How to Stop Negative Thoughts

Keeping your attention on positive thoughts is a consuming task. It takes a lot of discipline and retraining of your own thought processes to constantly keep your head on a productive space.

As much as we would like them not to, our thoughts will wander, things will upset us, and doubt will kick in at various times throughout our waking hours. It’s normal and should be allowed as a large part of our self-development process.

In itself, that’s not a bad thing. Having contrast and variety in your thoughts prompt you to re-evaluate your present choices. Having a wandering mind sometimes lead us to better ideas. Things that upset us can signal an issue we might not have considered. Doubt can cause us to improve existing processes.

However, when we react emotionally to negative suggestions in our mind, we end up with a problem. Too often, this leads to obsessive thinking about the unwanted thought. Have you ever had that experience? Something pops into your mind that you know is wrong, unhealthy, and, sometimes even destructive. You know you should get rid of it but you can’t. You spend the next hour or two fixated on it and it ends up fucking your day.

It seems the more you resist, the more you attract.

I’ve tried a number of things to fix this and, over time, I’ve found specific processes that work for me.

1. Reverse the thought - Instead of entertaining the idea in a negative light, put it in a positive space. For instance, if you worry about not having enough money obsessively, think of how you have too much money than what you need. I used to call it illogical reframing and I’ve seen many of my successfuly friends use it. Maybe, I lean towards thinking too much or overanalyzing things but this just leads me nowhere. In my experience, thinking about the same thing simply perpetuates the same thing, no matter what light you put it under. If I worry about money and I try to replace it with thinking about having too much money, all my succeeding thoughts still stem from the original negative idea and it keeps popping up incessantly.

2. Logically reframe it - I’m a huge fan of Mind-Lines ( I really need to write about this and I’ve been meaning to) and the reframing processes they outline. You basically use sound logic (they oulined, if I remember correctly, around 21 different techniques) to challenge an idea. There are about 7 or 8 that I use frequently and they just break negative thoughts down wonderfully to the point where you can judge them as plain silly and nonsensical.

3. Recite affirmations - I did this a lot many years ago. I had a memorized set of affirmations that I go back to again and again. Having worked for me over and over, they are somehow anchored into my consciousness and reciting them puts me in a good state. The issue is, while they work in some cases, state-change is hit or miss. And there are just certain situations you find your own headspace in where the state change trigger doesn’t work.

4. Replace the thought - This is currently my favorite. Instead of trying to reverse a negative thought, performing reframes to disprove it or mentally reciting an affirmation, just replace the negative idea with something different.

In order for this to work consistently, make the thought comply to a few basic guidelines:
a. It’s highly relevant to you at that moment
b. It makes you happy
c. It excites you
d. It’s tangible - meaning it’s something that happened or is happening to you, not a postive affirmation bordering on delusional thinking

When I replace a negative thought with one that follows the above guidelines, my attention shifts. Because the new thought is as compelling to me as the original thought, I obsess just as much over it. Since it has nothing to do with the original negative trigger, the negative idea is pushed completely away. And since the new thought both excite and make me happy, a full state change is usually effected.

If you’re stuck with what kind of thoughts to use to replace negative ideas, it’s a sure sign that you’ve been letting you own negative thoughts bog you down. You will need to dig at least a little deeper to find the things that will make the positive experience happen for you. I suggest you go through recent experiences to find one of these:

a. Recent financial successes
b. Positive relationship developments
c. Affection between you and your kids
d. Recent career advancements
e. Recent awards
f. Problems you’ve fixed

You’re bound to find something that will be as positive an influence on you as the original thought was negative. When you do, bask in it, enjoy it and let it occupy you for a while.