Inside Out

Contents Page Journal Entry Page Journal Entry ix Dedication x A Note to the Reader 1 How We Feel About Ourselves 2 Finding Our Good Points 3 Other People Can Affect Our Self-Esteem 4 Comparing Ourselves to Others 5 Setting Personal Goals 6 How Other People Can Help 7 Worrying About New Things 8 Imagining the Worst 9 Getting Unworried 10 Worries that Went Away 11 Getting Honest 12 When Things Don’t Go Our Way 13 Being a Secret Helper 14 Being Good to Ourselves 15 Trusting Other People 16 Trusting the Wrong Person 17 Talking About Problems 18 A Wonderful World 19 Parents Aren’t Perfect 20 Good Friends Make Us Feel Good 21 Picking Friends 22 Making Friends 23 Being a Good Friend 24 Learning to Laugh at Ourselves 25 Sensing Our Power 26 Accepting Ourselves 27 Changing Ourselves 28 My Dream Picture 29 Being Grateful 30 Taking Risks that Help Us 31 Taking Risks that Hurt Us 32 How We Take Care of Ourselves 33 Caring About Our Appearance 34 What to Do When We’re Feeling Bad 35 Taking an Interest in Things Around Us 36 Trusting Our Intuition 37 Facing Our Fears 38 Things We Used to Be Afraid Of 39 Accepting Things We Can’t Change 40 Keeping Promises 41 Promises That Should Not Be Kept 42 Honesty Makes Us Feel Good 43 Making People Read Our Minds 44 Putting Ourselves Down 45 Feeling Jealous of Other People 46 Affirmations 47 Making Our Affirmations Come True 48 Saying No 49 Practicing Saying No 50 Thoughts and Feelings 51 Thinking We’re “Terrible” at Something 52 Patterns 53 Compliments 54 How We Feel About Ourselves: A Checkup 55 Breaking Big Goals into Little Goals 56 Rewarding Ourselves 57 Easy Does It 58 Our Feelings Affect Our Bodies 59 Harmful Ways of Dealing with Anger 60 Helpful Ways of Dealing with Anger 61 How Important Is This? 62 Sadness 63 Expressing Our Sadness 64 Dealing With Extreme Anger or Sadness 65 We Are Unique 66 Being Ourselves 67 Roles We Play in Our Families 68 Believing in Ourselves 69 Self-Confidence 70 Building Our Self-Confidence 71 People We Can Depend On 72 Depending on Ourselves 73 How We Handle Freedom 74 Blaming Other People 75 Blaming Ourselves 76 Dealing with Other People’s Bad Moods 77 Our Family’s Unwritten Rules 78 Our Family’s Rules About Talking 79 How Our Families Express Feelings 80 Expressing Our Feelings 81 It’s Great to Be Alive 82 Expressing Our Love 83 Being Happy 84 Growing Up Is Confusing 85 Arguing with Brothers and Sisters 86 Learning to Handle Money 87 Familiar Things to Hang On To 88 Being Careful About Other People’s Advice 89 Showing Appreciation to Our Parents 90 Making Chores Fun 91 Taking Quiet Time for Ourselves 92 Seeing the Good in Other People 93 Our Heroes 94 A list of people to call for help How We Feel About Ourselves Date: How happy we are is often determined by how we feel about ourselves. Sometimes it helps to make a list of all the feelings we have about ourselves. Then we can find ways to like ourselves more. ▲ How I felt about myself half a year ago: ▲ How I feel about myself today: ▲ How I’d like to feel about myself: I wish I felt better about myself. But I do like myself more than last year. Finding Our Good Points Date: Sometimes we forget how good we really are. It helps to write down good things about ourselves. They remind us what great people we are. ▲ My good qualities: I am really kind to people. Sometimes I help the lady who lives across the street. Other People Can Affect Date: Our Self-Esteem Other people can make a big difference in how we feel about ourselves. If someone says, “You’re smart. You can do that,” we feel good. If someone says, “You’re stupid” or “You’re ugly,” we feel bad. Sometimes we feel better if we stop being around people who make us feel bad. ▲ People who make me feel good about myself: ▲ People who make me feel bad about myself: ▲ Do I still need to be around the people who make me feel bad? Do I have to believe what they say? I stopped paying attention to what Jordan says, because it always made me mad or sad. Comparing Ourselves to Others Date: Sometimes we try to make ourselves feel better by comparing ourselves to other people. We may feel we are “better than” some people, but we usually end up feeling “worse than” other people. When we compare, we aren’t appreciating the special people we are. ▲ Times I compared myself to other people: ▲ How did that make me feel? It felt good when I told myself I was smarter than my brothers, but then I remembered how many kids are smarter than me. Setting Personal Goals Date: Many people feel good when they are working toward a goal that is important to them. A goal could be learning to play the piano, becoming a better basketball player, or making new friends. Goals are best when they are our goals, not things other people want us to do. ▲ Goals I accomplished last year: ▲ My goals for this year: This year I’d like to get better at soccer. My parents want me to play baseball, but I’d rather play soccer How Other People Can Help Date: Sometimes things get in our way when we work on goals. That makes it hard to keep working toward our goals. It helps to know other people who have goals like ours so we can help each other. ▲ People who might have goals like mine: ▲ Ways we might be able to help each other: ▲ Other people I can look to for help: My friend Brittany is really good at math. I can ask her to help me so I’ll make better grades. Worrying About New Things Date: Sometimes we worry about things that are new or different, like moving to a new neighborhood, going to a different school, or trying a new haircut. Most of the time when we do something new or different, things turn out fine. Sometimes we are even happier than before. ▲ Times I did something new and different: ▲ Which of these changes turned out okay? ▲ Which of these changes didn’t turn out okay? I moved to a different part of town and I was worried about going to a new school.