Mishka had always been cheerful and confident until 8th grade, when Molly started hanging out with Mishka and her friends. Molly was bossy, and she was soon making all the decisions for the group.

Then she started in on Mishka.

“Mishka, where did you get those clothes, from the thrift store?”

Mishka was so shocked by Molly’s attack that she didn’t know what to say. Her friends laughed, and the conversation moved on.

Then it it was “No, Mishka, we aren’t going to see that movie — it’s so lame!” Mishka decided not to make an issue of it. Molly always got her way.

Later, Molly said, “Here, I’ll do that — you’re just too useless for words!” Before, Miskha would have stood up for herself. But when Molly said it, all she could think was I’m hopeless, I can’t do anything right.

And when her English teacher gave her a B- on an assignment that was worth an A, Mishka didn’t think of questioning her teacher about it.

One of the reasons why Mishka’s life took such a nosedive was that she didn’t stand up to Molly — not just once, but several times. So what started out as a single event became a habit, and not standing up for herself became part of who Mishka was.

What’s going on here?

What’s happening is something bad that has happened to every person alive today. Most people fall prey to it because they aren’t even aware that it’s happening. However, once you’re aware of it, you can fight it and make your life better.

What’s going on here is negative self-talk — that little voice inside our head that keeps commenting on us, who we are, and how bad we are at whatever we’re doing.

“Aargh! I am so stupid! I just can’t do anything right.”

“I’m a complete idiot!”

“I screwed it up again — I’m always going to be a failure!”

Negative self-talk can easily move into new areas of our lives. But it starts long before we became adults.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

We punish ourselves with negative self-talk because we have learned to do so.

Several factors combine to make this happen:

Western society is both judgmental and punishment-oriented. Society has trained us to think in simple black-and-white terms. Events have one cause. Someone is responsible when something bad happens. (So when we get frustrated, it’s always someone else’s fault.) And when someone is at fault, they need to pay for what they’ve done.

One way to punish people is to attack them with emotionally harsh language, which looks like negative self-talk, only it’s directed at someone else. You’re so stupid. You’re a complete idiot. You screwed it up again. Such language hurts. Often, people change their behavior to avoid being attacked again.

We learn that we can use emotionally harsh language to control others. We see that it works and that the person who uses it is rarely condemned for doing so. So we try it, and it works for us too.

Unfortunately, once we find out how well this works, we tend to use it everywhere. Parents who don’t know better use emotionally harsh language on their children to control and to release their frustrations. And with children, such language has serious and long-lasting effects.

Children are very impressionable, and they learn they are bad. In early childhood (say, before age four), a child’s brain is just beginning to wire things together. Children instinctively believe that a parent is right and good (the alternative is too scary to endure). So when a child hears, “You’ve been a bad girl,” she flinches. When she hears that message often enough, she comes to believe it as much as she believes that grass is green and that a ball falls down when you drop it.

Human beings use what they know to make sense of their experiences. So when a scoop of ice cream drops from a cone because a boy holds the code sideways, he doesn’t think Wow, that was a mistake. He doesn’t even think That happened because I do stupid things. He uses what he knows to explain his experience: That happened because I’m just plain stupid.

Life builds on top of what children “know” about themselves. The process can happen in many ways, but here’s an example. Mishka “knows” she is lame and useless, so she doesn’t say anything — to anyone. Friends fall away. She begins to feel hopeless. When she does poorly on a test, she doesn’t bother trying to improve. Also, her mind is constantly trying to cope with her negative view of herself, so there’s no energy left for doing anything creative.

As the years roll past, things get worse. She avoids the social situations that would teach her about how to work with others, how to be in a relationship. In college, she avoids challenging courses and settles for a second-tier major that will lead to lower-paying jobs. As an adult, she blames herself for everything, and she “knows” she’s useless just as much as she knows that a ball falls down when you drop it. This self-blame is very deeply a part of who Mishka is, and it will be very hard to get rid of it.

Unbelievable? Unfortunately, no. All children get their share of emotionally harsh language from parents, other people, or society. Unless they grow up in a consistently positive environment, such language almost always takes root in childhood and has effects that show up in adult life.

How can we do better?

Before you can work on whatever negative self-talk you have, you first must become aware of it. One characteristic of a deeply-ingrained habit (which is what this is) is that you are barely aware that you’re doing it.

So your first step is to notice when you are engaging in negative self-talk. (To get better at this, make a list of the negative words and phrases you use and review them once a day.) You will miss many of these moments at first — this is perfectly normal. With practice, you will get better at recognizing them.

Whenever you do notice your negative self-talk as it is happening, try these techniques:

Relabel what you said as “just a story.” Repeat your negative self-talk and add the following: “This is just a story I’m telling myself. That doesn’t mean it’s true.” In other words, don’t believe everything you think.

Move from being to behavior. Most negative self-talk is about who you are — for example, “I’m stupid.” Pull back on the self-punishment by making the story about your behavior — what you did. For example, the story that “I am stupid” becomes less judgmental when you choose instead to say, “I did something stupid.”

Replace judgmental words with neutral words. Words like stupid exist for one reason only: to be hurtful. Replace them with words that are objectively true but not judgmental: “I did something that was unfortunate.” Feel free to change the words, too: “I did something that didn’t work out well” or “I made a mistake.”

If your negative story still has a hold on you, try the following:

Ask yourself, “What’s the evidence?” and check your answer. This is a well-known technique for dealing with negative self-talk. Look for evidence to the contrary. Examine your thinking to see if you’re being unfair to yourself. For example, if you keep telling yourself that you’re stupid, ask yourself things like Do I actually have low intelligence?, How often do I do things like this?, and Do other people who have done the same thing call themselves stupid? (And no, feeling stupid does not mean that you are stupid. Feelings are real and they can be very powerful, but they often don’t represent the truth.)

Would you talk about a friend this way?

It’s amazing when you think about it — we talk to ourselves in ways that we wouldn’t even think of talking to a stranger (let alone a friend). Make a commitment to talk to yourself with the same consideration that you would use to talk to a friend.

Will all this do any good?

Yes, the techniques described here will work, but it takes time, and you must be determined to continue using them until you get the results you want. Remember, practice and determination are always part of any plan to improve your life.