You live with an ever-present companion—you! You spend more time with yourself then with anyone else. In fact, you spend all your time with yourself. This internal companion talks to you continuously, virtually nonstop—even when you're sleeping! As a consequence, you have more influence over yourself and more ability to create your future than anyone else.

This internal companon is you talking to you, inside your mind. You are the creator of your internal environment. You guide yourself, criticize yourself, give to or withhold from yourself, belittle or support yourself. The internal you feels like a distinctly different person speaking to you, but it is really you inside, talking to you. How you react to a worrisome situation is largely determined by what you tell yourself about it. Through this internal dialogue, you make decisions, set goals, feel happy or sad, relaxed or anxious, hopeful or lost.

Worrywarts talk to themselves in ways that leave them feeling anxious, afraid, and inadequate. They talk to themselves in ways that magnify trivial mistakes, making a big fuss needlessly over picayune problems. Worrywarts have selective vision, they focus on FUD—Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt—in virtualy every situation, keeping themselves in a constant state of anxiety and dread. Their "fuddy" self-talk creates a psychological environment that is toxic and taking.

Smart worriers actively soothe themselves. When they feel anxious, depressed or annoyed, smart worriers soothe themselves. This enables them to bounce back quickly from disappointments and setbacks. Their self-talk creates a psychological environment that is supportive and hopeful.

The way that you talk to yourself traps you in worrywarting. To break out, you must stop talking to yourself in ways that make you feel anxious, small and helpless, and start being supportive and encouraging in your self-talk. Psychologists call self-talk that is soothing and brings you back to balance "compassionate self-talk" and "the language of self-support".

Talking to yourself compassionately can be learned. Like learning any new language, learning the language of self-support takes time, practice and dedication. Self-nurturing is not that hard, really. The key is to imagine how a good friend would talk to you, and then talk to yourself that way. The hard part is breaking "fuddy" self-talk habits and actually talking to yourself in a compassionate and self-supportive way.

How To Break The Worrywart Cycle:Go to article.