Finding the Beef: Additional Thoughts on Disputing Negative Self-Talk

Rare is it to find individuals today unfamiliar with A. A. Milne’s classic story of Winnie the Pooh. Either having read the book—or had the book read to them—or seen the animated Disney version, practically everyone knows the story of Pooh, Christopher Robin, and all the characters of the 100 Acre Wood. A character of individual interest from this tale, at least as far as this post is concerned, is Eeyore.

 

As you will recall, Eeyore presents throughout the story as the perpetually gloomy, ever-pessimistic, and apparently habitually disheartened donkey who lives in a section of the 100 Acre Wood denoted on its map as, Eeyore’s Gloomy Place. The confluence of Eeyore’s character and the point of this essay resides in what I referred to in my previous essay as “self-talk” or the negative beliefs one can hold that serve as the filter through which the processing of life experiences occurs. If this filter waxes pessimistic, which would appear is the case for Eeyore, then the resulting emotional consequences experienced are negative. And enough time spent in such emotional states will likely result in what clinicians refer to as dysthymia if not depression.

 

Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, refers to what

he calls personal “explanatory styles,” which can predict one’s degree of optimism or pessimism. One’s explanatory style is composed of three dimensions: (1) Personalization - the internal or personal and the external, (2) Permanence - the stable or permanent and the unstable or temporary, and (3) Pervasiveness - the global or pervasive and local or specific. Let’s consider a scenario by way of demonstrating.

 

Michael fails to complete the analysis of data needed by his boss to report on a project’s progress to investors.

 

 I really screwed up this time; I’m such a failure (internal or personal explanation). I knew this might happen; it always does (stable or permanent explanation). I can’t seem to do anything (global or pervasive explanation). The longer Michael ruminates about his “failure,” the more likely he is to become depressed. He has what Seligman calls a “pessimistic explanatory style.”

 

Let’s look at the same situation, but as someone with an “optimistic explanatory style” might:

 

Oh boy…I’m not going to make the deadline. I was afraid this might happen because of that server glitch (external explanation). Now that the server is back, I can finish the final section and give him what’s finished (unstable/temporary explanation). Stuff happens…he knows about the server problem and that this was not my doing (local/specific explanation).

 

If explanatory style or what I tell myself about an event or experience can result in emotional upset, then it stands to reason that changing one’s pessimistic explanatory style can improve it. And if explanatory style is a function of one’s belief system or one’s “self-talk,” then this means it is something open to personal manipulation. In other words, if what I tell myself is self-defeating and negative, then telling myself something different—disputing the pessimistic self-talk—can affect its emotional result. In short, if I choose to “act on” instead of “react to” life events and personal experiences, I can rewrite the story of my life.

 

That said, it would be nice if all I had to do was acknowledge that my pessimistic explanatory style needed an overhaul and, voila, it changed. Unfortunately, change, especially change in one’s way of thinking…worldview if you will…does not happen simply because of a flash of insight. It takes time and hard work but Seligman notes that several months of cognitive therapy that attends to explanatory style not only yields results but essentially inoculates one against pessimism and lessens if not prevents it in the future. In his book, he outlines a self-directed regimen to affect explanatory style.

 

You know what you’ve learned and learn what you’re taught…but it is important to realize that that is not all there is to be known. Change is an inside job and as such, something over which we each have ultimate control. If unhappy with the story of your life, rewrite it! If, as Jonathan Winters once said, you are tired of waiting for your ship to come in, then swim out to meet it.

 

Returning to the 100 Acre Wood, even our dysthymic Eeyore can display hints of optimism…the nicest thing about the rain is that it always stops. Eventually. Fortunately, we have a say as to when.

 

What do you think?