Podcast : Self-talk and Emetophobia: you are your own worst enemy!

The thoughts we have and the way we talk to ourselves is immensely powerful. It can determine our mood, mental health and phobias such as emetophobia, but people often believe that their thoughts are passive, like they are automatic, or come from somewhere deep within our sub-conscious.

In fact, we have a huge amount of power over what we think. If you’re ‘suddenly’ in a bad mood, stop and reflect on what you were thinking before that - it’s likely you were thinking pretty disempowering, negative thoughts which influenced the sudden change in mood.

Our thoughts are hugely influential on our beliefs - they ‘create’ our beliefs, and in turn our beliefs influence our thoughts. We’ve all been there where we’ve taken a photo of a friend who we think looks amazing, but they think they look ugly - that’s the result of thousands of self-critical thoughts they’ve had about their appearance which has in turn influenced their belief that they are not attractive. You can see from the outside they’re beautiful, but they’ve told themselves over and over that they’re not, which, of course, they then believe.

A good analogy for our ‘inner voice’ is the little devil and angel on our shoulder. If we choose to have helpful, powerful thoughts, our angel is winning. If we have unhelpful, self-critical, nagging thoughts, our devil is in control.

For an emetophobe, that ‘devil’ on your shoulder is constantly berating and criticising you. Due to perfectionism, emetophobes will criticise themselves for pretty much everything. Even getting 99% on a test is cause for criticism. If a perfectionist goes for a jog, instead of saying ‘well done!’ to themselves, they’ll create negative thoughts to beat themselves up about it: ‘I could’ve woken up earlier,’ ‘I could’ve run further,’ ‘my time wasn’t as good as yesterday.’

The solution to combat negative self-talk is to reframe your inner voice to be kind and charitable. How would you want to encourage and motive your child, or a loved one? Of course, you’d want to talk to them in a powerful, helpful, kind way. So why do you deserve anything less?

It’s also important, when engaging with your inner talk, to reframe your attitude from outcome-oriented to effort-oriented. If you only praise yourself when you’re the best at something you’re focussing too heavily on the outcome. You simply can’t be ‘the best’ without failing a few times. The legendary basketball-player Michael Jordan famously said that he failed 1000 times in order to get it right. He couldn’t be where he was today without falling over and failing again and again, to learn how to do it right.

So if your inner voice praises you for the effort you’ve put in, you’ve won. Start talking to yourself in a kind, caring, compassionate, charitable, motivating, supportive way. Stick post-it notes up around the house reminding you, set it as the background on your phone. It’s an essential part of overcoming emetophobia, and an essential part of being happy in yourself.