I've heard people say, "I just want to feel normal!"

​What is "Normal" anyway?

Normal is different for everyone.  It's either the way you usually feel, except for right now - or - it's the way you perceive everyone around you is feeling, and it's different from how you're feeling.

Let's look at this:

How you usually feel could be optimistic, peaceful, exuberant, or any number of positive traits, but lately you've been feeling otherwise.  You're not sure how to get back to your "old self," or if you even can.  Either way, you don't like the change that has taken place in your life and you're longing for positive change.

The other option is that you've always felt like you're kind of an Eyore (or Tigger or Piglet, etc) and you so deeply want to shed that aspect about yourself that you feel like the people without that Eyore quality are normal and you're flawed.  You want to change.

There are a few choices here.

• You can see that the world isn't so black and white.  This could be a really wonderful version of you and you can learn to accept it and make peace with the new you.  You can learn to accept that your Eyore, Tigger, or Piglet qualities are there to stay and dig deep to find the beautiful qualities of those archetypes.  
• You can list all the things you do well and that are positive about you and work on sculpting those so these positive things that already exist can shine even brighter.  You might be especially bouncy like Tigger, but you're also very creative and fabulous at brainstorming - so you join a mindbank and help others come up with solutions.

You can do both ideas listed above at the same time:

You can see that there are just things about who you are that you might not like; but are harmless, and you can accept them.  You're loud and your boundless energy can be felt from across the room.  The way people always notice you makes you feel uncomfortable or weird.  No matter how much you try to temper that energy or noise you always accidently realize that at some point your volume increased on it's own.  Okay.  That's doable.  That's not something that hurts other people's feelings unless you're gossiping or criticizing someone at that volume.  You might just need to accept that instead of striving to "be normal" like everyone else, this is YOUR NORMAL - and that's okay.

Once you've identified your "new normals" and you want to work toward accepting them it's important to start highlighting the areas you already love about yourself and work on cultivating them more deeply.  Do you have a heart to try new things - even if your life has been so busy you don't get to try new things that often - now you're going to focus on this inquisitive and brave heart of yours.  You sign up for dance lessons or skydiving, you go on a spontateous road trip.

Then, when you're in the action of doing the existing character trait really be present in it, soak it in.  Go over it afterward either mentally with yourself or by talking about it with someone.  Reinforce this really neat thing about who you are.  As you do this, the things that are your "new normal" will become more and more palatable, and eventually will just be part of the colorful tapestry that is you.

No longer will you be wishing to "go back to normal" or wishing that you "were normal like everyone else."  From then on, you'll see that your normal is a pretty great thing that brings a lot of joy to your life and to your heart.  

Jessica Wilkerson, LMFT

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Jessica Wilkerson is a LIcensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works in Chico California.  She provides EMDR for trauma processing and EFT for couples therapy.  She has a radio show that airs weekly on Christian Talk Radio KKXX.net & 103.9 FM.  Jessica has a heart to help people discover joy.

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I have a tendency to dig right in.

I have to force myself to remember to engage in the expected pleasentries of hello, how are you, how has your day been so far?  This is because by the time my client has shown up to my office I've already been thinking about him/her - how about I just say "you" instead of the politically correct pronouns.

I've been thinking about you. 

I get up in the morning, take my shower, drink my coffee, drop my children off to their respective places, and drive into work.  I listen to the radio while I drive in, but that's mostly background noise.  I think about the people I get to see today.  Their stories come back to me and I start wondering how they've been this week based on how they left my office the previous week.

By the time you arrive, I've already started our conversation hours ago, and I'm ready to jump right in.  But quite often, I'll catch myself, and I'll say the hello first...

I think existing clients become accustomed to my genuine interest in hearing about their experiences and my deeper digging, "so then how did that make you feel about yourself afterwards?"  But newer clients always have longer pauses and their expressions a little more awkward, as if to say, "hold the reigns there cowgirl, we've just met!"

Here's the thing I think new clients need to know - therapists love this stuff!

Licensed therapists have either a master's or doctorate degree in psychology or social work.  They invested 6-10 years of schooling and then 2-10 years of internship before taking rigorous exams to obtain their license.  They incurred enormous debt as a financial investment.  All-the-while knowing that this is not a highly lucrative field.  This is because they see the best in the world and they want to help fix people's hearts and their relationships.  They went though all that time because they want to spend their lives increasing the joy in this world and mitigating the sorrow.  They are the types of people who look at someone's pain and want to stand next to them, helping them to get through it.  

So think of it this way, if you over-disclose in "real life" it might be a problem and there might be judgement.  You should and do need to go slowly with friendships, disclosing as you build trust.  New relationships are a time where you're both showing the other person how trustworthy, judgemental, forgiving, open-minded, etc you each are.  You're finding the balance of disclosure - how much is too much vs how much is just right.

In therapy, we are unique individuals who already had a knack for digging deep, wanting to understand, and with big ol' hearts for helping others.  

I had a person once tell me, "You're going to see inside my soul!"

Wow!  That's deep!  That's heavy.

And I think the scary thing for that person isn't that I'll see in their soul, but that I'll peer in there and see their brokenness, see what's wrong with them, decide they're irredemable, and reject or judge them.  That would certainly be a heavy secret to keep.

But let me reassure you, when I'm digging deep I'm looking for the places that shine - for what's beautiful.  I'm looking for the broken pieces and seeing if I can find every last shard so I can help you put it back together.  It might not look like it did before it broke (your heart or you), but it will be a new masterpiece.  

People have these wounds they carry around for fear others will see their pain and exacerbate it with negativity, so they hold onto it tight.  Then I come around with my cheerful demeanor and ask to take a look.  I don't believe I'll see the things you fear down there.  I won't see monsters.  I'll see what happened during your foundational experiences that hurt you, and the behaviors you've been engaging in as a way to protect you from those original things.  I'm looking for ways to help you save yourself.

So the next time you're in therapy and whomever your therapist might be asks you a question that you think will turn them off from you forever, dig deep and answer it anyway.  It might give them the exact road map they need to help you find your new masterpiece and put together the pain so it's not something you need to carry with you any longer.

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Jessica Wilkerson, LMFT 104464
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Jessica lives and works in Chico California where she helps teens, adults, and couples battle through trauma and relationships to find a more joy filled, balanced, and healthier life.  You can reach out to her for an appointment by phone/text at (530) 994-5114 or by email at jdw@jessicawilkerson.com

​Self-Esteem and Self-Worth are two different animals that many people think are synonymous.  I’d like you to throw away the notion of high or low self-esteem and start to embrace the concept of your self-worth. 
 
Self-Esteem is transient.  It’s the sum of “what do I think about myself” combined with “what do other people think about me?”  It’s the over-arching assessment of these two factors, each affecting the other, and therefore constantly in flux.  Self-esteem is exhausting.
 
What other people think about you is subjective to your interpretation.  Folks don’t walk around with flashing signs describing how they size you up, right?  You make your best guess about what they think of you.  Your guess is influenced by what you think about you.  If you think you’re amazing, you’ll give others the benefit of the doubt that they think you’re pretty great.  If you think you’re lowly, then you’ll suss up that their opinion of you is that you are beneath them.  Then one begets the other – but are either of those trains of thought actually true?
 
And what if one of them gets derailed?  What if you think your colleague likes and respects you, you have good self-esteem at work.  Then in your humanity you “open mouth, insert foot” and offend or hurt them.  Now, this colleague is avoiding you while they process their thoughts and emotions, but you size it up that they don’t like you, they hate you, you’re no good, you’re a jerk, and the train goes on.  Your positive self-esteem was so feeble that it couldn’t withstand the subjective “what do others think about me.”
 
Negative self-esteem is also flimsy since it’s relying on anecdotal evidence coming from an internal voice which may or may not be well equipped to accurately assess how someone else feels about you.  So the way you feel about yourself in relation to this assessment is unnecessarily horrible.
 
Other people have their own inner world, and that effects the world at large.  Their difficult morning might have put on a put-out, annoyed face – and you’re taking it personally, but it’s really about their difficult morning.
 
On the other hand, Self-Worth is resilient. 
What am I worthy of?  Am I worthy of respect?  Yes.  Am I worthy of kindness?  Yes.  Am I worthy of love?  Yes.  Am I worthy of safety?  Yes. 
Do you see how these statements of worth don’t rely on how a person is assessing themselves and assessing how others assess them?  Whew, convoluted statement there.
 
Statements of worth aren’t determined by how good you are at something or what kind of people you have around you.  Statements of worth are about an inner value.
 
Are they always accurate?  No.
 
Sometimes we have low self-worth.  Sometimes we realize we’ve been hurting our spouse for a period of time and we feel that we are worthy of punishment.  But, we can atone.  Sometimes we grew up in households that made us prove we were worthy of love or respect by our accomplishments or high levels of compliance.  Those scripts keep running in our adult minds and we have to learn to identify them when they pop up and then argue their falsehood with truth about your worth (worth isn’t based on what you can provide).
 
Sometimes we have an inflated self-worth.  Sometimes an inordinately high self-worth will end up hurting people around us as they can’t live up to the expectations or standards that we set for ourselves and others.  In that case, we rarely feel like we can maintain relationships with others who don’t stay at our level.  Because we’re inflated, the people around us begin to eventually deflate.
 
Because self-worth isn’t reliant upon other people’s opinions of us, and it’s an internal concept we have the power to work on it.  To come to a place of honesty about ourselves and our worth.  We are born innocent.  We love.  We try hard.  We wish we could do better.  We strive to do well.  We are all worthy, even when we’ve made mistakes.
 
If self-esteem vs self-worth is one of your struggles I’d love to help you work to align it up with truth.  Please feel free to reach out at (530) 994-5114 or jwilkerson.ma@gmail.com.

This is a term I usually hear from folks who believe that saying exactly what they think and feel is the most authentic way to be in the world.  However, I think that’s a cop out.  I think there’s a radical honesty that’s not being addressed – the internal, psychological world of the individual.

Radical honesty: “Yes, those pants make your butt look big.”
                             “You have halitosis.”
                             “I’d like to have sex with you, no strings attached.”
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There’s a bravery in this because the person is risking rejection and judgement from the people with whom they’re interacting.  But there’s also an inner voice that reinforces this behavior by saying, “clearly, these people are weak if they can’t handle your honesty.” And “you’re just being honest.”
But the person strategizing radical honesty is often less honest with themselves because they’re not saying, “what you just said hurt that person and it didn’t actually do anything to create meaningful or healthy change in their life or in your relationship with them.” 

What I like to try to understand is why did this person decided Radical Honesty was the way to go?  How have they been hurting lately?  Have there been recent relationship ruptures that have created this coping mechanism?  Because that’s what it really is, a coping mechanism.

If you’re on the receiving end of being in a relationship with someone engaging in hurtful statements with the excuse of “just being honest” then I suggest responding to them by saying, “that was really hurtful, was it necessary?”  We can be honest and also have tact and diplomacy.  If you’ve tried this a few times and it’s not working, then having healthy boundaries and letting them know that this is a stressful relationship and if the way they interact with you doesn’t change to include kindness within their honesty then you don’t have the energy to continue engaging.  They can choose how to respond to that and if they choose honesty without diplomacy then they’re choosing not to have that relationship.  They made the choice, their pain’s lie of Radical Honesty is false – you are not weak for refusing to engage in it, you are strong for standing up for yourself and for expecting balance.

If this article has triggered something in you because you’ve been Radically Honest lately and you can’t figure out how you’re hurting other people.  You genuinely don’t think you’ve been hurtful, but you also do see that the people in your life have been pushing back against the Radical Honesty – then maybe it’s time to talk with someone unbiased.  Someone who can go over those interactions with you and see if the other person was being overly sensitive or if you were more insensitive that necessary, and learn how to find the balance to be honest while maintaining the important relationships in your life.  It’s possible.  It can actually bring you closer and heal relationships when you’re honest with tact.

If want an appointment to talk about Radical Honesty in your life, please feel free to contact me at (530) 994-5114 or email me at jwilkerson.ma@gmail.com

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to tune into your own emotion and identify it – the ability to respond to your emotions appropriately – and the ability to connect to the emotions of others.
 
Let’s break this down:
 
Tuning In and Identifying Your Emotions.:

Anger and Righteous Indignation are big ones that are hard to see beyond.  They’re the big wall.  They tell you that you have this big emotion and you don’t have any responsibility to curb that emotion, because it’s the world’s/other person’s fault.  But usually, if you were to sit in the quiet of your anger then you’d realize it was also disappointment, frustration, guilt, shame, confusion, disillusionment, sadness, etc.  Those are all emotions that make you vulnerable, so anger rides in on its white stallion to allow you to feel the “bigness” of the emotion without feeling the accompanying vulnerability of it.

A person with developed Emotional Intelligence can feel that anger or righteous indignation, and know that there’s probably something else under it.  They can feel the anger while also searching for the other emotion and feel that one as well, knowing both are valid, even if they’re uncomfortable.
 
Responding to Your Emotions Appropriately:

Some people will feel ashamed of their big emotions and will hide them, stuff them down, cope in unhealthy ways.  Some folks will engage in horrible self talk, lash out, or use sarcasm to hurt others who they deep down feel have been hurtful to them. Some will “wear their heart on their sleeve” and inappropriately disclose or emote in situations that would have best been avoided if they had connected to their emotions and declined the invitation.  However, responding to your emotions appropriately means having the self-control to stop the sabotaging inner voice or unhealthy behavior.  To fight against it if you see it there.
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Responding appropriately means crying when you’re bereaved.  It means going for a fast-paced walk when you’re angry.  It means talking calmly to the person who disappointed you to let them know how you feel about the situation and giving them an opportunity to rectify it.  And it means saying “no thank you” to a party invitation when you’re struggling with something emotionally and you won’t be able to shake it off while you’re there.
 
Connecting to the Emotions of Others:

This is different from empathy (which is basically being able to feel the emotion someone else is feeling).  Connecting to the emotions of others is being able to identify what someone might be feeling and knowing what they can handle in the moment.  Someone is crying about the death of their beloved pet, they are not in a place to handle joking, criticism, guilt, or other negative interactions that will compound their bereavement.  You don’t have to feel their feeling to know that they can’t emotionally take on certain other emotions (that’s why it’s different from empathy). 

A person with Emotional Intelligence can identify what someone is experiencing emotionally and then respond with appropriateness. 
 
Emotional Intelligence is something that is taught during childhood.  Your parent, teachers, friends, and friends’ parents all take part in helping a child learn how to identify their own feelings, others’ feelings, and then coach them how to respond.  Some kids are born into families in which the parents aren’t very connected to emotional intelligence, so they don’t have that role modeling or coaching.  They might not have the other close relationships with other adults either.  Then those kids grow up to become adults with poor emotional intelligence.

Those folks are difficult to be married to: they pile it on when things are already hard, they don’t understand why you’re so sad about something and tease you about it at the worst times.  They are difficult to have as colleagues or friends because to them you should just “grow up.”

Whether you’re the spouse, friend, or colleague who needs to improve your emotional intelligence or if you’re in a relationship with someone the good news is that you can hone this skill.  You’re not doomed to be on the outskirts of your heart or society.  This is doable.

This is something that can be worked on in therapy since each person has their own strengths and barriers to their emotional intelligence.  It’s something that is worked on through stories in your past and present, and rewriting the narrative from your past and honing skills to use today.
 
Emotional Intelligence is a topic I feel pretty strongly about and love helping people through.  If you ever want to sit down with me as one of my clients please feel free to contact me at (530) 994-5114 or email me at jwilkerson.ma@gmail.com

"What do you mean, 'owning our choices?' Of course I own my choices!"

Here's the thing, the way we talk to ourselves and to other people can often lead us astray from authenticity and lead us to the same ol' path toward the self-preservation of using our mask.  We mostly do it to protect ourselves from ourselves.

What do I mean by that?

Well, we are humans and in our humanity we can tend to make bad choices.  In that humanity we can tend to be judgmental.  We can easily end up judging ourselves and then subconsciously fear others will judge us with that same standard (or worse).

So we bend the truth:

• "I didn't have time to get that done." = We had time.  We were burned out or tired, so we watched TV instead.  

• "I didn't realize the deadline was on this date." = We likely knew it was that date and if we didn't we were capable of reaching out and confirming the deadline.  We thought we could find flexibility, we have a difficulty with time management, or we were dreading it so we procrastinated and ran out of time.

• "Yes, I'll go to that event with you." or "Yes, I'll do that favor for you." = We wanted to say no, but couldn't think of a good reason not to do it, so we said yes.  Now we're going through the motions of the thing we said yes to, but we're doing it half-heartedly or with a resentful heart.

None of those examples are showing us in our best and most authentic light.  Most of the time we believe what we're saying while we're saying it.  We want to.  We need to.  If we felt we were lying then we'd feel too convicted, ouch. Right in the heart.  There's some truth to whatever it is we just said... so we say it and let it go.

But what if it looked like this instead:

• "I'm sorry, I didn't get it done.  I've been feeling really burned out lately and I just really needed to refresh so I could be at my best.  I plan on tackling it first thing on Monday."

• "I wasn't able to make the deadline, and I apologize.  I need one more day to finish, is that okay?"
  

• "That event sounds amazing, but I'm going to have to skip it this time." or "I feel for you that you need help with that thing (favor), but I just can't do it right now."

In none of those examples did we have to over-explain ourselves or bend the truth.  We owned it.

With the last bullet point where the person said yes to an event or favor but went about it half-heartedly or with some resentment I gave the bulleted example of saying no, but there are some times where saying yes is appropriate.  They've gone out of their way for you in the past or they're truly in need and while you don't really want to you know it's the right thing to do to say yes.  In that instance let your yes mean yes.

If you tell someone yes - then do it full-heartedly and without resentment.  You said yes.  It's not their fault that you made the choice to go with them when you weren't feeling it.  If you made the choice to say yes, then also make the choice to enjoy yourself.  Make the choice to pull yourself out of whatever mood you're in and try to find the good in the situation.  Is there a song playing you love and you can bop along to?  Is there a friend there that you usually enjoy seeing?  Are you going to be blessing someone with this favor and it feels good to pay it forward?  You chose to say yes to the friend and/or the event/favor - so then also choose to say yes to putting your best foot forward.  

Own your yes.

Yes is a choice.

No is a choice.

Own each one of those.

Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.  Own it.  Don't say one and mean the other, and then make the people around you pay the price for your inability to be authentic.

Let that sink in.  Marinate on it.  Hear yourself when you're bending the truth or using the wrong yes/no.  Let yourself have grace from judgment and just keep working on being real.  Being true to yourself and thereby true to others.

You'll be surprised at how much people respect this quality it the people around them.  It makes you trustworthy.  People respect trustworthy.

I feel like "Authentic" is the newest buzz word for the field of psychotherapy - but you know what: It's about darn time!

What is being authentic?  It means knowing your limits and being transparent about them.  It means not making excuses to get out of something, but standing with your own two feet and saying no.  It means portraying who you really are, rather than fitting a mold of who you or others think you should be.  We don't always "know who we are" in the way that we think monks would hope we do, but at any given moment in time we can say we know how we feel and what we want in that moment; and I'd say that's pretty much close enough.  If we can truly own those feelings and desires then we can be authentic.

Sometimes it's easier to describe what it looks like NOT to be authentic, because well frankly, it's our human nature to see a description and try to fit into it and identify with the positive traits.  When we are shown the other side of things and identify with that we are also able to see where we have growing to work through.

Examples:

• If your friend asks you to babysit her kids and you don't feel like it, but you don't have any other plans - and you feel guilty about saying no, so you say yes and then feel irritated with yourself or resentful toward the friend: that's not being authentic.  If you make up an excuse to get out of it, you lie: that's not being authentic.  ​ On the contrary, if you say, "I'd love to help you, but I just don't have it in me to watch children today." or  "I'm sorry, but I can't." that's being honest and authentic.  Those are true statements and you don't have to feel guilty for not doing someone a favor that will cause you to harbor ill feelings about yourself or your friend.

• You say "yes" when you mean maybe or no.  Your spouse asks to go on an outing, but it just doesn't sound fun at all.  But you don't want to hurt her/his feelings, so you smile and say, "let's go!"  But the whole time you just want to be home.  If you can't say no when you mean no or if you can't say, "maybe, let me think about it." when you're not sure - and you jump to people pleasing: you're not being authentic.  On the contrary, if you say, "Babe, that sounds like something you'd love and I'd probably enjoy on a different day - but today I'm just not feeling it.  Can we stay home or is there something else that sounds good to you to do today?"  That's being authentic. 

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• Are you allowed to give yourself praise?  Are you allowed to own your flaws and work on them?  I ask this because many people feel like they're being overly prideful or arrogant by praising themselves, so they take a false humility and use that to arm themselves from internal or external perception of egoism.  Some people also have difficulty admitting flaws because they fear that they'll be labeled or judged as flawed - so they take a defensive stance to others and to themselves, constantly justifying why they just did this or that.  How exhausting!  Neither of those are authentic.  On the contrary, REAL & AUTHENTIC people are both flawed and deserve praise.  It's okay to say, "I'm amazing and I did a great job!" and it's okay to say, "woah, I really messed up, big time." without the "but" (but, so-and-so didn't do their part, etc).

• Do you wait for your significant other to know what you need "because I shouldn't have to tell them, they should know by now."  With your marriage vows neither of you were bestowed the ability to mind read - and your marriage vows didn't include "I vow to vigilantly be on the lookout to meet your need before you state it."  Waiting for someone else to do something isn't being authentic, but stating your need or want is - even if sometimes your spouse should know that thing.

Why would you want to be authentic?  Because it's freeing! It's liberating!  It feels really, really good.

You get to just be you without all that guilt or pressure to be or do otherwise. 

Are you still tactful and diplomatic?  Yes. Absolutely!

Do you still find compromises with your spouse and friends sometimes?  Of course, you're not selfish.  You don't just turn everything down because you don't want to do it, but you're honest about not wanting to go and you find a way both people can make a situation work.

Do you know how to be honest about what you want or need, and don't feel ashamed to cover up what you're going through?  Yep!

Do you end up feeling like the people in your life know and like the real you - not the "if they only knew the real me..." version of you? They do, and you know they do, and there's TRUE JOY in the knowledge that people like the real you - warts and all.

Learning to be authentic is scary and takes time.  But each time you're authentic and it goes better than expected you build a little reserve of confidence, making the next authentic experiment easier.  It snowballs over time and gets easier and easier and easier.  Until one day, you encounter someone inauthentic and you have no patience for it.  You realize that you've been operating with honesty with yourself and others for so long without realizing it that someone else's inauthenticity is frustrating and intolerable.

And then you realize you need to work on the character trait of grace: "there, by the grace of God, go I."  You were there once upon a time, so giving them a little grace for their journey will go a long way in your heart.

So, you've noticed some patterns in the way you interact with people in your life.  You've been becoming self-aware of negativity that comes out of your mouth and you're growing increasingly frustrated with yourself.  You never intended to become this person, but here you are.  

You want to change.  You want to be different.

But...

• But some of the people in your life are idiots and you can't help yourself when you respond with sarcasm.
• But there are some really rude folks at work and you feel like you have to fight fire with fire or else you'll get burned.
• ​But... there are also times where you're kind of the bully, and you're not super proud about it.

Ugh!  It's so frustrating because sometimes your quick wit and healthy self-esteem serve a greater purpose, and sometimes it douses you in the face!

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news: it's never serving the greater purpose.

People with self-control over the words they think and say actually have the upper hand when confronted with "idiots" and "rudeness."  Quick wit is wonderful when in a mutual debate or poetry slam, but using it as a defense mechanism is what is fueling the part of you that's unsafe.

It feels so much more vulnerable to pause and to take a pass.  Don't get me wrong, taking a pass doesn't mean lying down and taking abuse.  It means that you're rising higher and that you're better than the defensiveness that's boiling up inside of you.  It means that you're growing and that eventually you'll be far away from those "idiots" and "rude mongers."  Because when you stop the game with them you become boring to them.

So here's what it looks like to work on BECOMING safer:

Acknowledge hurt you've inflicted on the people in your inner circle: your spouse, child(ren), siblings, parents, whomever it is that's truly near and dear to you.  Is there a best friend who feels like a sibling?  They count, too.  

Tell them that you've been noticing how you've been pretty negative and you feel like you've been hurtful over the past (period of time).  Tell them that because you've noticed this you want to apologize for any ways you've been inappropriate and that you're really working on being self-aware and curbing this part of you.  

Know that it takes time, change happens slowly and relapse is a part of the change cycle - so you'll probably be unsafe again from time to time, but the intervals will get fewer and farther between.

The rest of the folks on the outskirts of  your inner circle, you can take them on a case-by-case basis.  You can just start trying to implement the self-awareness and let the relationship evolve on its own without your grand declaration.  

Tasks to facilitate change:

• Start looking for things to appreciate about others.  You don't have to tell them to their face (you can, but it's not necessary).  Just look for it and notice it: for example, "Janet is very conscientious about keeping her files in order, it's nice when I have to look through one of hers because I can find things right away." or "Melissa always has a smile on her face, even when the people around here are griping or snapping at each other."
• Start looking for things to appreciate about yourself and your changes, for example: "I'm drained at the end of the day after all this paying attention to my stuff while also trying to do my job. I'm kind of a rock star for it!" 
• Find things to compliment in the world at large.  "Wow, the city counsel has really been working hard for the past few years to make this part of town greener.  I can't wait until all those new trees get big and bushy."   

You might start feeling a little "Pollyanna" because it's new to you, and because people don't generally go around looking for all this positive.  But A.) you're trying to change so it takes a little extra, and B.) it feels like Pollyanna because you're not used to it.  People who are safe people are also people who regularly look for ways to build other up, even in small ways. 

But do you see that part there?  They LOOK for ways to build others up.  That's a verb.  A doing word.  It's a muscle that needs to be exercised so it becomes second nature.  It will eventually become natural to give a sincere "good job" and to allow negativity to flow from you like water off a duck's back.

Change is exhausting at first, I'll be honest.  So is starting a new exercise routine when you're out of shape.  But both of those things get easier with time, practice, and consistency.  You've got this!