BYU Education Week: Battling self-doubt and negative self-talk

PROVO, Utah — Gaylamarie G. Rosenberg began her series on overcoming self-doubt and negative self-talk by sharing a story of her experience walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

The traditional route of the Christian pilgrimage begins in the Pyrenees town of Roncesvalles. Travelers cross northern Spain and end in Santiago de Compostela, covering nearly 500 miles in its 30-day duration.

Landscape of Spain during the Camino de Santiago, 2019.

The pilgrimage started in the ninth century to honor the apostle James for bringing Christianity to the Iberian Peninsula.

In 2019, over 347,000 people from 187 countries walked some or all of the Camino de Santiago.

Rosenberg, a BYU adjunct instructor of Church history and doctrine, related it to the way members of the Church celebrate their pioneer ancestors traveling west by participating in treks.

“People do this Christian pilgrimage to honor Christ or to seek His help in finding healing. People go for a wide variety of reasons,” but it all goes back to Jesus Christ.

John Rosenberg walking down a trail in Spain during the Camino de Santiago, 2019.

Accepting God’s help

Hiking the Camino is like a decluttering process, Rosenberg told the BYU Education Week class held on Tuesday, Aug. 22.

“On this kind of pilgrimage, people walk to get rid of all the mental clutter, to be still, to feel the Spirit, to reconnect with God and to reconnect with one another.”

One woman Rosenberg met during the Camino told her she was walking the pilgrimage because it was her 80th birthday. “I had to tell God why I’m so happy — how He’s made me so happy,” the woman told Rosenberg. “He’s blessed me too much for me to not be happy.”

The professor noted, “There is an increase in young adults who doubt God and doubt themselves.” And in a recent book she wrote, she tried to discover why that is.

A Latin hymn, honoring James and reminding the pilgrims why they go on the trek, reads “Ultreia et suseia Deus adjuva nos,” meaning “we go farther and higher with God’s help.”

So, regardless of what a person is going through, they can go farther with God.

Gaylamarie Rosenberg, right, and others during the Camino de Santiago in Spain, 2019.

Provided by Gaylamarie Rosenberg

It’s a beautiful reminder, Rosenberg said. “But we don’t have to trek across northern Spain for 500 miles on this pilgrimage to know and believe that we can go higher and farther with God’s help.”

All people can reach out and receive God’s help regardless of where they are in their lives, including getting help with self-doubt.

Focus on what’s right

Part of battling negative self-talk is deciding what to focus on.

“Whatever you focus on will increase,” was the advice a teacher of Rosenberg’s daughter gave during a parent-teacher conference.

“And it’s so true,” Rosenberg said. “In the world of psychology, there is a trend … where they are moving away from trying to fix problems and spend time on enhancing strengths.”

The more you focus on problems, the more they will be present — and vice versa.

Sharing research from psychologist Martin Seligman, Rosenberg said that for people to flourish, positive emotions need to be present. And for positive emotions to be present, a person needs to focus on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong, in their life.

City landscape in Spain during the Camino de Santiago, 2019.

Identify strengths

“Sometimes people just think about their weaknesses all the time,” said Rosenberg. She then told attendees to consider their top five strengths.

“Fill up your reservoir of strengths so high that when you have a conflict … it’s no big deal,” she said, quoting psychologist John Gottman.

Healing happens most powerfully with positive energy,” she said. It is better to focus on what a person can do rather than what they can’t.

Gayalmarie Rosenberg and others during the Camino de Santiago, 2019.

Provided by Gayalmarie Rosenberg

Replacing negative thoughts

“Faith begins by how you talk to yourself,” said Craig Manning, a performance psychology consultant, in a short video clip of his Brigham Young University devotional in 2017.

“How do we talk to ourselves?” Rosenberg asked after the clip ended. “What do we say? Do we talk to ourselves implying that we believe there is a God in heaven who believes in us and in our potential to become as He is?”

How does someone cut out the negative mental self-chatter? “You need to have a 3-to-1 ratio,” Rosenberg explained. “In your brain you need to have three positive thoughts to counteract one negative thought.”

It is important for a person to tell their brain what to do rather than what not to do. Replace thoughts of self-doubt with power statements — “I can,” “I will,” “I am capable of.”

Landscape in Spain during the Camino de Santiago, 2019.

Believing Jesus Christ

It begins with asking: “Do we believe Christ? Do we believe we are who He says we are?”

“Sometimes we think God is impatient with us,” Rosenberg continued. People mistakenly believe that “He wishes [they] would hurry and be perfect already.”

Jesus Christ did not come to condemn people, but to save them.

“Sometimes we forget this incredible, loving, patient God that walks by our side and assists us.” And because He walks and assists every person, “[He] can help us change the way we think.”