I also want to say I completely understand that thoughts and words influence feelings; I agree with you on that. That's why I put serious effort into doing exactly as you suggest for several years. I see why that might work for some people - maybe even most people. But it worked the other way for me, because I was concentrating more on how I said things to myself than on figuring out what I was feeling in the first place, and that was more of a block to change for me than the negative phrases were. I went back to letting myself state my feelings however I wanted, but also trying to examine whatever came out. "I feel like an idiot." "It's ok to feel that way, but I'm not really an idiot" and later thinking about what made me feel that way and what I could differently was more useful than halting before the first statement to try to reframe it as something more positive.
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