How to Drop a Negative Thought

Changing your thinking pattern

 

In my last newsletter I talked about positivity. When I filled the page I realised I wasn't finished and that there was more I wanted to say, so here it is. What can you do to start the rise of positivity over negativity? Start by doing little things.

I once had it beautifully explained to me by my Supervisor, Lyndall Briggs. She said that negativity, stinking thinking or bad thoughts are like Jehovah Witnesses. If you open the door to them once then they know you'll open the door to them again. You can pretend to ignore them but they'll just keep knocking because that's the way they've been trained, they know you're home & eventually you will come to the door. The idea is when you get one of those negative or irrational thoughts come into your head, have a thinking thought.

What I mean by that is a cognitive thought, a thought about doing something. What I do when I have a negative thought or a thought I don't want to pursue I think about my next 3 clients and how I'm going to work with them. I think about their story and how we've worked together in the past. What this does is change the pathway of your conscious mind. When you have an errant thought it comes along a different pathway of the brain than a conscious thought, where you have to think about a solution or a problem.

It's not about replacing one negative thought with another, it's about consciously choosing what you want to think about. By doing this you're changing the way you process thoughts and the way you allow thoughts to come into your mind. Using a new brain pathway is like using a new muscle. You have to keep using it to make it stronger. If you join a gym and have one training session you can't expect to be toned and buff after that one session, it takes time and it takes constant effort to build up a muscle or group of muscles.

It is the same with changing your thinking pattern. The more you do the mental exercise of swapping a negative thought with a cognitive or thinking thought the easier it becomes until it forms a new habit or behaviour. It's as simple or complicated as you want to make it. Give it a try, it can't hurt.

And remember no matter what or who influences you externally, you are always in change of your own mind!

The quote I would like to leave you with today is:

Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass - it's about learning to dance in the rain.

 

About the Author

I am a qualified, registered & insured counsellor practicing in the southern suburbs of Sydney Australia. I have been seeing individuals, couples and families for a variety of difficulties from relationship and communication issues to self esteem and grief problems.