On Your Way To Eliminating Negative Thoughts
For a great life, start by eliminating negative thoughts
As life presents us with challenges, we get to have negative thoughts, and that is normal.
However, keeping negative thoughts for long periods of time diminishes the quality of our lives and can make us feel miserably almost permanently.
That is why eliminating negative thoughts is important.
Negative thoughts form the walls of your own jail, which you create for yourself. Positive thinking helps you to feel good and be free of yourself.
"How do I do it?"
To get rid of negative thoughts you must keep in mind the following:
- Don't fight the negative thoughts. Rather, you eliminate negative thoughts through a process of understanding and realization, and the exercise of your will power to let go of damaging thoughts and replace them for positive ones.
- Staying a bit detached helps you in eliminating negative thoughts. When you are too emotionally involved, it is like if you had blinkers on and you were unable to see beyond your negative thoughts.
If you remain slightly detached from it all it is easier to deal with negative thinking. - Consider other possibilities. How would you feel if you thought about the situation differently?
As explained by Mike Dooley in Infinite Possibilities, our thoughts are shaped by our beliefs: from which beliefs do your negative thoughts come from? - Use Byron Katie's The Work: In regards to the negative thought, ask yourself "Is it true?", and then "Can I absolutely know it's true?" You'll find that in most cases the negative thought falls apart.
A short exercise on positive thinking
Take this short exercise right now. Think about something that makes you feel anxious and that brings about negative thoughts. Feel your anxiety growing because of the way you think about the issue.
Now, imagine that you were someone else - someone who doesn't feel anxious about that something. No negative thoughts, no negative feelings, just like if you were immune or transparent to it.
Realize that the issue is not different, but what IS different is how you perceive it and the way you think about it.
This brings us to an interesting conclusion...
The core of eliminating negative thoughts
How you choose to think about something is what makes you feel in a certain way. Once you understand that, you'll be a step closer to feeling good more often.
The fact is that you always have the power to be free from your own negative thoughts.
One step further
You might as well decide that since you understand that thoughts are just thoughts and have no more importance than you give them, you're not going to allow any thought to make you feel bad.
That is because it could be this thought, or that thought, or any other thought. The only difference is the emotional charge that you attach to the thought and how you allow it to influence you.
Choose wisely... choose positive thinking.
"The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts."
Earl Nightingale