This is self-work and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford.

At self-work we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world

and what to do about them.

I'm Dr. Margaret and self-work is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work.

Hello and welcome to self-work. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. I'm a clinical psychologist and I've been in practice for about 26 years here in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

I started podcasting about two and a half years ago because I wanted to reach all kinds of people

wanted to extend the walls of my practice to those who might already be in therapy in

fact one of the reviews I got this week say I actually listened to it right before my in-person therapy

session with my therapist. I found out so much about myself that I never thought

about and now I want to work with her on things you talk about. Thank you. That was great. I also want to reach those of you

who might have recently been diagnosed with mental illness of some kind or you're

having a relationship issue that's confounding or difficult because I've done a lot of couples work as well.

But that third group is a group that might never darken the door of a therapist but are interested enough and need help

enough to listen to a podcast. So I'm delighted to have you here at Self-Works on this the 129th episode. To those of you who've been listening

for a while, you know that I like to focus on what you can do about it. I don't just talk conceptually here on self-work. I'm going to get

down to some brass tax of change, okay? And this is definitely one of those brass tax episodes.

We're going to be talking about negative self-talk.

What is self-talk? What can you do about it? A lot of people tell me they kind of know what

it is, but have it a real clue as to how to change it.

It feels as if their self-talk is too elusive.

How could you possibly rein in what your mind is telling you about something.

They'll say, well, I'm not aware of what I'm thinking about.

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