A negative thought is a thought that you have thought over and over and it’s negative. It makes you feel bad every think you think it. It’s a thought that causes stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration, worry, guilt, embarrassment, blame, resentment, jealousy, or fear.
For example, if you think, “I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. I just suck.” These are negative thoughts because you are speaking negatively or badly about yourself. You’ll feel bad because that negative thought feels like a belief.’ A belief is something you just keep telling yourself so if you keep telling yourself negative thoughts, you will eventually believe them.
So how do you deal with negative thoughts?
If you notice that you’re having negative thoughts, it’s essential to acknowledge them and then let them go.
Negative thoughts aren’t facts. They are not guaranteed to happen They’re just thoughts. Thoughts don’t exist outside our minds – meaning they aren’t something we can physically hold in our hand in thought form. By accepting them as thoughts, we’re telling ourselves that they’re not real and that we don’t have to act on them. That helps us to stop obsessing and worrying over them.
Sooo, what more can you do to deal negative thoughts? Here’s 5 ways to help you deal with the negative thoughts and emotions.
- Make mental shifts over time. The first step towards changing any behavior is becoming aware of it. For example, when you have negative thoughts about food, start by noticing whether you’ve had negative thoughts before eating something.
- Then you can start working out ways to change your thinking, so you won’t feel tempted to eat unhealthy foods. You can apply the same process to other things, like thinking you’re not competent or that you’ll never have the perfect relationship.
- Try to understand your emotions. The best way to understand our feelings is to become aware of them. To do this, we must first recognize what they are.
- Once we know what these emotions feel like, we can identify them. This action helps us recognize when they are present in ourselves or others. It also allows us to take control of our feelings rather than letting them control us.
- Work to change what you can. Emotions don’t just happen – they originate from thoughts, beliefs, memories, and experiences. If you want to change your emotional state, you can start by changing any of those things.
- For example, if you feel angry, try to remember why you felt that way. If it was because someone hurt you, then try to forgive them. If it was because you didn’t get what you wanted, try to let it go and move on. If you can’t change it, then let it go.
- Uncover your negative thoughts. A good step towards overcoming negative emotions is understanding the source. Once you know where they are coming from, you can choose different thoughts from those you usually fall back on.
- It might feel like a big task at first, because you will have to constantly keep redirecting your negative thoughts. As soon you will develop new positive habits and behaviors, the negative thoughts will not keep popping up as often and when they do, you will know how to respond to them.
- Let go of judgments. It’s natural for us to judge others and ourselves. The problem occurs, though, when we constantly compare ourselves to others. Social media may also cause us to compare ourselves to an unrealistic version of someone. Those are all negative consequences of judgments.
- Work to let go of judgmental thoughts. Instead of comparing yourself to others, try this: Focus on the good things about yourself and your life.
- When you catch yourself judging others negatively, pause and replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. Think of the positive traits the person may have.
Negative thoughts may occur naturally from time to time. We may judge people, ourselves or think about the past or future negatively. That’s okay – we all do it. What’s important is how we respond to those thoughts.
If we let them linger, they can end up ruining our moods and even our lives. But if we choose to let them go and work on positive thinking, our emotional states will become more positive as well.
Sending lots of love,
Jackie
