Resources to explore your thoughts and feelings

What story do you tell yourself?

The experiences you have had and the beliefs you hold affect how you operate in the world, how you show up, and the way you view the world. This can end up as the stories you tell yourself, which in turn can affect the choices you make, the people you hang around with, the meaning you give to your life. You may tell yourself you are not good enough or you don't deserve love for eg.

What are your stories? Are you carrying stories that aren't actually yours to carry? What stories might you want to let go of?

Check out the examples below of the different stories we tell ourselves. If you would like to, you can just think about (or journal) your answers to the questions that follow.

The 'what is my purpose'
story

What makes your life feel important to you? What gives your life meaning and what do you want to be remembered for?

These are big questions and it is often hard to know where to start. Yet purpose in life is important to our mental health, wellbeing and overall quality of life. We know that if we have purpose in our life we are less likely to have illness, be depressed and are more motivated to get out of bed every day. If you are stuck you may want to think about the following questions?

Your purpose story:

1. What is the theme of your life? For e..g. your colours, theme music, movies, books...?

2. What matters most to you?

3. Who relies on you?

4. Who inspires you?

5. What gets you out of bed in the morning?

6. What causes do you care about?

7. What are your 'be' goals? For e.g. who do you want to be...a good friend, leader, teacher, fun loving, carefree, a difference maker?

8. What are your 'do' goals? It can be helpful to align your do goals with your be goals. For e.g. if you want to be a difference maker how can you do that?

Your story about
confidence

Self confidence is having the belief in yourself that you can accomplish things.

It is believing you can make the right choices for you, your health and your life.

Having confidence in who you are helps you to be mentally stronger.

People who believe in themselves tend to have less sickness and better mental health. How confident are you? Do you believe in yourself?

Your confidence story:

1. Would you say you are a confident person?

2. Think about what affects your confidence in different situations and at different times?

3. Think of someone who you see as confident and list the things that make them appear confident.

4. Do you stop yourself from doing things because you lack confidence? If so, what have you stopped yourself from doing?

5. Looking at the list below which areas of your life do you lack confidence. Choose 1 or 2 areas and write about your thoughts and feelings:

  • Friendships

  • Relationships

  • Work/study

  • Managing money

  • My health

  • My body

  • Completing tasks

The story I tell myself about my body

Body image is what you think, feel and how you picture your body. How you think you look and how you think society, friends and families think you look can impact on your mental health. Media, social media, comments from others and just looking at images of models can affect negative feelings in as little as two minutes. Two thirds of people are dissatisfied with the way their bodies look, and frequently feel guilty about eating.

Your body image story:

1. How do you picture your body?

2. What do you think about your body?

3. How do you feel about your body?

4. As you were growing up, what were the messages about your body that you heard?

5. As you were growing up, did other people in your life comment on their own bodies in a negative way?

6. Do other people's comments about your body affect you?

7. When you look at pictures of people who you think have beautiful bodies, what do you see?

8. List 3 things you love about your body.