Negative thoughts can’t simply be replaced with positive thoughts. Thoughts must be transformed for the change to be effective.
Repressed feelings are like venom waiting to be released as soon as you find yourself in a similar situation. This can be toxic and can affect your mental and physical health.
Here is a 5 step process I learned from Vex King in his great book “Good Vibes, Good Life”.
Identify
You can’t fix what you can’t see. We identify the emotion by going deeper into it. The emotion may present as sadness, fear or anger and the root cause may be insecurity, loneliness or guilt.
Challenge
Emotions do not exist without a thought. Next step is to examine and challenge the beliefs behind the thought. Are they true? Are they based on facts or is it the worst-case scenario thinking?
Ask yourself “Do these beliefs limit or empower me?” “Can I safely come to another conclusion?” What about a 3rd or 4th perspective? Is that possible?
Challenging and debunking your Automatic Negative Thoughts (Killing ANTS as Jim Kwik teaches) is key to retraining your brain to transform negative thought patterns to more positive ones.
Understand
Next you get down and dirty with the emotion. What does this emotion say about the way you speak to yourself? Are you using your Best Friend’s tone or your Inner Critic? Do you place value on the right things or do you see an opportunity to change those thoughts? And as my regular readers know thoughts have a direct impact on your emotional experience moment by moment.
Replace
Yay the fun begins, you then begin to replace those disempowering thoughts with more empowering ones. What are the more mature thoughts about myself or this situation?
Use memories of times you felt empowered and positive in a similar situation. This boosts your confidence which may inspire a solution, and you may remember something you did in the past that helped you to feel better.|
Visualize
Visualize yourself handling the negative emotion in a more positive way in the future. Say to yourself think this not that. You are training your brain to have a different (positive and empowering) response when you are faced with this situation again in the future.
Repeat as many times as feels good to you!
Do you need help with your negative thoughts?
Love and Light,
Tsahai