Why your self-talk matters: How CBT and hypnosis can help you

We all have an inner voice. Sometimes it speaks to us with encouragement, motivation and positivity; other times, it holds us back with criticisms, doubts, or fear. That voice may make us feel stuck and tangled up in unhelpful thoughts, while also disconnecting us from our full potential.

Our self-talk shapes the way we see ourselves, other people and the world in general. It affects how we respond to challenges and how we show up in the world. And often, we’re not even fully aware it’s happening; other times, we may notice our thoughts and how unhelpful they are, but we don’t necessarily understand how much they affect what we feel and what we do. 

Many people don’t realise how much self-talk influences their emotional and even spiritual well-being. It can also be compared to self-hypnosis, for example, if you tell yourself 'I’m naturally always anxious', your body may respond to this accordingly. 

The language we use internally can reinforce feelings of low confidence, anxiety and deeply rooted fears, which can keep us stuck in vicious cycles. Often, we can develop these patterns to protect ourselves from disappointments and pain. Our brains also like what is familiar, as this helps us predict outcomes – so even unhelpful thoughts can feel ‘safer’ or more manageable simply because they’re familiar due to having been rehearsed many times. Over time, they become habitual. 

But the good news is: once you become aware of how you are speaking to yourself and the effects this has, you can start to slowly reshape your self-talk, which in turn tends to affect what you feel and what you do as a result. 

With the right tools that are grounded in thought-based work, like CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and hypnosis, you can start to rewrite the way you speak to yourself, and in doing so, change the way you feel and act.

Self-talk isn’t just noise – it’s linked to identity

Your self-talk tends to reflect deeper beliefs you hold about yourself, many of which were formed in childhood or as a result of life experiences, which have become so familiar that they feel like facts. 

For example, someone who was constantly criticised growing up might experience an internal script that may sound like this:

• “I’m never good enough.”
• “I always mess things up.”
• “I’m too sensitive.”
• “I will never achieve my goals” 
• “I’ll probably fail, so what’s the point in trying or thinking positively?”

At first, these styles of thinking develop as a protective mechanism. But over time, the brain starts to repeat them automatically. The more they’re reinforced, the more they become ingrained and shape your sense of self and limit what you believe is possible, affecting your emotions and actions in general.

It becomes a cycle:

Thought > Feeling > Action > Reinforcement of the thought.

This is where CBT and hypnosis can work really well together, helping you interrupt this cycle, get curious about your thoughts, and start choosing a new way of relating to yourself and the world. While also helping you rewire the brain. 

Why we tend to think negatively: The brain’s ‘negativity bias’

We’re not wired to think positively by default. From an evolutionary perspective, the human brain has developed a negativity bias to protect you, meaning it’s more sensitive to potential threats and criticism than to positive input. 

This was useful for survival when it was once a priority; being alert to danger kept our ancestors safe. But in modern life, it means we’re often scanning for what’s wrong – internally and externally. While dismissing the positives. 

So when something goes well, we might brush it off. But when something goes wrong, our brain latches onto it, replaying it and adding it to our mental “evidence file” of perceived failures to prove that your fears and beliefs are true. Especially when it’s tied to a belief you may have formed in the past.

This doesn’t mean your brain is broken. It means it’s doing what it was designed to do. But this way of survival is no longer useful to us, and we can change this. 

Neuroplasticity: Your brain can be rewired

The brain is capable of changing and developing. Thanks to neuroplasticity, we know that our thoughts, habits and actions, though deeply ingrained, are not fixed.

Every time you repeat a thought, a neural connection is strengthened. And every time you challenge a thought or choose a different response, you start to build a new one.

In the same way that self-critical thinking becomes automatic through repetition, self-compassionate or balanced thinking can become automatic too, if practised consistently.

This is why CBT with a blend of hypnosis is so effective: it’s not about quick fixes, but about teaching your brain new patterns.

And hypnosis complements the whole process beautifully by helping those patterns take root at a deeper level, while helping reinforce work done in CBT.

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy: Building awareness and rewriting the script

Cognitive behavioural therapy helps you understand how your thoughts, feelings, and actions are linked – and how certain patterns keep you stuck.

In sessions, you might explore:

• What situations tend to trigger negative self-talk?
• What language are you using internally?
• Where might these patterns have come from?
• How accurate or helpful are these thoughts?
• How do these thoughts make you feel? 
• How your thought patterns affect your actions.   

You might explore practical CBT strategies and tools to help you cope and change them. 

You don’t need to force yourself to be relentlessly positive. In fact, trying to replace a deeply ingrained belief with a phrase you don’t believe (like “I love myself!”) can backfire. Instead, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy helps you explore more balanced, realistic alternatives that you can actually believe to rewrite some negative beliefs you have. It can be hard but very possible with support. 

For example:

Instead of “I’m useless,” maybe it becomes “I’m struggling right now, and that’s OK.”

Instead of “I always fail,” it might be, “This didn’t go the way I hoped, but I can learn from it.”

These small shifts are like laying new neural pathways. The more you walk them, the stronger they become, and develop into a habitual way of thinking since your brain has made new connections. 

How hypnosis supports this process

Hypnosis works alongside CBT by helping you go deeper.

It creates a calm, focused mental state where your usual inner chatter can become quieter, and your brain becomes more open to new ideas, without the same resistance that might pop up in day-to-day thinking.

In this relaxed state, you can:

• absorb helpful suggestions more deeply
• rehearse new ways of thinking and responding
• strengthen positive emotional associations to replace the old, reactive ones

Because your brain doesn’t know the difference between something that is imagined and something real, rehearsing new responses and ways of thinking in hypnosis allows you to mentally practice confidence, calmness, or kindness towards yourself in a way that starts to feel familiar. And this means the neural connection has been made, and this becomes easier in real life. 

This can be especially useful when logic alone doesn’t seem to help. Sometimes you may already know something isn’t true (“I know I’m not a failure”), but we feel like it is. Hypnosis helps bridge that gap – so the changes start to feel more natural, instinctive and embodied, not just intellectual.

Tuning into your inner voice

You don’t need to fix everything straight away, and it’s important that this type of work is based on progressive change. The first step is simply noticing your inner voice with curiosity rather than any judgment. Without overidentifying with it and treating it as a fact. 

Other tips: 

• Focus on the positives in a situation, for example, you have a presentation that doesn’t go well. Try to ask yourself: What can you take from this to help you learn and grow? What went well? 
• Try to journal and write down your thoughts to help you identify patterns – notice how your thoughts affect how you feel and what you do as a result.
• Try meditation – meditating regularly can help you become more aware of your thoughts and make it easier to let them come and go, rather than getting caught up in them. Labelling them as “just thoughts” can really help with not over-identifying. Apps like Smiling Mind (which is free) or Headspace have lots of helpful guided meditations.

Just becoming aware of the way you speak to yourself is powerful. Over time, you can start to let go of unhelpful thoughts, stop treating them as facts and change your inner language so that it supports you rather than sabotages you and holds you back. 

You're not alone in this

If your self-talk feels like it’s getting in the way – of confidence, feeling calm, positive or simply feeling OK in your own skin – know that you’re not alone and lots of people experience this. You’re not broken, lazy, or weak. You’re human. And your brain is doing what it was taught to do. Just like it learned those old patterns, it can learn new ones too.

Finding a therapist who uses a blend of CBT and hypnosis can help you gently identify, explore and reshape thoughts that are holding you back. You don’t need to be “fixed” – you just need the space to reconnect with yourself and create new patterns that don’t hold you back and that support healing, growth, and self-kindness.