My guest this week is Dr. Rachel Turow, author of the forthcoming book, The Self-Talk Workout: Six Science-Backed Strategies to Dissolve Self-Criticism and Transform the Voice in Your Head (affiliate link). In this final part of our series on managing stress, we explored how the way we talk to ourselves is closely tied to our stress levels. Rachel shared some powerful exercises for practicing self-kindness, including a guided exercise you can take part in. Toward the end she described ways to combine techniques to get the most out of them. 

Topics we discussed included:

• How our inner self-talk relates to stress (both cause and consequence)
• Blaming ourselves for our negative self-talk
• The problem with having an adversarial relationship with our inner critic
• Developing a more accepting attitude toward all of our thinking activity
• More subtle ways that self-criticism shows up
  • A sense of overwhelm
  • Non-ease in the body
• Asking what kind of relationship we have to our own thoughts and feelings
• The extensive expectations we hold for ourselves
• Spotting the success: noticing what we’ve already done
• My own spontaneous use of Spot the Success in this episode
• The “Inhale, my friend; Breathe out, my friend” exercise
• Rachel leading us through a brief stress-reducing exercise
• Acting before thinking to move through a fear of failure
• The Foot-out-the-Door Technique to get started
• Consulting the wisdom found throughout the body
• Why insight and willpower aren’t enough to change our self-talk
• Stacking Rachel’s self-talk strategies
• How my guest deals with stress in her own life
• Handling the stress of the news

Rachel Turow, PhD, completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Oregon and  worked as a supervising psychologist and research scientist at Rush University Medical Center.

After a decade of research and clinical practice centered around the question, “What helps people recover from stress and trauma?” Rachel’s current work addresses how best to help everyone cultivate strategies to manage stress and build new coping and resilience skills.

She has provided workshops, seminars, and conference presentations for diverse audiences that include mental health professionals, cancer researchers, Department of Defense personnel, veterans’ advocates, and mindfulness scholars.

Rachel is currently involved in developing programs to enhance coping skills, resilience, and self-compassion among university students.

She has also adapted mindfulness-based treatment protocols for patients with posttraumatic stress and depression, and has developed preventive programs to enhance students’ resilience and well-being.

Rachel has written dozens of scientific articles and book chapters, along with the books The Self-Talk Workout and Mindfulness Skills for Trauma and PTSD: Practices for Recovery and Resilience. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.

In addition to her clinical psychology practice in Seattle, Washington, Rachel works as adjunct faculty at Seattle University and at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and provides continuing education seminars for mental health professionals.

She lives in Seattle, Washington, where she enjoys early music, theater, painting, and film festivals.

Find Rachel online at her website.