The mind bully is your anxious, depressive, over-critical, or self-shaming voice. The bully in your mind is the monster that drags you down to the pit of despair, fear, and self-hate.
The mind bully is responsible for fueling your mental health issues, as it feeds on your poor self-worth, weaknesses, failures, hopelessness, and negative views of the world.
You contribute to the size and strength of the monster by allowing it to pull you into the pit of darkness over and over. You let the monster take control every time that you fail to take action into cutting off the rope.
My purpose in sharing this analogy is to remind you that you do not have to believe everything you think. Your thought content does not contain the ultimate truth. You are more powerful than your mind. Believe it or not, you have the potential to influence your mind to think and feel differently.
We all have an inner voice that acts as the narrator of the external world and our subjective experience. However, if that voice becomes our worst enemy, it will be impossible to feel safe within our skin.
I am here to tell you that that voice does not have to haunt you forever. If you want to have a fulfilling life, there is an answer for you. If you are looking for a change, know that change is attainable. You can fight your mind bully by taking control of your thought content. By altering your self-talk, you can improve your emotions, therefore your actions and attitude toward the world (Welcome to CBT 101!).
Yet, it does take acceptance and commitment to execute this change successfully!
These are suggested strategies to quiet down the bully in your head:
1. Notice and acknowledge your mind bully (give it a name if you like). 2. Recognize that you can watch the thinker in you and detach from it whenever you want. 3. Change the focus of your attention to mindful distractions. 4. Do opposite-action by writing down encouraging words for yourself. 5. Make the radical decision to shut down the harmful content in your mind. 6. Know that it is safe to let go of the rope and that you will better off without your mind bully.
These are techniques and strategies that I practice in the therapy room. My clients have found it effective for social anxiety, depressive states, imposter syndrome, and lack of self-worth. I hope you find them useful, but if you don’t, please do not give up.
You do not have to live a life with a bully in your head when we already have those made of flesh and bone.
Your hustler,
Daniela Marin
LMHC
BETTERHELP
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