How to get negative thoughts out of your head

We can all suffer from negative thoughts from time to time. Even the most well-intentioned, positive person can have a “What if?” question pop into their head occasionally. Life is just like that, there are always going to be times and situations when sudden panic, fear or misunderstanding of a problem can lead someone down the path of negative thinking.

There are other people though, who unfortunately seem to live in the world of negative thinking continually and see every event and situation in life as something to fear, worry over or pronounce as an omen of doom and gloom.

Negative thinking can be a major obstacle to overcome in many people’s lives. These can be the little thoughts that go around and around in your head constantly or they can be major ideas, whatever their size, these ruminating thoughts can be highly destructive and need to be eradicated from your thinking.

It isn’t necessarily that we are having a negative thought, it is more the fact that we are often believing in the negative thought. So how do we get these persistent thoughts out of our heads? There are many ways that this can be achieved.

Slow Thoughts Down with Deep Breathing

Often, when we have a negative thought, it can lead to the body becoming stressed in some way, Whether it is a full panic attack or a sudden feeling of discomfort, negative thoughts can begin to take their toll on our health.

When you find that you are having negative thoughts that could bring discomfort, try to slow your breathing. Negative thoughts can cause our blood pressure to rise and our heartbeat to accelerate so slowing your breath can get control of the situation quickly, helping to ward off a panic attack.

Replace with positive thoughts

Many people suffer from the same negative thought patterns, they go around and around in a loop, and often they can be because we are overly critical of ourselves or do not believe that we are good enough, capable enough, pretty enough, smart enough….the list goes on.

When this happens negative thoughts come into our heads and just go around and around constantly as we put ourselves down more and more.

We have no doubt all done it from time to time as well, who hasn’t talked themselves out of doing something because the negative chatter has got hold and made you feel worthless or incapable? This is where we need to start supplanting negative thoughts with positive ones.

Imagine you are going for a job interview, and then the negative cycle starts in your brain of all the reasons why you won’t get the job. If we stop this monologue in its tracks and insert positive dialogue instead this is really going to help us. So instead of pointing out all of the negatives about ourselves, let’s start talking ourselves up with all of our great points about why we should get the job.

Swapping negative thoughts for positive ones will really boost our confidence and the more confidence we have the more we are likely to achieve the things that we want and so the positive circle will carry on

Stop dwelling on past events

One of the ways that people tend to ruminate, is by dwelling on past events and pulling out all of the things that they feel are bad. Mistakes that they believe they have made, decisions they feel they shouldn’t have taken. They then dwell on these thoughts and it prevents them from moving forward.

Imagine if you had the belief though that there are no mistakes in life and that all the decisions that you made were the right ones for you at the time.

Your life is where it is because of what you have done in the past and instead of looking at this in negative terms try positively looking at them, all the things that you have learned from past life events and see them as an opportunity for growth.

If you look at past events as ways of growing it will stop you from feeling shame or guilt and from beating yourself up. Ruminating about past events in negative ways will always hold you back.

Don’t focus on problems

We can all be guilty of doing this, focusing on a problem as if it were the end of the world and forgetting all the amazing stuff that we have going on around us. It’s easy to do, something happens such as the washing machine breaking, and suddenly the brain starts catastrophizing about it.

This in turn pushes out all of the positive thoughts that you had in your mind leaving you feeling negative and frustrated at the situation.

This can then make you see other areas in your life as having problems, not because they have but because you have placed yourself in a negative mindset.

Try to reason when situations that you have no control over present themselves to you. Instead of thinking about the problem and then looking for more to validate your stream of thought, focus instead on all the great things that you have in your life, food, a home, a job, friends and family, good health, whatever they may be and tell yourself that it is just a setback that can be solved, it is not indicative of your life as a whole.

Practice letting go of your problems

Instead of focusing on a problem and letting it take control of your life, practice letting your problems go.

This means changing the way that you think and then reacting to each situation. If you are someone who tends to overreact to a situation examine why this is. Is it because this is how you have always reacted in the past? Is this learned behaviour from someone who brought you up?

There are many reasons why people react the way they do in stressful or difficult situations, and understanding why is one of the ways to let go of your problems.

If you have always reacted in the same way, you may not be able to differentiate between a problem and something more of an inconvenience. Looking at and examining your problems can help you to understand which require attention and which are matters that you can just let go of

Even the most challenging problems can be let go of with the correct thinking and training of the mind, it is often a case of seeing things from a new perspective.

Breakaway from the “what if “ scenarios

These can be dangerous negative thoughts to have because you can let them start taking over every area of your life if you are not careful. With this way of thinking, you begin to see problems everywhere and no way of fixing them. You constantly think of all the bad scenarios that may happen, often without any evidence presenting itself that this may indeed be the case. This way of thinking dwells on lack and is full of negativity.

Stay in the present moment

We can all suffer from crystal ball gazing in life. Even if you aren’t somebody who does this regularly, there are times, usually when we are stressed or worried when we can attempt to look into the future to see what is going to happen.

Of course, we can never know the future, not with 100% certainty, so this type of thinking is futile and can be dangerous. Too often we will always expect the worst and build that into our reality.

We need to stop looking into the future and assuming events that haven’t taken place and stay firmly in the present moment.

All we have for certain is the present moment in time and we need to spend more time living here and far less time torturing ourselves with future events that will in all probability, never happen.

Even when you have good situations in your life, such as good health, you can start to imagine things happening to you.

Instead of worrying and projecting negativity into the future, try living more in a state of mindfulness, not thinking about anything but the here and now. Nobody knows what is ever going to happen in the future, so there is no point in imagining bad things happening and ruining your here-and-now for something that may never happen anyway.

Keep positive company

There is an old saying that “like attracts like” and that is very true when it comes to positive and negative thinking. If you have people with positive energy and positive thoughts around you, then you are going to react to them and engage with them in the same way.

If you surround yourself with negative people and negative energy, then again, you are going to be the same and act the same way.

You need to make sure that you surround yourself, wherever possible with positive people. Now granted, this may not always be possible.

You may work with people who are negative or have negative family members, that you can’t just ignore. If this is the situation that you find yourself in, then you have to make sure that you don’t engage in their negativity or come down to their level. If they start using negative language, try to change the conversation or if this doesn’t work, try to excuse yourself from the situation that you are in.

If it is someone that you feel comfortable talking to, then explain that you would rather not talk in the manner that they are telling you as you find that you get troubled with negative thoughts. Many times. people are not even aware of how they are speaking. For some, negative language has become such a habit that they do not even realise when they are speaking negatively.

Write it down

Talking about a problem or a worry that you have is always a great way to get another opinion and see the situation in a different light. But, what if you don’t feel comfortable talking to somebody else, or what if you feel that you don’t have anyone else to talk to? In these situations, writing down the concerns that you have ruminating in your mind can be an ideal way of letting go of negative thoughts. The act of writing is very powerful. Once we commit something to paper, it leaves our brains.

This is the first step. When it is down on paper, we can start to look at and evaluate the situation in a more relaxed, reasoned and sensible way. We can re-read what we have written and we can start to see different scenarios for our predicament.

It could be that once something has been written down and then read back. the situation or problem doesn’t seem as dire as before.

It could be that once you have had time to focus rationally on the problem, a solution then presents itself or it could be that once it has been written down, you start to rationalise the whole situation differently in your head and see the problem from a new point of view.

Talk them through with a professional

If you find that despite trying all of the above tips, you are still suffering from negative thinking and can’t manage to change on your own, then it may be a good idea to talk to a professional who will be able to help you with tools and advice to get you to where you want to be.

Many people find working with a Life coach to be a great way of working through their negative thoughts, many tools can be applied, and the bonus of having someone who is supporting you can make a huge difference.

If you would like to find out more information on how working with a life coach can help you, then click on the link below;

www.lifecoachingforwomen.co.uk

If you would like help in tackling negative thinking book a Free Discovery call

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