Self-Esteem
Episode number
7
Our identities and the ways we relate to the world make up major aspects of our self-esteem. How does self-talk contribute to self-esteem. How can we gain self-confidence and navigate the challenges of social media to maintain self-esteem?
Transcript
00;00;12;12 - 00;00;36;24
Dan
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Words of Wellness, the podcast where we consider the ways people think, speak and write about wellness. I'm Daniel Anderson and we're coming to you from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today, we're going to be looking at self-esteem, aspects of self-esteem that include self-talk and self-compassion. And we'll be thinking about that with some guests.
00;00;37;06 - 00;00;39;18
Dan
I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves now.
00;00;40;02 - 00;00;48;03
Dorian
Hey, I'm Dorian Blell. I'm a freshman here at Chapel Hill. And my sub topic within self-esteem is self-talk.
00;00;48;26 - 00;00;53;11
Cindy
I'm Cindy saying I'm also a freshman at Chapel Hill, and my topic is identity.
00;00;53;18 - 00;00;59;25
Helena
I'm Helena Xie. Yeah, I'm a freshman at UNC and my sub topic is self-perception.
00;01;00;05 - 00;01;07;18
Vasishta
Hi, I'm Vasishta. I'm also a freshman at UNC and my subtopic within self-esteem is Confidence.
00;01;07;29 - 00;01;16;23
Dan
Terrific. So we've been talking about a lot of these topics in our class. What have you learned that's new that we haven't yet sort of considered?
00;01;17;12 - 00;01;41;26
Vasishta
Well, I think that to define what self-esteem really is, we have to first start with, what does a person believe is most important about themselves? Because self-esteem is, we believe, really a measure of the way a person quantifies themself like their own worth and their confidence in their own abilities and characteristics. So we think that to discuss self-esteem, the discussion should first begin with what is a person's identity like? What do they see themselves as, and what's important in their lives?
00;01;45;08 - 00;02;06;22
Cindy
So I think a really important part of self-esteem is your identity. If you're sure about who you are and like what you value and what you want to be, then by definition your self-esteem will go up because you're more confident in yourself. And if you like really believe in yourself, then it can be easy to just keep working on your self-esteem and having like a good, positive mental state.
00;02;06;29 - 00;02;32;07
Dan
Yeah, I feel like people talk about self-esteem in positive terms, but when you're both mentioning identity, that's making me wonder whether that should be questioned a little bit because nobody is like, perfect. Everybody has like good aspects and bad aspects of their personality. So could you talk about that a little bit? The ways that you know, self-esteem gets sort of like put forward as this?
00;02;32;07 - 00;02;37;08
Dan
Like you've got to be up, you've got to be positive. It's sort of a positive term.
00;02;37;14 - 00;03;02;01
Cindy
Yeah. So if you have like if you're sure about who you are, even if you're feeling bad about yourself sometimes and you have like negative self-esteem, like you can always look forward and know that, like, even if you're in a bad state, like it will not last forever and you can always, like, pull yourself out of it. So I feel like even if like, it's a it's inevitable that you'll have points in your life where you have very low self-esteem.
00;03;02;01 - 00;03;07;11
Cindy
But if you know who you are and you're solid in your identity, you'll be able to pull yourself out of that eventually.
00;03;07;23 - 00;03;31;21
Helena
And as you're talking about identity, another big part is self-perception. And comparatively speaking, self-perception is a more neutral word. And when we were trying to research it and think about it, we thought about it as kind of like an internal mirror that reflects who you see yourself as. Although that mirror isn't always accurate because sometimes you see yourself as this very outgoing person.
00;03;31;21 - 00;03;54;22
Helena
You love yourself, but then at times it can also be very harmful when you see yourself as like failure or just aspects of yourself that you don't feel as if you're enough. So we feel like when we look at self-perception, it's widely affected by your environment because your environment sets the social standards for which you believe you should be attaining.
00;03;55;05 - 00;03;58;12
Helena
And in that way, it can either benefit or harm you.
00;03;58;29 - 00;04;22;08
Dorian
And I also think it's important for identity to align your self-perception with how other people see you, because that comes down to authenticity. Are you always the same person or do you sort of tailor the way you speak, the way you act based on who you're talking to? And I think people can sense if you're doing that, if you're being authentic or not.
00;04;22;16 - 00;04;25;16
Dorian
I'm not sure how, I guess just intuitively.
00;04;26;06 - 00;04;51;02
Dan
Yeah, I think that's fascinating in many ways, because if you study rhetoric and aspects of identity, you realize that, you know, people do kind of adjust the way they perform in front of people based on the audience. And I'm sure we all act differently around our family than around some close friends or a business contact or something. So we are different people.
00;04;51;15 - 00;05;04;08
Dan
But this notion of authentic self comes up a lot in these conversation patterns, and that seems to imply you're just one thing all the time that are my. Am I picking up on a tension that's that's out there?
00;05;04;20 - 00;05;26;13
Dorian
Definitely. And I think that ties in to self-talk a lot because it's what story do you tell yourself about yourself? Who are you? Are you the same person or are you different depending on who you're with? And if you're the same person, you might act slightly differently depending on the situation. You know, you might be more polite with your friends or with your family than your friends, for example.
00;05;27;10 - 00;05;37;16
Dorian
But in essence, your identity remains the same. You still have the same moral values, virtues, and that's intrinsic to who you are as a person.
00;05;37;22 - 00;05;58;04
Helena
Going into that, I think it's also important to define what identity is, because there's so many aspects of ourselves that we can identify with. We can identify ourselves as a friend, a chess player, a dancer, or find something that's more intrinsic. And as you were exploring, we saw that there were two categories of identity.
00;05;58;04 - 00;06;24;19
Helena
One that is changed by external factors. So like, for example, being a dancer or something like performing a hobby, that's something that changes. As you move to a different city/ move to a different place. But then intrinsically, there are also characteristics such as being an outgoing person, being a kind person, being someone who loves something that no matter where you go, that's part of your identity.
00;06;24;19 - 00;06;37;13
Helena
And I think finding something intrinsic in yourself to identify with is definitely something that builds self-esteem because it's something that nobody can really take away from you or your environment can't take away from you.
00;06;38;12 - 00;07;00;29
Dan
I like that distinction. I think, you know, this intrinsic notion. I hear people talk about it in terms of values a lot of times. And but what are some of the ways that you can nail that down? How do you identify something that's peripheral, like, you know, a hobby, you're a dancer versus this kind of big internal aspect of yourself.
00;07;01;16 - 00;07;16;06
Cindy
I feel like it has to be kind of intuitive, like no one can tell you what you value about yourself. So you need to just evaluate like what in life values to you, I mean, matter to you and what do you think like like your core values are?
00;07;16;15 - 00;07;17;19
Dan
Mm hmm. Yeah.
00;07;18;05 - 00;07;40;16
Vasishta
I also think that, for a lot of different people, identity means different things, right? So like Helena was saying, some people are maybe outgoing, other people are less outgoing. Other people are just, you know, if they make friends, they make friends. Life happens to them. It's not really something they see as a big part of themselves. Maybe they value other parts of their life, or maybe they think that other parts of their personality are more core to their identity as a person. And so this is also why identity becomes very hard to define. Just because everybody is different, not just in terms of the things they identify with, but the things they feel are actually important to them.
00;07;51;00 - 00;08;17;23
Helena
And also, I think identity is something that changes so much, like life is such a journey. So like every walk of life, you learn something new about yourself and in that way your identity can change, which can be scary. But at the same time, it's kind of the evolution of getting older and maturing. And I'd say that if I have to share an anecdote from my own life as I think growing up in Shanghai, I was very confident in who I was as a person.
00;08;17;23 - 00;08;40;22
Helena
I saw myself as a dancer, as a good friend, and someone who really connected with the community. But then moving across the globe to a boarding school in Massachusetts, I felt so lost because I couldn't dance anymore. I couldn’t do lots of the things that I thought I really identified with, and I think that was kind of the journey that led me to explore more about what really made me who I was.
00;08;41;01 - 00;08;58;04
Helena
And in that I found that I was an outgoing person. I was someone who loved connecting with my friends. And that's something that hasn't changed since I was a kid. But it really took like a move to make me realize that there are some intrinsic factors of my identity that I never really identified with as a kid.
00;08;59;02 - 00;09;12;11
Dorian
Do you think that that was genetic? Like that would have been who you became no matter where you were born? Or do you think that was your parents, your school, your peers when you were growing up? Do you think that made you extroverted or a combination of both?
00;09;12;26 - 00;09;37;16
Helena
I definitely think that so many factors play into it. I think there's definitely a genetic component. I mean, we're all biologically built differently, but then I think our environment also highly dictates who we are as a person. And growing up as an only child, I think that made me want to connect with people more because there wasn't like a sister or brother at home that I could just hang out with and fight with.
00;09;38;00 - 00;10;02;18
Dan
So I think there's a lot of positive possibilities with this idea that at first it kind of seemed like these peripheral aspects of our identity were maybe a problem. So, you know, I act one way in front of someone and then I act a different way. And then you need to get to your core piece. But what I'm also hearing is that you can be more than one thing.
00;10;02;18 - 00;10;30;00
Dan
You don't have to just be one thing. And maybe that suggests a possibility for change. You hear people kind of grumbling, people don't change, but ah is what I'm hearing, that people can change. And if they can, then does that even translate to some of these intrinsic parts? Like where's the boundary between I'm changing some external aspect of my behavior or I'm changing something that's, you know, more inside, more long lasting?
00;10;30;00 - 00;10;53;22
Dorian
I think that the mechanism of change is self-talk because as I said earlier, we are the stories that we tell ourselves and we are the patterns of actions that we do every day. That is what defines us, who we are as a person. You can say that you're the greatest person ever and you study every day and read every day, but if you don't do those things, you are not that person, you know.
00;10;53;22 - 00;11;24;26
Dorian
But it has to start. You will never become that person without telling yourself that you can become that person. So it all starts with self-talk. It starts with believing in yourself. And I think a huge component of it is seeing examples of people that have done the things you want to do before you. I think that can really inspire change because or maybe not change, but progress in the direction you want to go, which will inevitably cause changes because you never end up where you expect to.
00;11;25;02 - 00;11;32;22
Dorian
So I think self-talk is the fundamental process that can help you change from who you are to who you want to be.
00;11;33;12 - 00;11;44;01
Dan
Have any of you made like deliberate efforts to you know, kind of adjust core pieces or like practice self-talk? How does that look like and what does that look like in practice?
00;11;44;13 - 00;12;11;26
Dorian
I think it it just comes down to things are going to be really hard at first and you have to understand and acknowledge that you're not going to see progress for the first month you meditate or to go to the gym or whatever run, but you have to have faith that the progress after you've put in the work for so many months, so many years, will eventually pay dividends.
00;12;11;26 - 00;12;33;21
Dorian
You have to believe. I started working out more and you don't see results for the first couple of months at all, but you just have to get in there every day and just commit. It's sort of a leap into the unknown. It's a it's a stubborn faith and it's almost religious, but it's it's not because it's tangible.
00;12;33;21 - 00;12;41;15
Dorian
And you can see if you stick with it for long enough, things do start to change and life always changes.
00;12;41;15 - 00;13;02;07
Vasishta
So I think that there's also, I mean, Dorian said there's maybe exercise and working out, and this at least creates a more tangible and clearly visible way of tracking progress. Whereas when you have something like your identity or the way you act or feel, this is a lot harder to measure and you can't really like, it's very difficult to know when you've made progress. And so this is the same reason why, like as we read in our initial books about blessings and gratitude, and we saw that people who are counting their blessings every night or doing something to practice gratitude may have felt more gratified eventually, but they didn't really see themselves incrementally increasing that. It just kind of happened to them.
00;13;22;07 - 00;13;52;23
Dan
Yeah. Interesting questions about habits and how you kind of build a profile or a posture of a certain kind of identity. I don't know if we want to say it's willpower because that is kind of problematic. But you're saying through small steps every day these things can build. I kind of want to go back to Helena, though, and this point about accuracy and identity, I think overlaps in some ways with this.
00;13;52;23 - 00;13;55;05
Dan
So could you talk a little bit more about that?
00;13;55;19 - 00;14;21;29
Helena
Yeah, I think that when we think about identity, it's hard to see ourselves changing, but inevitably we are changing every day and that's actually a good thing because who wants to be stagnant? And I think that the way that we perceive the world changes so much because of our external environment and we might be inspired by a motivational speaker or see something and realize that maybe this is our new dream and this is what we want to achieve.
00;14;21;29 - 00;14;46;06
Helena
And I think to change yourself. One thing that's super important and intrinsic is confidence and one quote that a motivational speaker at my lab talks about is what is confidence? Lots of people think of confidence as thinking of yourself as, you know, you're so strong, you can do all of this. But confidence is built through keeping promises to yourself.
00;14;46;14 - 00;15;16;25
Helena
So as you are seeking out to be this new person, as you're seeking change, you create steps and you create promises to yourself. Whether that's going to work out every day, whether that's meditating every day and sticking to those plans and keeping those promises to yourself is what builds you up to be confident. And that confidence is what gives you that ability to navigate life and create changes and kind of push through the different changes in your identity and still be okay with.
00;15;17;13 - 00;15;51;24
Dan
I like that and I feel like there may be some overlap with these more amorphous concepts like self-talk or identity with this incremental take these concrete steps and, and pay attention to them. Notice that you're doing these steps and fulfilling them. I like the keeping promises. So are there particular strategies then that would bring those together? Like how can self-talk be put together with some of these habits or what some of these incremental steps that you want to take rather than have it just be this, you know, big concept?
00;15;51;24 - 00;15;55;00
Dan
I should talk to myself in a nicer way.
00;15;55;13 - 00;16;13;07
Helena
I would say that the first thing is to kind of accept who you are as a person and kind of recognize that you are an ever changing person. So even as your external environment changes or aspects of your identity changes to first accept yourself.
00;16;13;17 - 00;16;33;01
Cindy
Going along with that, I think it's also helpful to just surround yourself with people that have the same aspects that you want yourself. So for example, if you want to study more than just having the study buddy or going to study groups or office hours would help with that because our external environment does shape some of who we are.
00;16;33;01 - 00;16;38;00
Cindy
So just surrounding yourself with people that you want to be like will help you become the person that you want to be.
00;16;38;04 - 00;16;53;29
Vasishta
Yeah, I've heard this common notion that you are a product of the five people you spend the most time around. And while I think this may be a little bit of an oversimplification, I think there is some truth to that. Like if you spend more time around a certain kind of people, you inevitably are going to pick up some traits of their own character.
00;16;54;22 - 00;17;19;23
Dorian
And I thought you asked, how can we balance self-talk with whatever is not self-talk? And the way I conceptualized that was as sort of not necessarily a flow state as being the opposite of self-talk, but self-talk is active cognition where you're you're thinking, you're playing and you're judging, you're selecting the best option from a set of options.
00;17;19;23 - 00;17;41;28
Dorian
The opposite of that would be flow, which is just pure awareness, total immersion in the present moment. And you need both. You've got to have, if you always are thinking all the time, then you have nothing to think about. And if you are fully immersed in the present moment, then you don't have any reflection, you don't have any learning, you don't have any growth.
00;17;42;18 - 00;18;03;28
Dan
Can we break this down a little bit more? I like where you're going with the idea that, you know, sometimes we're really being much more deliberate. This is me giving myself a lecture and then other times we're like completely augured in on, you know, I'm doing my needlepoint right now, and that's all that matters to me. There's got to be some space in between.
00;18;04;09 - 00;18;27;29
Dan
Or maybe we can figure out what are some of the dimensions of this. And I feel like self-talk is such a tough thing to put a boundary on because where does the line between sort of thinking and talking to yourself lie? Like how many thoughts have we had so far today? It's what, 1030? It's 1030 in the morning.
00;18;28;22 - 00;18;44;08
Dan
How much thinking have we done and how much of that has been internal so far? I probably have thought 2000, 2000 items from, you know, how am I going to brush my teeth today, too? Did I turn the right turn on the way to work? I'm constantly thinking.
00;18;44;26 - 00;19;02;09
Dorian
How much of that is conscious, though? How much of that are you thinking about? Oh, how should I brush my teeth? Or is that just ingrained muscle memory at this point? Like, should I turn left? Are you thinking about that or is your body just sort of doing it? So it's like, how do you define thought? Like there's levels of thought.
00;19;02;25 - 00;19;19;06
Dan
It's a mix for me. I think it's a mix like sometimes I'm buttering my toast and getting into this thing like, this is the best way to butter toast. I've buttered toast 10,000 times in my life and I've learned you put it on here, you let it wait 10 seconds, and then you try to spread it and then it spreads more smoothly.
00;19;19;06 - 00;19;36;11
Dan
I'm really conscious, you know, I'm processing this and thinking about it, so I don't know. Is that self? You know, what a good toast buttery I am right now. Am I doing self-talk then, or do I actually have to sit down and say you deserve good things in your life or something like that?
00;19;36;23 - 00;19;56;23
Vasishta
I mean, I would posit that anything you think is self-talk in some way in the sense that you're talking to yourself. It's in your own brain, but I mean, when people typically say self-talk, I guess they don't mean that. So I think that we could classify all of it as self-talk, but it's definitely to varying levels of helpfulness and in terms of how it's affecting your wellness and confidence and self-esteem and whatnot.
00;20;01;12 - 00;20;12;14
Cindy
Yeah, I think if you're just thinking to yourself to encourage yourself to get through a hard task or just to wake up in the morning, it can be a cause of better self-talk if you're trying to like help yourself get through something.
00;20;13;10 - 00;20;34;02
Dan
So back to the accuracy point, what I've read is that people tend to be much harsher on themselves than they are to other people. So, you know, why did you turn left Now you're stuck behind traffic. You should have known if you'd gone on the bypass, you would have gotten to work better. What an idiot. Why did you do that?
00;20;34;09 - 00;20;51;05
Dan
So people are doing those kinds of judgments on themselves in a way that's much harsher than they would if if someone else had like, made a wrong turn on on the way to work. So does that overlap with this kind of sense of identity and that accuracy of understanding who we are at all?
00;20;51;25 - 00;21;31;06
Helena
I think for sure, because that is kind of the negative self-talk that we would categorize as where you're kind of taking away from your confidence, not necessarily identity, but that's definitely like a way to conceptualize it and I guess like an actual solid advice, as somebody said that would you tell five year old self whatever you're about to say to yourself, or would you tell your best friend what you're telling yourself right now and then that way it's kind of like how we talk to ourselves is so much more critical than the way we would talk to someone else or a kid younger than us.
00;21;31;16 - 00;21;47;13
Helena
And I think that's why I think going back to Dorian's point of practicing deliberate positive self-talk, rather than negative self-talk, makes a huge difference in how you see yourself, your own self perception, confident self esteem and all of those factors related.
00;21;47;27 - 00;21;56;01
Dan
Yeah, and now maybe we're in the realm of self-care. Then there's overlap with self-affirmation, self-care, these kinds of concerns.
00;21;56;26 - 00;22;13;19
Vasishta
I think when it comes to something like self-affirmation or even just self-talk after some kind of event, there's always many ways to react to something. Like in the example you gave where I made a wrong turn, you know, there's, I guess, two basic ways you could react to this. You could first say, “Oh, no, I made a wrong turn. Oh well.” Whereas, you know, another way would be what you describe like, “Oh man, I always do this. Why does this always happen? I'm such a bad driver, I can never concentrate.” And so on and so forth. And you know, you can say the same thing when something good happens, like suppose Dorian’s going on a run. He finishes in, he finishes his mile in record time. He could say, “Okay, I guess this happened.” Or he could be like, “Yes, why am I such a good runner? I'm incredible. I could be an Olympic athlete” and so on.
00;22;37;22 - 00;23;12;07
Dan
One of the things for our listeners, we studied a bunch of tweets that were related to the hashtag self-talk. We took 600 tweets that had that hashtag self-talk, and then we distilled them down to about 180, and then we coded them, we read through them and coded them for different factors. And one of the factors that came out that was kind of interesting is some of the tweets we coded with this label called Perspective, and that had to do with when people who were tweeting about self-talk were saying, keep things in perspective.
00;23;12;07 - 00;23;42;17
Dan
Don't get bogged down in comparing yourself to other people. And I don't know what to make of this. And all of our conclusions are preliminary because we are doing this as kind of an exploratory exercise of looking at these tweets. But it turned out posters who we had coded as male, did a lot more of this perspective oriented tweeting, and the ones we had coded as female tended to put more tweets out there that we coded as self-compassion oriented tweets.
00;23;43;05 - 00;23;56;19
Dan
Does there any kind of gender dynamic that we should talk about in terms of, you know, self-esteem, self self-talk? What happens when we bring gender into those conversations?
00;23;57;05 - 00;24;20;07
Cindy
I actually feel like I don't really see that that statistic in real life because I feel like women are more likely to compare themselves to other women, like on social media, like it's such a big problem that like models are like photoshopping themselves and then people see that and they compare themselves to that. So I don't really see like the breakdown that we saw in those tweets.
00;24;20;07 - 00;24;49;22
Helena
And I would say that the only distinction that I would draw from that conclusion is that the the different things that genders compare is like, I think for females it's mostly like body and like body image and kind of the looks that like females kind of tend to see on social media, you know, that model body image. Whereas I think for men it's more like success, like how well you're doing in the business realm.
00;24;49;22 - 00;25;08;10
Helena
And I think that might be something that creates this distinction. For females feel, self-compassion is more towards body image and how people perceive their looks. Whereas for a guy it might be having that perspective on their own success and where they benchmark themselves.
00;25;08;26 - 00;25;26;23
Vasishta
I think it's important to note too, that all of these things that we're saying are kind of biased by our own experiences and what we've seen in our own lives, and even in the distribution with the tweets, I feel like it's not really appropriate to generalize this, especially because this has been a small study run once with a small sample size. I think that, I mean, it could be representative, but we can't really say for sure.
00;25;31;16 - 00;25;58;11
Dan
I feel like you're giving us a helpful warning there not to draw strong conclusions based on this exercise that we did in class. Looking at tweets. But I feel like the point about comparison actually cuts a couple of different ways. And the point that you mentioned, Helena, about social media and cultural depictions of identity, there's sort of ideals that are put forward and probably those are gendered.
00;25;58;11 - 00;26;31;09
Dan
There's ideals for women and ideals for men that are culturally constructed in many ways. And that, I feel like takes us back to the converse Asian about authenticity and identity and accuracy. We're constantly being bombarded with a bunch of constructs that probably are not accurate, you know, are what, what, how, how do those constructs differ from your own identity or how do they shape the way that you come to grips with your identity?
00;26;31;26 - 00;26;54;13
Helena
I think this leads us back into the whole idea of our self-perception being shaped by the external world. We perceive ourselves is heavily tied to how we perceive what we should be, and those are socially constructed. So like the standards that society kind of sets tells us that we should look a certain way or defining success in a certain way.
00;26;54;22 - 00;27;18;05
Helena
So I think that what you consume also can be dictated by you. So in a way it's like, are you kind of consuming unrealistic goals and is that negatively affecting your self perception, or in a way, are you consuming things that are affirming your identity and building on your own confidence and self esteem?
00;27;18;05 - 00;27;51;05
Dorian
I agree that the cultural values are very important, especially when we're super young, when we're not dictating what content we take in, when our parents are and the school systems are. We don't get to choose what society thinks we should be. But when you grow up and you have a little bit more autonomy, you can you don't really have social action with the with the algorithms on social media.
00;27;51;05 - 00;28;22;24
Dorian
It'll show you stuff that you interact with. But through the mechanism of interaction, you can kind of tailor what you want, what you think you should be. And then social media will show you that like a mirror and that there's something really problematic about that. Because if if you switch into a negative mind frame and it starts overloading you with negative content, then that can just spiral you down into a pit of depression.
00;28;22;24 - 00;28;50;20
Dorian
But the other side of that is social media has a lot of potential to inspire growth. If that's something that you're seeking within yourself, it'll show you more of that and give you access to it. But there's also a shallowness because it's, you know, it's one Instagram post or one Tik Tok, which is 30 seconds long or whatever, and you can't really dig into the details, get into the nitty gritty.
00;28;51;09 - 00;29;30;09
Dan
I think that's a really important point about these algorithms and the way that they they're based on feedback. So you're going to be bombarded with messages based on the kinds of messages that you like or favorite, what have you. So I have a question related to that is how conscious are you all when you're, you know, working in your social media feeds that some click that you make or some decision that you make is going to translate into these sort of ultimate outcomes, like, oh, I better not click on this sad person crying because they're going to start feeding me more sad people crying.
00;29;30;25 - 00;29;47;14
Dan
Is this all just like under the radar? And we're not really aware of it? Or do people consciously sort of curate their feed knowing that, you know, the attitude they express in their clicking will translate into an attitude that's delivered to them in messaging?
00;29;48;04 - 00;30;09;28
Cindy
I know for me, when I'm scrolling on social media, especially Tik Tok, if I see something that I don't really like, there's an option for me to like, say, I don't want to see stuff like this again. So if I see like negative things or things that just like affect my mood, then I'll click on that button and then hopefully like that tailors my foot, my page so that I can see things I actually want.
00;30;11;00 - 00;30;31;05
Dorian
I've definitely seen a video that was like kind of funny before, but I didn't like it because I consciously had the thought. I was like, Oh, if I like this, I'm going to get more videos like this in the future. And it's not my style of comedy. Even though this one specific video is funny, I don't want this genre in my feeds.
00;30;31;05 - 00;30;38;11
Dorian
I just didn't like it and it was weird because I did have that conscious thought. I was like, This is the algorithm at work?
00;30;38;19 - 00;31;01;19
Dan
Yeah. Nice. I'm glad you have that sense of consciousness. I've had the same experience sometimes, like Spotify will be on some kind of random feed where it's giving me a bunch of stuff and I'll hear a song that I really hate and I think I need to click off of this. I need to fast forward this before it finishes, because if it finishes, they're going to think, I like this song and I really don't and I don't want any more of it coming at me.
00;31;01;19 - 00;31;08;15
Dan
So I'm going to jump out of the shower right now, slip and crack my head. But I got to fast forward before I you know, Spotify.
00;31;08;15 - 00;31;24;09
Dorian
Added an artificial intelligence DJ now. So if your dystopian nightmare need any more fuel, you know, they are literally examining your search history and trying to curate something off that.
00;31;24;09 - 00;31;52;28
Helena
Yeah. Unfortunately, I think social media has blown up in the past few years and the algorithms, they want you to be addicted. They want you to consume the content and keep scrolling and scrolling. And I think that as it's taking a bigger chunk of our life away, we have to be more conscious and more deliberate about the type of content we consume because lots of times, like the content that they're pushing is stuff that is not healthy for us.
00;31;52;28 - 00;32;15;13
Helena
And these like idealistic images that we see on social media, they are addicting. It's something that we want to consume more of, even if we're conscious that it's not helpful for us. So kind of making deliberate decisions to, you know, unfollow people that you think are not benefiting you or for me, like I had to delete Tik Tok because it was really affecting my own mental health.
00;32;15;21 - 00;32;29;16
Helena
So making deliberate changes and even limiting your time on social media and just spending time with real people around you can actually reaffirm who you are and I think overall make you mentally happier.
00;32;30;00 - 00;33;02;10
Dan
Yeah, I like that. And it's making me wonder that if someone could make money creating a social media platform that was about wellness or self esteem, like not have it be neutral, where you can choose what you want because you know it's not that complicated. People who studied wellness understand that you need strong relationships. If you get out with nature, if you, you know, have movement in your body, if you do self-talk that is building yourself up, there's a few things that are going to be useful to you.
00;33;02;20 - 00;33;22;23
Dan
So why not construct a social media platform that said only that, or if it saw that, Oh, you're clicking on a lot of negative stuff. We're going to pause that and I'm going to send you some kittens, you know, being shepherded by a dog while they're taking care of baby chicks and then that's going to make you feel better.
00;33;23;05 - 00;33;26;05
Dan
Would you sign up for that or why? Why isn't someone doing that one, I wonder.
00;33;27;17 - 00;33;59;08
Helena
I think that is a really cool concept that could be explored. But at the same time, I think that the things that make people well is so vastly different that there isn't one size fit all like content that would make or break someone's wellness. Like for some people maybe it's like a motivation to like, work out and be stronger, but at the same time, maybe someone else consuming that same content might see it as something that makes them feel like they're not doing enough.
00;33;59;16 - 00;34;14;22
Helena
So I think there's a fine balance, which is why I think going on this journey, you really have to find what works for yourself and that is kind of like an identifying factor that can really help you with, but you just kind of have to see it through yourself.
00;34;15;12 - 00;34;35;18
Vasishta
Yeah, I think that on an app like that, it's going to be like there's going to be kind of a big difference between the way people perceive these things and how it makes them feel. I mean, personally, if I saw a video like that, you know, I might say, “Oh wow, like this is cute. I guess I feel better now” whereas somebody else might say, “Geez, even these kittens, dogs and chickens are having a better life than I am. I wonder what's wrong with me.”
00;34;38;12 - 00;35;12;01
Dorian
Yeah, that's self-talk. That's how you interact with external stimuli. It's like when you see someone doing better than you or someone happy or animals happy or something. It's like, Does that make me sad? Because I don't have that happiness? Is that that's FOMO? Or you can choose to think consciously this happiness exists in the world. Therefore I can also have this happiness, or I can also work out like this one day if I work hard.
00;35;12;01 - 00;35;41;19
Dorian
And that's that goes back to the faith and the self-talk. What's your attitude on failure? If you're going to hit the first brick wall, which you're going to hit, are you going to stop and lay down? Are you going to get back up and keep running? So I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to social media, because social media is going to give you a billion different versions of who you could be and you kind of have to pick and choose the best parts of everything and synthesize that for yourself.
00;35;41;19 - 00;35;52;18
Dorian
And you can't do that in a healthy way if you don't have healthy self-talk and confidence and identity and self-perception. So it's all very tight and together. I think it's very important.
00;35;52;28 - 00;36;20;19
Vasishta
Yeah, I think when people talk about their own happiness, they kind of misconstrue it as what the stimuli around them are, whereas, you know, as Dorian was saying it's not so much about what you see and what happens to you because, you know, life is going to throw all kinds of different things about you. It's more about teaching yourself how to respond and react to those things so that you can have a healthy amount of self-esteem and confidence so you can handle the situations, you can handle any situation you may find yourself in.
00;36;21;07 - 00;36;39;06
Cindy
Yeah, going along with that, I think the most important skill you can have institute yourself how to respond positively because you can never control your environment fully. Like there's always going to be something that happens that you don't expect. So when that time comes, you need to be prepared to pick yourself up and then just keep going.
00;36;39;06 - 00;37;02;14
Dan
Terrific. Well, I've enjoyed our conversation about self esteem and self-talk. I'd like to thank Helena Dorian, physician and Sandy for joining us and for all of our listeners, remember that self-talk can be a real mechanism. It can take you up or take you down when it comes to your self esteem, and you're going to gain confidence by keeping your promises.
00;37;03;02 - 00;37;13;29
Dan
Take a moment, be compassionate towards yourself and be careful with social media. You can pick and choose what you're doing and let self-talk guide you. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.
Dan
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Words of Wellness, the podcast where we consider the ways people think, speak and write about wellness. I'm Daniel Anderson and we're coming to you from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today, we're going to be looking at self-esteem, aspects of self-esteem that include self-talk and self-compassion. And we'll be thinking about that with some guests.
00;00;37;06 - 00;00;39;18
Dan
I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves now.
00;00;40;02 - 00;00;48;03
Dorian
Hey, I'm Dorian Blell. I'm a freshman here at Chapel Hill. And my sub topic within self-esteem is self-talk.
00;00;48;26 - 00;00;53;11
Cindy
I'm Cindy saying I'm also a freshman at Chapel Hill, and my topic is identity.
00;00;53;18 - 00;00;59;25
Helena
I'm Helena Xie. Yeah, I'm a freshman at UNC and my sub topic is self-perception.
00;01;00;05 - 00;01;07;18
Vasishta
Hi, I'm Vasishta. I'm also a freshman at UNC and my subtopic within self-esteem is Confidence.
00;01;07;29 - 00;01;16;23
Dan
Terrific. So we've been talking about a lot of these topics in our class. What have you learned that's new that we haven't yet sort of considered?
00;01;17;12 - 00;01;41;26
Vasishta
Well, I think that to define what self-esteem really is, we have to first start with, what does a person believe is most important about themselves? Because self-esteem is, we believe, really a measure of the way a person quantifies themself like their own worth and their confidence in their own abilities and characteristics. So we think that to discuss self-esteem, the discussion should first begin with what is a person's identity like? What do they see themselves as, and what's important in their lives?
00;01;45;08 - 00;02;06;22
Cindy
So I think a really important part of self-esteem is your identity. If you're sure about who you are and like what you value and what you want to be, then by definition your self-esteem will go up because you're more confident in yourself. And if you like really believe in yourself, then it can be easy to just keep working on your self-esteem and having like a good, positive mental state.
00;02;06;29 - 00;02;32;07
Dan
Yeah, I feel like people talk about self-esteem in positive terms, but when you're both mentioning identity, that's making me wonder whether that should be questioned a little bit because nobody is like, perfect. Everybody has like good aspects and bad aspects of their personality. So could you talk about that a little bit? The ways that you know, self-esteem gets sort of like put forward as this?
00;02;32;07 - 00;02;37;08
Dan
Like you've got to be up, you've got to be positive. It's sort of a positive term.
00;02;37;14 - 00;03;02;01
Cindy
Yeah. So if you have like if you're sure about who you are, even if you're feeling bad about yourself sometimes and you have like negative self-esteem, like you can always look forward and know that, like, even if you're in a bad state, like it will not last forever and you can always, like, pull yourself out of it. So I feel like even if like, it's a it's inevitable that you'll have points in your life where you have very low self-esteem.
00;03;02;01 - 00;03;07;11
Cindy
But if you know who you are and you're solid in your identity, you'll be able to pull yourself out of that eventually.
00;03;07;23 - 00;03;31;21
Helena
And as you're talking about identity, another big part is self-perception. And comparatively speaking, self-perception is a more neutral word. And when we were trying to research it and think about it, we thought about it as kind of like an internal mirror that reflects who you see yourself as. Although that mirror isn't always accurate because sometimes you see yourself as this very outgoing person.
00;03;31;21 - 00;03;54;22
Helena
You love yourself, but then at times it can also be very harmful when you see yourself as like failure or just aspects of yourself that you don't feel as if you're enough. So we feel like when we look at self-perception, it's widely affected by your environment because your environment sets the social standards for which you believe you should be attaining.
00;03;55;05 - 00;03;58;12
Helena
And in that way, it can either benefit or harm you.
00;03;58;29 - 00;04;22;08
Dorian
And I also think it's important for identity to align your self-perception with how other people see you, because that comes down to authenticity. Are you always the same person or do you sort of tailor the way you speak, the way you act based on who you're talking to? And I think people can sense if you're doing that, if you're being authentic or not.
00;04;22;16 - 00;04;25;16
Dorian
I'm not sure how, I guess just intuitively.
00;04;26;06 - 00;04;51;02
Dan
Yeah, I think that's fascinating in many ways, because if you study rhetoric and aspects of identity, you realize that, you know, people do kind of adjust the way they perform in front of people based on the audience. And I'm sure we all act differently around our family than around some close friends or a business contact or something. So we are different people.
00;04;51;15 - 00;05;04;08
Dan
But this notion of authentic self comes up a lot in these conversation patterns, and that seems to imply you're just one thing all the time that are my. Am I picking up on a tension that's that's out there?
00;05;04;20 - 00;05;26;13
Dorian
Definitely. And I think that ties in to self-talk a lot because it's what story do you tell yourself about yourself? Who are you? Are you the same person or are you different depending on who you're with? And if you're the same person, you might act slightly differently depending on the situation. You know, you might be more polite with your friends or with your family than your friends, for example.
00;05;27;10 - 00;05;37;16
Dorian
But in essence, your identity remains the same. You still have the same moral values, virtues, and that's intrinsic to who you are as a person.
00;05;37;22 - 00;05;58;04
Helena
Going into that, I think it's also important to define what identity is, because there's so many aspects of ourselves that we can identify with. We can identify ourselves as a friend, a chess player, a dancer, or find something that's more intrinsic. And as you were exploring, we saw that there were two categories of identity.
00;05;58;04 - 00;06;24;19
Helena
One that is changed by external factors. So like, for example, being a dancer or something like performing a hobby, that's something that changes. As you move to a different city/ move to a different place. But then intrinsically, there are also characteristics such as being an outgoing person, being a kind person, being someone who loves something that no matter where you go, that's part of your identity.
00;06;24;19 - 00;06;37;13
Helena
And I think finding something intrinsic in yourself to identify with is definitely something that builds self-esteem because it's something that nobody can really take away from you or your environment can't take away from you.
00;06;38;12 - 00;07;00;29
Dan
I like that distinction. I think, you know, this intrinsic notion. I hear people talk about it in terms of values a lot of times. And but what are some of the ways that you can nail that down? How do you identify something that's peripheral, like, you know, a hobby, you're a dancer versus this kind of big internal aspect of yourself.
00;07;01;16 - 00;07;16;06
Cindy
I feel like it has to be kind of intuitive, like no one can tell you what you value about yourself. So you need to just evaluate like what in life values to you, I mean, matter to you and what do you think like like your core values are?
00;07;16;15 - 00;07;17;19
Dan
Mm hmm. Yeah.
00;07;18;05 - 00;07;40;16
Vasishta
I also think that, for a lot of different people, identity means different things, right? So like Helena was saying, some people are maybe outgoing, other people are less outgoing. Other people are just, you know, if they make friends, they make friends. Life happens to them. It's not really something they see as a big part of themselves. Maybe they value other parts of their life, or maybe they think that other parts of their personality are more core to their identity as a person. And so this is also why identity becomes very hard to define. Just because everybody is different, not just in terms of the things they identify with, but the things they feel are actually important to them.
00;07;51;00 - 00;08;17;23
Helena
And also, I think identity is something that changes so much, like life is such a journey. So like every walk of life, you learn something new about yourself and in that way your identity can change, which can be scary. But at the same time, it's kind of the evolution of getting older and maturing. And I'd say that if I have to share an anecdote from my own life as I think growing up in Shanghai, I was very confident in who I was as a person.
00;08;17;23 - 00;08;40;22
Helena
I saw myself as a dancer, as a good friend, and someone who really connected with the community. But then moving across the globe to a boarding school in Massachusetts, I felt so lost because I couldn't dance anymore. I couldn’t do lots of the things that I thought I really identified with, and I think that was kind of the journey that led me to explore more about what really made me who I was.
00;08;41;01 - 00;08;58;04
Helena
And in that I found that I was an outgoing person. I was someone who loved connecting with my friends. And that's something that hasn't changed since I was a kid. But it really took like a move to make me realize that there are some intrinsic factors of my identity that I never really identified with as a kid.
00;08;59;02 - 00;09;12;11
Dorian
Do you think that that was genetic? Like that would have been who you became no matter where you were born? Or do you think that was your parents, your school, your peers when you were growing up? Do you think that made you extroverted or a combination of both?
00;09;12;26 - 00;09;37;16
Helena
I definitely think that so many factors play into it. I think there's definitely a genetic component. I mean, we're all biologically built differently, but then I think our environment also highly dictates who we are as a person. And growing up as an only child, I think that made me want to connect with people more because there wasn't like a sister or brother at home that I could just hang out with and fight with.
00;09;38;00 - 00;10;02;18
Dan
So I think there's a lot of positive possibilities with this idea that at first it kind of seemed like these peripheral aspects of our identity were maybe a problem. So, you know, I act one way in front of someone and then I act a different way. And then you need to get to your core piece. But what I'm also hearing is that you can be more than one thing.
00;10;02;18 - 00;10;30;00
Dan
You don't have to just be one thing. And maybe that suggests a possibility for change. You hear people kind of grumbling, people don't change, but ah is what I'm hearing, that people can change. And if they can, then does that even translate to some of these intrinsic parts? Like where's the boundary between I'm changing some external aspect of my behavior or I'm changing something that's, you know, more inside, more long lasting?
00;10;30;00 - 00;10;53;22
Dorian
I think that the mechanism of change is self-talk because as I said earlier, we are the stories that we tell ourselves and we are the patterns of actions that we do every day. That is what defines us, who we are as a person. You can say that you're the greatest person ever and you study every day and read every day, but if you don't do those things, you are not that person, you know.
00;10;53;22 - 00;11;24;26
Dorian
But it has to start. You will never become that person without telling yourself that you can become that person. So it all starts with self-talk. It starts with believing in yourself. And I think a huge component of it is seeing examples of people that have done the things you want to do before you. I think that can really inspire change because or maybe not change, but progress in the direction you want to go, which will inevitably cause changes because you never end up where you expect to.
00;11;25;02 - 00;11;32;22
Dorian
So I think self-talk is the fundamental process that can help you change from who you are to who you want to be.
00;11;33;12 - 00;11;44;01
Dan
Have any of you made like deliberate efforts to you know, kind of adjust core pieces or like practice self-talk? How does that look like and what does that look like in practice?
00;11;44;13 - 00;12;11;26
Dorian
I think it it just comes down to things are going to be really hard at first and you have to understand and acknowledge that you're not going to see progress for the first month you meditate or to go to the gym or whatever run, but you have to have faith that the progress after you've put in the work for so many months, so many years, will eventually pay dividends.
00;12;11;26 - 00;12;33;21
Dorian
You have to believe. I started working out more and you don't see results for the first couple of months at all, but you just have to get in there every day and just commit. It's sort of a leap into the unknown. It's a it's a stubborn faith and it's almost religious, but it's it's not because it's tangible.
00;12;33;21 - 00;12;41;15
Dorian
And you can see if you stick with it for long enough, things do start to change and life always changes.
00;12;41;15 - 00;13;02;07
Vasishta
So I think that there's also, I mean, Dorian said there's maybe exercise and working out, and this at least creates a more tangible and clearly visible way of tracking progress. Whereas when you have something like your identity or the way you act or feel, this is a lot harder to measure and you can't really like, it's very difficult to know when you've made progress. And so this is the same reason why, like as we read in our initial books about blessings and gratitude, and we saw that people who are counting their blessings every night or doing something to practice gratitude may have felt more gratified eventually, but they didn't really see themselves incrementally increasing that. It just kind of happened to them.
00;13;22;07 - 00;13;52;23
Dan
Yeah. Interesting questions about habits and how you kind of build a profile or a posture of a certain kind of identity. I don't know if we want to say it's willpower because that is kind of problematic. But you're saying through small steps every day these things can build. I kind of want to go back to Helena, though, and this point about accuracy and identity, I think overlaps in some ways with this.
00;13;52;23 - 00;13;55;05
Dan
So could you talk a little bit more about that?
00;13;55;19 - 00;14;21;29
Helena
Yeah, I think that when we think about identity, it's hard to see ourselves changing, but inevitably we are changing every day and that's actually a good thing because who wants to be stagnant? And I think that the way that we perceive the world changes so much because of our external environment and we might be inspired by a motivational speaker or see something and realize that maybe this is our new dream and this is what we want to achieve.
00;14;21;29 - 00;14;46;06
Helena
And I think to change yourself. One thing that's super important and intrinsic is confidence and one quote that a motivational speaker at my lab talks about is what is confidence? Lots of people think of confidence as thinking of yourself as, you know, you're so strong, you can do all of this. But confidence is built through keeping promises to yourself.
00;14;46;14 - 00;15;16;25
Helena
So as you are seeking out to be this new person, as you're seeking change, you create steps and you create promises to yourself. Whether that's going to work out every day, whether that's meditating every day and sticking to those plans and keeping those promises to yourself is what builds you up to be confident. And that confidence is what gives you that ability to navigate life and create changes and kind of push through the different changes in your identity and still be okay with.
00;15;17;13 - 00;15;51;24
Dan
I like that and I feel like there may be some overlap with these more amorphous concepts like self-talk or identity with this incremental take these concrete steps and, and pay attention to them. Notice that you're doing these steps and fulfilling them. I like the keeping promises. So are there particular strategies then that would bring those together? Like how can self-talk be put together with some of these habits or what some of these incremental steps that you want to take rather than have it just be this, you know, big concept?
00;15;51;24 - 00;15;55;00
Dan
I should talk to myself in a nicer way.
00;15;55;13 - 00;16;13;07
Helena
I would say that the first thing is to kind of accept who you are as a person and kind of recognize that you are an ever changing person. So even as your external environment changes or aspects of your identity changes to first accept yourself.
00;16;13;17 - 00;16;33;01
Cindy
Going along with that, I think it's also helpful to just surround yourself with people that have the same aspects that you want yourself. So for example, if you want to study more than just having the study buddy or going to study groups or office hours would help with that because our external environment does shape some of who we are.
00;16;33;01 - 00;16;38;00
Cindy
So just surrounding yourself with people that you want to be like will help you become the person that you want to be.
00;16;38;04 - 00;16;53;29
Vasishta
Yeah, I've heard this common notion that you are a product of the five people you spend the most time around. And while I think this may be a little bit of an oversimplification, I think there is some truth to that. Like if you spend more time around a certain kind of people, you inevitably are going to pick up some traits of their own character.
00;16;54;22 - 00;17;19;23
Dorian
And I thought you asked, how can we balance self-talk with whatever is not self-talk? And the way I conceptualized that was as sort of not necessarily a flow state as being the opposite of self-talk, but self-talk is active cognition where you're you're thinking, you're playing and you're judging, you're selecting the best option from a set of options.
00;17;19;23 - 00;17;41;28
Dorian
The opposite of that would be flow, which is just pure awareness, total immersion in the present moment. And you need both. You've got to have, if you always are thinking all the time, then you have nothing to think about. And if you are fully immersed in the present moment, then you don't have any reflection, you don't have any learning, you don't have any growth.
00;17;42;18 - 00;18;03;28
Dan
Can we break this down a little bit more? I like where you're going with the idea that, you know, sometimes we're really being much more deliberate. This is me giving myself a lecture and then other times we're like completely augured in on, you know, I'm doing my needlepoint right now, and that's all that matters to me. There's got to be some space in between.
00;18;04;09 - 00;18;27;29
Dan
Or maybe we can figure out what are some of the dimensions of this. And I feel like self-talk is such a tough thing to put a boundary on because where does the line between sort of thinking and talking to yourself lie? Like how many thoughts have we had so far today? It's what, 1030? It's 1030 in the morning.
00;18;28;22 - 00;18;44;08
Dan
How much thinking have we done and how much of that has been internal so far? I probably have thought 2000, 2000 items from, you know, how am I going to brush my teeth today, too? Did I turn the right turn on the way to work? I'm constantly thinking.
00;18;44;26 - 00;19;02;09
Dorian
How much of that is conscious, though? How much of that are you thinking about? Oh, how should I brush my teeth? Or is that just ingrained muscle memory at this point? Like, should I turn left? Are you thinking about that or is your body just sort of doing it? So it's like, how do you define thought? Like there's levels of thought.
00;19;02;25 - 00;19;19;06
Dan
It's a mix for me. I think it's a mix like sometimes I'm buttering my toast and getting into this thing like, this is the best way to butter toast. I've buttered toast 10,000 times in my life and I've learned you put it on here, you let it wait 10 seconds, and then you try to spread it and then it spreads more smoothly.
00;19;19;06 - 00;19;36;11
Dan
I'm really conscious, you know, I'm processing this and thinking about it, so I don't know. Is that self? You know, what a good toast buttery I am right now. Am I doing self-talk then, or do I actually have to sit down and say you deserve good things in your life or something like that?
00;19;36;23 - 00;19;56;23
Vasishta
I mean, I would posit that anything you think is self-talk in some way in the sense that you're talking to yourself. It's in your own brain, but I mean, when people typically say self-talk, I guess they don't mean that. So I think that we could classify all of it as self-talk, but it's definitely to varying levels of helpfulness and in terms of how it's affecting your wellness and confidence and self-esteem and whatnot.
00;20;01;12 - 00;20;12;14
Cindy
Yeah, I think if you're just thinking to yourself to encourage yourself to get through a hard task or just to wake up in the morning, it can be a cause of better self-talk if you're trying to like help yourself get through something.
00;20;13;10 - 00;20;34;02
Dan
So back to the accuracy point, what I've read is that people tend to be much harsher on themselves than they are to other people. So, you know, why did you turn left Now you're stuck behind traffic. You should have known if you'd gone on the bypass, you would have gotten to work better. What an idiot. Why did you do that?
00;20;34;09 - 00;20;51;05
Dan
So people are doing those kinds of judgments on themselves in a way that's much harsher than they would if if someone else had like, made a wrong turn on on the way to work. So does that overlap with this kind of sense of identity and that accuracy of understanding who we are at all?
00;20;51;25 - 00;21;31;06
Helena
I think for sure, because that is kind of the negative self-talk that we would categorize as where you're kind of taking away from your confidence, not necessarily identity, but that's definitely like a way to conceptualize it and I guess like an actual solid advice, as somebody said that would you tell five year old self whatever you're about to say to yourself, or would you tell your best friend what you're telling yourself right now and then that way it's kind of like how we talk to ourselves is so much more critical than the way we would talk to someone else or a kid younger than us.
00;21;31;16 - 00;21;47;13
Helena
And I think that's why I think going back to Dorian's point of practicing deliberate positive self-talk, rather than negative self-talk, makes a huge difference in how you see yourself, your own self perception, confident self esteem and all of those factors related.
00;21;47;27 - 00;21;56;01
Dan
Yeah, and now maybe we're in the realm of self-care. Then there's overlap with self-affirmation, self-care, these kinds of concerns.
00;21;56;26 - 00;22;13;19
Vasishta
I think when it comes to something like self-affirmation or even just self-talk after some kind of event, there's always many ways to react to something. Like in the example you gave where I made a wrong turn, you know, there's, I guess, two basic ways you could react to this. You could first say, “Oh, no, I made a wrong turn. Oh well.” Whereas, you know, another way would be what you describe like, “Oh man, I always do this. Why does this always happen? I'm such a bad driver, I can never concentrate.” And so on and so forth. And you know, you can say the same thing when something good happens, like suppose Dorian’s going on a run. He finishes in, he finishes his mile in record time. He could say, “Okay, I guess this happened.” Or he could be like, “Yes, why am I such a good runner? I'm incredible. I could be an Olympic athlete” and so on.
00;22;37;22 - 00;23;12;07
Dan
One of the things for our listeners, we studied a bunch of tweets that were related to the hashtag self-talk. We took 600 tweets that had that hashtag self-talk, and then we distilled them down to about 180, and then we coded them, we read through them and coded them for different factors. And one of the factors that came out that was kind of interesting is some of the tweets we coded with this label called Perspective, and that had to do with when people who were tweeting about self-talk were saying, keep things in perspective.
00;23;12;07 - 00;23;42;17
Dan
Don't get bogged down in comparing yourself to other people. And I don't know what to make of this. And all of our conclusions are preliminary because we are doing this as kind of an exploratory exercise of looking at these tweets. But it turned out posters who we had coded as male, did a lot more of this perspective oriented tweeting, and the ones we had coded as female tended to put more tweets out there that we coded as self-compassion oriented tweets.
00;23;43;05 - 00;23;56;19
Dan
Does there any kind of gender dynamic that we should talk about in terms of, you know, self-esteem, self self-talk? What happens when we bring gender into those conversations?
00;23;57;05 - 00;24;20;07
Cindy
I actually feel like I don't really see that that statistic in real life because I feel like women are more likely to compare themselves to other women, like on social media, like it's such a big problem that like models are like photoshopping themselves and then people see that and they compare themselves to that. So I don't really see like the breakdown that we saw in those tweets.
00;24;20;07 - 00;24;49;22
Helena
And I would say that the only distinction that I would draw from that conclusion is that the the different things that genders compare is like, I think for females it's mostly like body and like body image and kind of the looks that like females kind of tend to see on social media, you know, that model body image. Whereas I think for men it's more like success, like how well you're doing in the business realm.
00;24;49;22 - 00;25;08;10
Helena
And I think that might be something that creates this distinction. For females feel, self-compassion is more towards body image and how people perceive their looks. Whereas for a guy it might be having that perspective on their own success and where they benchmark themselves.
00;25;08;26 - 00;25;26;23
Vasishta
I think it's important to note too, that all of these things that we're saying are kind of biased by our own experiences and what we've seen in our own lives, and even in the distribution with the tweets, I feel like it's not really appropriate to generalize this, especially because this has been a small study run once with a small sample size. I think that, I mean, it could be representative, but we can't really say for sure.
00;25;31;16 - 00;25;58;11
Dan
I feel like you're giving us a helpful warning there not to draw strong conclusions based on this exercise that we did in class. Looking at tweets. But I feel like the point about comparison actually cuts a couple of different ways. And the point that you mentioned, Helena, about social media and cultural depictions of identity, there's sort of ideals that are put forward and probably those are gendered.
00;25;58;11 - 00;26;31;09
Dan
There's ideals for women and ideals for men that are culturally constructed in many ways. And that, I feel like takes us back to the converse Asian about authenticity and identity and accuracy. We're constantly being bombarded with a bunch of constructs that probably are not accurate, you know, are what, what, how, how do those constructs differ from your own identity or how do they shape the way that you come to grips with your identity?
00;26;31;26 - 00;26;54;13
Helena
I think this leads us back into the whole idea of our self-perception being shaped by the external world. We perceive ourselves is heavily tied to how we perceive what we should be, and those are socially constructed. So like the standards that society kind of sets tells us that we should look a certain way or defining success in a certain way.
00;26;54;22 - 00;27;18;05
Helena
So I think that what you consume also can be dictated by you. So in a way it's like, are you kind of consuming unrealistic goals and is that negatively affecting your self perception, or in a way, are you consuming things that are affirming your identity and building on your own confidence and self esteem?
00;27;18;05 - 00;27;51;05
Dorian
I agree that the cultural values are very important, especially when we're super young, when we're not dictating what content we take in, when our parents are and the school systems are. We don't get to choose what society thinks we should be. But when you grow up and you have a little bit more autonomy, you can you don't really have social action with the with the algorithms on social media.
00;27;51;05 - 00;28;22;24
Dorian
It'll show you stuff that you interact with. But through the mechanism of interaction, you can kind of tailor what you want, what you think you should be. And then social media will show you that like a mirror and that there's something really problematic about that. Because if if you switch into a negative mind frame and it starts overloading you with negative content, then that can just spiral you down into a pit of depression.
00;28;22;24 - 00;28;50;20
Dorian
But the other side of that is social media has a lot of potential to inspire growth. If that's something that you're seeking within yourself, it'll show you more of that and give you access to it. But there's also a shallowness because it's, you know, it's one Instagram post or one Tik Tok, which is 30 seconds long or whatever, and you can't really dig into the details, get into the nitty gritty.
00;28;51;09 - 00;29;30;09
Dan
I think that's a really important point about these algorithms and the way that they they're based on feedback. So you're going to be bombarded with messages based on the kinds of messages that you like or favorite, what have you. So I have a question related to that is how conscious are you all when you're, you know, working in your social media feeds that some click that you make or some decision that you make is going to translate into these sort of ultimate outcomes, like, oh, I better not click on this sad person crying because they're going to start feeding me more sad people crying.
00;29;30;25 - 00;29;47;14
Dan
Is this all just like under the radar? And we're not really aware of it? Or do people consciously sort of curate their feed knowing that, you know, the attitude they express in their clicking will translate into an attitude that's delivered to them in messaging?
00;29;48;04 - 00;30;09;28
Cindy
I know for me, when I'm scrolling on social media, especially Tik Tok, if I see something that I don't really like, there's an option for me to like, say, I don't want to see stuff like this again. So if I see like negative things or things that just like affect my mood, then I'll click on that button and then hopefully like that tailors my foot, my page so that I can see things I actually want.
00;30;11;00 - 00;30;31;05
Dorian
I've definitely seen a video that was like kind of funny before, but I didn't like it because I consciously had the thought. I was like, Oh, if I like this, I'm going to get more videos like this in the future. And it's not my style of comedy. Even though this one specific video is funny, I don't want this genre in my feeds.
00;30;31;05 - 00;30;38;11
Dorian
I just didn't like it and it was weird because I did have that conscious thought. I was like, This is the algorithm at work?
00;30;38;19 - 00;31;01;19
Dan
Yeah. Nice. I'm glad you have that sense of consciousness. I've had the same experience sometimes, like Spotify will be on some kind of random feed where it's giving me a bunch of stuff and I'll hear a song that I really hate and I think I need to click off of this. I need to fast forward this before it finishes, because if it finishes, they're going to think, I like this song and I really don't and I don't want any more of it coming at me.
00;31;01;19 - 00;31;08;15
Dan
So I'm going to jump out of the shower right now, slip and crack my head. But I got to fast forward before I you know, Spotify.
00;31;08;15 - 00;31;24;09
Dorian
Added an artificial intelligence DJ now. So if your dystopian nightmare need any more fuel, you know, they are literally examining your search history and trying to curate something off that.
00;31;24;09 - 00;31;52;28
Helena
Yeah. Unfortunately, I think social media has blown up in the past few years and the algorithms, they want you to be addicted. They want you to consume the content and keep scrolling and scrolling. And I think that as it's taking a bigger chunk of our life away, we have to be more conscious and more deliberate about the type of content we consume because lots of times, like the content that they're pushing is stuff that is not healthy for us.
00;31;52;28 - 00;32;15;13
Helena
And these like idealistic images that we see on social media, they are addicting. It's something that we want to consume more of, even if we're conscious that it's not helpful for us. So kind of making deliberate decisions to, you know, unfollow people that you think are not benefiting you or for me, like I had to delete Tik Tok because it was really affecting my own mental health.
00;32;15;21 - 00;32;29;16
Helena
So making deliberate changes and even limiting your time on social media and just spending time with real people around you can actually reaffirm who you are and I think overall make you mentally happier.
00;32;30;00 - 00;33;02;10
Dan
Yeah, I like that. And it's making me wonder that if someone could make money creating a social media platform that was about wellness or self esteem, like not have it be neutral, where you can choose what you want because you know it's not that complicated. People who studied wellness understand that you need strong relationships. If you get out with nature, if you, you know, have movement in your body, if you do self-talk that is building yourself up, there's a few things that are going to be useful to you.
00;33;02;20 - 00;33;22;23
Dan
So why not construct a social media platform that said only that, or if it saw that, Oh, you're clicking on a lot of negative stuff. We're going to pause that and I'm going to send you some kittens, you know, being shepherded by a dog while they're taking care of baby chicks and then that's going to make you feel better.
00;33;23;05 - 00;33;26;05
Dan
Would you sign up for that or why? Why isn't someone doing that one, I wonder.
00;33;27;17 - 00;33;59;08
Helena
I think that is a really cool concept that could be explored. But at the same time, I think that the things that make people well is so vastly different that there isn't one size fit all like content that would make or break someone's wellness. Like for some people maybe it's like a motivation to like, work out and be stronger, but at the same time, maybe someone else consuming that same content might see it as something that makes them feel like they're not doing enough.
00;33;59;16 - 00;34;14;22
Helena
So I think there's a fine balance, which is why I think going on this journey, you really have to find what works for yourself and that is kind of like an identifying factor that can really help you with, but you just kind of have to see it through yourself.
00;34;15;12 - 00;34;35;18
Vasishta
Yeah, I think that on an app like that, it's going to be like there's going to be kind of a big difference between the way people perceive these things and how it makes them feel. I mean, personally, if I saw a video like that, you know, I might say, “Oh wow, like this is cute. I guess I feel better now” whereas somebody else might say, “Geez, even these kittens, dogs and chickens are having a better life than I am. I wonder what's wrong with me.”
00;34;38;12 - 00;35;12;01
Dorian
Yeah, that's self-talk. That's how you interact with external stimuli. It's like when you see someone doing better than you or someone happy or animals happy or something. It's like, Does that make me sad? Because I don't have that happiness? Is that that's FOMO? Or you can choose to think consciously this happiness exists in the world. Therefore I can also have this happiness, or I can also work out like this one day if I work hard.
00;35;12;01 - 00;35;41;19
Dorian
And that's that goes back to the faith and the self-talk. What's your attitude on failure? If you're going to hit the first brick wall, which you're going to hit, are you going to stop and lay down? Are you going to get back up and keep running? So I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to social media, because social media is going to give you a billion different versions of who you could be and you kind of have to pick and choose the best parts of everything and synthesize that for yourself.
00;35;41;19 - 00;35;52;18
Dorian
And you can't do that in a healthy way if you don't have healthy self-talk and confidence and identity and self-perception. So it's all very tight and together. I think it's very important.
00;35;52;28 - 00;36;20;19
Vasishta
Yeah, I think when people talk about their own happiness, they kind of misconstrue it as what the stimuli around them are, whereas, you know, as Dorian was saying it's not so much about what you see and what happens to you because, you know, life is going to throw all kinds of different things about you. It's more about teaching yourself how to respond and react to those things so that you can have a healthy amount of self-esteem and confidence so you can handle the situations, you can handle any situation you may find yourself in.
00;36;21;07 - 00;36;39;06
Cindy
Yeah, going along with that, I think the most important skill you can have institute yourself how to respond positively because you can never control your environment fully. Like there's always going to be something that happens that you don't expect. So when that time comes, you need to be prepared to pick yourself up and then just keep going.
00;36;39;06 - 00;37;02;14
Dan
Terrific. Well, I've enjoyed our conversation about self esteem and self-talk. I'd like to thank Helena Dorian, physician and Sandy for joining us and for all of our listeners, remember that self-talk can be a real mechanism. It can take you up or take you down when it comes to your self esteem, and you're going to gain confidence by keeping your promises.
00;37;03;02 - 00;37;13;29
Dan
Take a moment, be compassionate towards yourself and be careful with social media. You can pick and choose what you're doing and let self-talk guide you. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.
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