, but they'd probably be like, oh, sorry about that.
Only get a new one and be like, oh, no problem. And it's like a nice exchange. You actually both leave that exchange feeling better.
Lily: Yeah.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Even though it's fixed,
Lily: I think I am of people [00:14:00] pleaser. I think that question,
Dr. Jodi Aman: gimme some examples. Yeah.
Lily: Because.
Dr. Jodi Aman: You wouldn't
Lily: because I just related that to and speaking up a little bit to being, but I don't know.
Examples. I think I'm getting better.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. I think you are too. I think you're too, and sometimes when you're younger and you're dealing with adults, it's hard to,
yeah.
Stand up for yourself and say, this is what I need, or this is what I want. Sometimes that's a skill that you need to build that assertiveness is say.
Ask for what you need.
And this
[00:14:30] is okay to ask for what you need. Not asking for what you need or not asking for help is a toxic behavior with yourself. It's like you are not worthy of asking or you're gonna bother somebody if you ask. So those are definitely toxic behaviors with yourself, and those are things you have to break out of because there's nothing for you there.
Asking for help allows that other person to help you or participate in your life and you bond and get closer in those kind of relationships. Yes, it makes you [00:15:00] vulnerable, but that vulnerability when you're not in danger, like vulnerability is safe. If you're safe, vulnerability is only dangerous if there's danger around when you're vulnerable and you're safe in a relationship.
It. Builds that relationship. It makes you feel closer. It makes you feel more connected. You are needed. They're needed. This is what being human's all about is having these great relationships. Okay, so let's go back to other toxic examples. Okay. Examples of being toxic with yourself.
We said negative thoughts. [00:15:30] Constant self-criticism, like having that deficit mentality and constantly looking at what you're inadequate about or unable to do what you're deficit in. That is for sure feeling unworthy. So feeling if you're not worthy of somebody and sometimes that has you stay in relationships with people who are mean to you.
Far beyond where you should be staying in those relationships. I don't mean to say should as in judgmental, because we do what we do in our own time, and [00:16:00] sometimes getting out of a relationship after a few months is fast. We're not gonna judge the time in that. Okay. So if. I was just, I was afraid that people heard me say, you should get out of 'em as a judgment.
That they're a fool for staying in a relationship like that. I see. Yeah. But sometimes you're in a relationship and you're caught off guard and somebody has. Brought you in slowly and you didn't realize it, and you're in it by the time you're realize what's going on and you've made [00:16:30] excuses for a while or they've gas litted you and made you think it was you, and finally you realize and you get out of it.
It's like, how'd you do that so fast? The really, they need that confidence to know that was fast instead of beating themself up, that they stayed in it longer than they should. So I just was correcting the fact that I used the word, should I see it always is judgment. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So when I talk, I said this last week in my episode, but when I talk, I hear how people might misinterpret it, and then I have [00:17:00] to put the caveat in. So it's my life. Okay, so you prioritize others' needs over yours, which could be people pleasing. You don't say no, you don't have good boundaries, right?
You don't, you back. If somebody pushes your boundaries, you back right up. You don't keep them strong. I have tons of videos on boundaries. If this is an issue for you I'll I'll link to them. Let's see. I think it'll be this side, this corner. Oh, we see a mirror room. We're watching ourselves take it, but I know it's the [00:17:30] top right corner, but I think this is mirror view.
Anyway, live. Live video. Okay, so constant busyness could be a toxic behavior if you're afraid of stopping because you think that if you rest, you feel guilty about it, or you feel like you shouldn't rest, or you have judgment of yourself about it.
Lily: So what if you're happy when you're busy?
Dr. Jodi Aman: That's different.
That's why I explained it a little bit, but I also, busyness universally is not a problem. It could be you're in [00:18:00] the flow and you love it and you just enjoy it. And this is, that brings you alive. We need to charge ourself up. So busyness is good. It's also,
Lily: yeah, but what if I also feel guilty when I'm not doing anything, and then I'm happy when I'm busy.
Dr. Jodi Aman: I think that goes into intention. It is. It is something that you have to play with, right? We've talked about this so many times, and it's like when you rest, if you consciously decide to rest, and then it's productive and you actually get to benefit from that rest. [00:18:30] And so I always talk to you about that when you're resting.
If you plan it, I'm gonna rest till this time tomorrow during this. Time period, I'm gonna rest. Yeah. You actually get more out of it because you're not judging yourself because that's productive. You could check it off your list if you've planned it. So that's really good.
Lily: Or
instead of going on TikTok as a procrastination, like just watch a movie and then not be like, this is a procrastination.
Just be like, I'm watching a movie. Yeah. And then work after you plan it.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. You'd be like, I'm gonna watch a movie this morning. [00:19:00] I had a really busy week. I'm gonna. Sleep in and stay in bed late on Saturday. 'cause I have nothing responsible that I have to do today. So I'm gonna watch a movie. I've been wanting to watch this movie for a while.
And then when you're done with the movie, say it's noon or two o'clock or something and you're done and you feel like I rested, you don't feel guilty about it 'cause it was planned. But sometimes there's people who feel unworthy if they're, this is also a trauma reaction. They feel unworthy if they're still.
If they [00:19:30] don't, are not doing anything, they feel like they're not worthy and they have to keep overperforming in order to feel worthy. That's really a, an inherent unworthiness issue. Which is a toxic relationship with yourself. I see. The last couple that I'll mention is procrastination could be.
A, a toxic relationship with yourself because you're afraid of, you could, it's possible that you're afraid of failing. And so you don't wanna start 'cause you don't wanna do that, or you're [00:20:00] afraid that you can't or it'll be really hard. So you're like losing faith in yourself and you don't trust yourself very much.
Sometimes that initiates procrastination. There could be other reasons. So this is not all procrastination, but a lot of procrastination is a toxic relationship with yourself. Staying we talked about staying in, I'm looking at my notes here. Sometimes when you have the fear of the other shoe dropping, anybody have that?
I don't know what that is. The fear of the other shoe dropping, you never heard that? Like, when things are going good, [00:20:30] people are afraid that it's gonna all fall apart at one.
Oh. Oh
yeah. And so there's a saying, it's I'm really afraid the other shoe's gonna drop. You never heard that saying?
I
Lily: guess not?
Dr. Jodi Aman: Oh, okay. I'm old. I'm old. My clients still use it.
Lily: I might just not know
Dr. Jodi Aman: there. That is also a trauma reaction, but it's, you feel like whatever's gonna happen, you're not gonna be able to handle it, so why try?
What's the use of trying? It's just gonna turn out bad anyway. And so you have a conclusion. You don't even know what's gonna [00:21:00] happen yet, but you have a conclusion of the end that's gonna be a failure. And so you don't even try. Yeah. So some signs of it are a lot of guilt over apologizing. Do you do that over apologizing?
Lily: Yeah. I'm thinking better though.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, I do. Yeah. You, that was more when you were younger.
Lily: Yeah, I also apologize. Okay. One issue that happens is that I'll apologize for something that. If someone bumps into me, I'll apologize. [00:21:30] And then they'll be like, it's fine. And then I'll be like I didn't actually, wasn't actually my fault. But
Dr. Jodi Aman: you don't say it to 'em. You say that in your head.
Lily: Yeah, in my head, obviously in my head, yeah. But, yeah, so then I'll, I've stopped like apologizing for stuff like that because I'll get annoyed. But no, that might be like living in New York awareness for three
Dr. Jodi Aman: years when you're aware and look at that behavior and thinking, is this serving me or is this not serving me?
Yeah. And that awareness is the first step that we're gonna talk about [00:22:00] next. So let's talk about a little bit what you can do to have a better relationship with yourself. Yes. Number one, a number one is self-compassion.
Lily: Self-compassion. Yeah.
Dr. Jodi Aman: And you know what, I really feel like this should be taught in middle school self-compassion.
'cause people are like how do I do that? Do you know how to have self-compassion? Like how would you explain that to somebody?
Lily: Self-compassion. I I think it's just like giving yourself grace. [00:22:30] For things.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Oh, that's so
beautiful. I love that.
Lily: Oh, thanks. Giving yourself grace for things that you do, like everything that you do and like when you mess up.
I think self-compassion is like how you move on from a mess up. Yeah. Or it doesn't even have to be a mess up. Just like something like if you procrastinated instead of calling it a mess up, it's just I didn't do exactly what I wanted to do today. But if you are self just like a self-kindness Yeah, self-kindness.
If you don't have that, then you're gonna do it again. The next day.
Dr. Jodi Aman: Okay. So how I usually describe it [00:23:00] to people is that's great. Is whatever you feel, anything that you feel at all, you say, I understand. I understand why I feel that way. So it's a bit of self validation because it's an understanding.
'cause most things we feel it's totally understandable, but when we feel them and they're negative, we're like, oh, I'm, am I overreacting? Am I okay? What's gonna happen that you get really worried about it? So there's all this attachment to all of our feelings, and right away attaches [00:23:30] on, we worry about having those feelings and how long they're gonna last, and if we're gonna be able to handle it.
We worry about if we're overreacting or reacting wrong or whatever, making stuff up. We worry about all this stuff and we have reaction. But if we could cut that all out and we just, whatever we felt, we just had compassion and we thought, oh, that makes sense to be heard about that. Immediately, you are unattached to it.
Yes, you still feel it, but you're unattached to all of these [00:24:00] stories about it, and you're able to then take a step back and really decide intentionally what you could do about it. But you can't do that without self-compassion, right? Without that validation, you attach to stuff because you're defending it, and then you're criticizing yourself about it and defending it, and then you're worried about it, and then you're judging it.
And what. There's all of this stuff that happens when you have a negative feeling, but if you had compassion for that feeling, none of that happens. You just feel [00:24:30] it, you understand it, you're kind to yourself. Then you could take a step back, and when you take a step back, your nervous system relaxes. You're not having a huge rela reaction anymore.
You calm right down. So that self-compassion is really important when you have that self-compassion. You don't have all that judgment. That is causing that toxic relationship. Then you have to analyze all these things, all of these stories that you tell that go along with that feeling. All of that is contributing to a toxic [00:25:00] relationship with yourself.
And when you have self-compassion, it goes away. It so it feels so good. It like really shifts completely. Then we were talking about self-kindness, so the second way to. Start to decrease these toxic relationships with yourself is to be kind. And that's more what Lily's talking about is it's like having grace with yourself.
I love that. Just being gentle, like we're human. We make [00:25:30] mistakes. They're not catastrophic most of the time. 99.99999% of the time are mistakes. Are adjustable and fine. And they don't, they're not horrible. And so we could really be kind and we actually learned from them, right? So they're good for us in a lot of ways, if you think about it that way.
I did a blog post like forever ago I don't know, like 15 years ago that was about, I make so many mistakes. Wait, I learned so much from mistakes, I'm gonna make more of them. That was the title of the blog post. It [00:26:00] did really well. If people like that, like I make mistakes. And then I fix them.
So people are so afraid to make mistakes that they don't start. And I do a lot of things and I make a lot of mistakes, and I fix them before somebody does less things. You know what I mean? Because I, I don't have that high judgment or that high expectation that I'm not gonna make mistakes. So I do stuff, I make mistakes.
I fix my mistakes. I'm still way ahead of the game. So I don't mind making mistakes too much. [00:26:30] Okay get on the no train, say no sometimes, and set boundaries. Learn how to set boundaries because that is going to really shift your relationship with yourself. If you don't, if you don't set boundaries with other people and let them take advantage of you, let them have power over you.
Let them, whatever manipulate you, you're always gonna feel bad about yourself. And so having boundaries is really important. [00:27:00] Two more, two more really practical things I want you to do. If you wanna shift that relationship with yourself every day, every night before you go to bed, write down three things that you did that day.
This is the ultimate. And building a trusting relationship with yourself. Seeing yourself as somebody who's skilled instead of seeing yourself as somebody who is inadequate. We go through the day and we do our stuff, and after we get a job done, we think about all the things we didn't [00:27:30] get done yet. We don't even stop and pause and celebrate the things that we did do.
That probably is the biggest secret to happiness, is to celebrate the things that you did do because that invigorates you and give you, gives you energy for the next thing. You start to build that relationship with yourself, you start seeing yourself as skilled. You're starting to notice, if you notice all of the things that your deficit on, if that's all you notice, which is this is what we're doing in today's day and age, as everyone's noticing all their deficits, [00:28:00] it's cultural.
It's not you. It's not you that's negative, it's cultural. We have this deficit mentality in our culture and it comes from marketing. It comes from things to try to point out what you're powerless about, what you can't do, what you're inadequate about. 'cause that's how they sell products. So this is why we have this step mentality.
So you're not the problem, but you can override it by doing this exercise. I love this exercise. And the last thing. As you could go ahead and grab my [00:28:30] card game, my redirect card game is you're rewriting your negative thoughts to positive thoughts. So I have this, there are flashcards and you, there's negative thoughts on the front answer.
Automated negative response, an A NT, and so that there's a little ant on here and there's a negative thought, like I annoy that teacher. They have a true status in our mind, these negative thoughts. We think that they're true [00:29:00] and they're not true. They're just. An idea. And so this game helps you think about what species of ants it is that helps you really separate from that thought and start to deconstruct the truth of it.
And then you try to rewrite it. And on the back there's an example because there's a lot of ways to rewrite something. This is gonna build skills in brainstorming and trying to see things from different angles and different perspectives. And then and 'cause there's a lot of different ways you could rewrite this negative thought.
[00:29:30] What's the point? I'll fail anyway, so what's the point? I'll fail anyway. And so people have to think what species of ant this is? This is like a, concluding failure ant. And then you rewrite it and think about all different ways you could think about that. And there are a lot of different ways.
So this is an example. If you get really stuck that there's an example on the back, and here's this one. If the go goal is achievable, I have a chance to succeed. I'll feel better about myself and learn something if I put the effort in, [00:30:00] even if it doesn't work out for me this time. So it's really shifting that negative thought to other ways to think
it.
And the negative thought's quite thin, it's like a truth. It's one way, there's it's limited. There's nothing to do. But when we rewrite it, there's so many, there's it's unlimited in ways that we could go forward with that. And when you have that limited thought, you just don't try. But when you change it, it makes a huge difference.
Yeah. Do you like the [00:30:30] game?
Lily's seen it for a year. We've had it for a year, but you could get it on Amazon or you, I linked it below in my Shopify store. Yeah, so that's there for you. So happy that you spent this time with us in this episode. I'm so glad we're on live every Monday at 8:00 PM sometimes it's just me.
Sometimes Lily joins me and sometimes we have a guest, a call and guest if you wanna be a call and guest. I do live coaching right on air. You don't even have to have your face on there. If you wanna stay anonymous, that's okay. So come [00:31:00] on over to my website, Jodi amen.com/live. You could sign up for to be an insider in the show so that you get to know what topics are coming up.
And also you could sign up to be a calling guest, and I'd love to have you. All right we'll see you next week. Bye