How to Make the Most of your Negativity.

The Secret to taming your negative thoughts.

“There is nothing wrong with feeling bad, but that doesn’t mean it’s not your own doing, your choice, your responsibility.” Brendon Burchard motivational coach.

How do you Stop yourself from dwelling on the negative aspects of life and move over to the light side?

I’m not going to tell you it’s easy. I wouldn’t want to insult your intelligence. Like everything else worth having or knowing changing your thoughts, your personality, your life requires energy, commitment and practise and you have to work at it. Habits aren’t built in a day. Habits are built over time. The good news is once you get the hang of it your life will change dramatically. Breaking free of the negative back chat will help you feel more in control, lighter and more energised. How do I know this? I did it myself.

For the last four years I have kept a journal which turns out to have been a good thing because it gives me opportunity to monitor my personal transformation. In the old days I’d set my goals and then beat myself up when I didn’t quite achieve them. From a personal perspective this turned out to be the least effective way to change my life as the only thing it did was highlight failure and keep me in a cycle of negativity and guilt.

Unfortunately many of us (including me) were programmed to zoom in on the negative drama of our days, we could have been having a perfectly fabulous day and yet if one little thing went wrong or failed to meet our expectations our whole day would be ruined. Suddenly we forget all the great stuff and we become consumed by the negative stuff.

“You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent their making a nest in your hair.” Ancient Chinese Proverb.

We are surrounded by negative news. Every day the papers and the news channels are full of the shockingly bad things that are going on in the world. Recently, there has been much talk about the failure of businesses due to the pandemic. One article highlighted the fact that 20% of restaurants had failed due to the pandemic.

At first I thought this was really sad but then it struck me that 80% had survived — surely that was a good thing? It got me thinking about how many restaurants would have failed without the pandemic. From my own personal experience I knew of 3 restaurants that had failed within 12 months of starting up and 2 that had failed within 4 years.

I decided to dig a little deeper and I came across an article in Forbes relating to the USA which stated that 17% of restaurants failed in the first year. Now I’m no expert in these matters but it did seem to me that things were being made to seem a lot worse than they really were.

The problem is once we have a negative experience it becomes difficult to eliminate it and get it out of our conscious mind. I don’t know about you but in all my years at school gaining a “proper education” I never once went to a useful class that offered sensible advice on how to effectively deal with negative emotions. The best advice on offer was always “try not to think about it!”

Seriously, think about it. What tools were you given to help you deal with the little voices of doom and gloom dancing in your head. Were you ever told how to eliminate the constant annoying replays of a bad situation. Did anyone ever teach you how to act irrespective of the crap you are wallowing in? I’m guessing it’s a big fat NO!

It seems to me many useful life skills were not included in my school curriculum. If only we had been taught how to think positively and creatively and how to control and appreciate the negative demons, the world would be such a splendid place. Instead they filled my head with things that transpired to be as useless as a chocolate teapot.

If you find yourself in need of some practical tips to help you become a more confident, positive and abundant person here are a few that I have used over the years to deal with the negative demons. These tips have been really useful at various stages of my life but mostly in the later years to help me get more out of my negativity and bounce out of the shadows.

1. Find the hidden message and acknowledge it.

If you find yourself having repetitive negative thoughts don’t despair. It could be your Wiser self trying to communicate with you.

Your wiser self wants to protect you and keep you safe. It will keep showing you the negative picture until you acknowledge the danger or the risk that it believes you face. It’s going to keep nagging you until it knows you got it.

Negative thoughts often have a fear base. Here’s what I mean : -

I recently went out to dinner with 7 people, 6 of them were strangers to me. In my opinion four of the group could have been candidates for the suspects in the Forensic files tv drama. I had limited but unsettling interactions with these guys and for most of the evening I chatted to a really beautiful soul who was sitting next to me.

So what did I remember most about that evening? What was my main focus? Was it the Beautiful Soul who I sat next to or the Forensic Files suspects? Yep you guessed it, it was the Forensic files candidates.

As I had so little interaction with the others why did I dwell on it so much and why did it disturb me?

It’s simple. My Wiser self perceived a danger and until I acknowledge that some of the group could be a potential danger to me I couldn’t move on and get out of the loop.

My wiser self was trying to tell me I couldn’t trust them and that they may cause me physical harm/emotional harm. I have been hurt in the past by trusting the wrong people so my Wiser self quite rightly thought I should be reminded.

In reality nothing was going to happen to me but my Wiser self really wanted me to recognise the red flag and remember it for next time. Once I acknowledged the risk and let my Wiser self know that I was aware they were trouble I was free to move on.

It was really liberating to make the connection and to get rid of all the little nagging thoughts and replays.

If you find yourself in this situation ask yourself: What is the risk or danger that my Wiser self wants me to know about?

Remember it doesn’t have to be an immediate life-threatening risk. It’s most likely going to be some indirect risk/threat to your home, job, relationship or personal safety.

I find it helpful to follow the reasoning through e.g. if you’re constantly worrying about missing deadlines try to work out what the underlying fear is. It may go something like this: If I miss this deadline my boss will be angry, I might get fired, I will have no money, I will lose my home. The negative thoughts are based on real but unlikely scenarios. Once you can acknowledge the fear you can then move on.

2. Do you focus on the problem or the solution?

When Bill Gates discovered that kids were dying because they didn’t have access to clean water, he didn’t try to understand everything that had led up to kids drinking dirty water. He simply acknowledged the problem and then looked for a solution.

He couldn’t solve the problem himself, so he asked for help from those with the right kind of expertise, it wasn’t long before the ideas began to come flooding in and pretty soon they had worked out some creative solutions to a long standing problem. The point here is that he focused on solving the problem instead of worrying about why the problem had arisen in the first place.

Stop saying you have a problem. Instead start acting and speaking as if the problem has been solved.

It’s not always easy to find a solution when you are locked into worrying about the problem.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Albert Einstein

I never really knew what Einstein meant until I had successfully changed my thought patterns and I was able to make a comparison as to how I used to solve problems with my new upgraded problem solving skill.

If you are having trouble solving a problem try asking yourself this question: What would it take for me to ……….and then I wait for the ideas to come to you.

I find that when my brain is actively engaged in looking for a solution it doesn’t have free energy to engage in negativity. However, once you are given a potential solution it’s important to take action on it or the problem will just resurface.

I think it’s important to note here that you may have to try this more than once especially if you have had the problem for a long time and you are fixed in a negative state. If nothing is happening for you and your not getting any guidance try this technique in combination with Dreaming your Troubles Away and the the magnet swipe detailed below.

3. Become an Observer.

Many of us spend hours worrying about things only to find nothing bad actually happens. If you’re anything like me you will feel annoyed that you have wasted your time worrying over nothing.

Becoming your own observer has to be one of the best techniques on the planet for disconnecting yourself from the guilt and shame you might feel when you have failed, are failing or facing a mountain of uncertainty and problems that you just don’t know how to to deal with.

This technique is so powerful it is used by Russel Wilson a famous NFL quarter back in his Tedtx of 2020 he talks about shifting to neutral under pressure to avoid the negativity.

At first I would catch myself in the middle of a negative thought pattern, then I would try to think of myself sitting in the space between my eyes and observing everything that was going on. I would simply say to myself I observe what is happening and I make no judgement.

Taking a step back from myself and distancing myself from the negative thoughts really helped me to change my perspective and interrupt the negative cycle.

Pointless negative thoughts need your active engagement and 100% of your energy to survive. Do you really want to give your power over to B/S? Becoming the observer stops everything as it removes the energy negative thoughts need to survive. I’ve had really good results with this technique, it’s quick and easy and gets rid of the nonsense.

If you’re having trouble observing your own actions, don’t panic. It’s a really weird thing to do at first and it takes a bit of practice but the mere fact that you are trying to do it is often enough to disrupt the negative thoughts.

I found it wont work if their is a hidden message for me to acknowledge like when I met the Forensic Files candidates. This was an important message based on a real event so my wiser self bugged me until I figured it out.

4. Dream your Troubles Away

If I can’t work things out or something is really bothering me I take it to bed with me.

I find it useful to jot the problem down on a piece of paper and ask my Wiser self for a clearer message or solution to the problem. Before I go to sleep I just run through the issues and ask for help and clarification.

Of course you have to be a little bit organised and keep a journal by the bed to write down any messages/inspiration/dreams that come. Again it may take several tries before you get a response.

Over 10 years ago a very religious friend told me a version of this technique. In her case she just handed her problems over to God, however, this is optional I get answers even though I don’t expressly ask God.

5. The Magnet Swipe

Got a fridge magnet or a credit/debit card? If so this is a quick and easy technique that takes seconds to perform and can be very effective in eliminating negative thoughts/patterns/behaviours.

Take the fridge magnet and run it along the centre line on the top of your head from from front to back whilst stating the negative thought/belief/pattern you want to remove. For example, I delete my limiting beliefs about money. As you may know we are all energy fields and the crown of your head is a particularly sensitive area. Swiping the magnet along this energy line disrupts the energy field and helps to erase the bad data.

Negative thoughts cannot be completely extinguished, but you can choose what you do with them and you can learn to harness them. Negative thoughts are a natural part of us and we need to accept that. It’s like the symbol for Yin and Yang. The white side has a little circle of light and the dark side has a little bit of light, so it is in life.

Live strong, Love and Prosper xxx