Negative thinking is essentially a state of mind that influences a person to look at the downside of every situation instead of focusing on the possibility of a positive outcome. Negativity is a dark and ugly entity that is both depressing and degrading. This powerful negative state of mind has the ability to ruin relationships, destroy your health and cause isolation. Studies have determined that more people are on prescribed anti-depressants today than years prior, most people tend to cover up their feelings of negativity and depression with feel-good pills without finding out what caused such feelings or how to naturally eradicate it.
Common Causes of Negative Thoughts
The Way You Were Raised: Statistics show that when a child is raised in a family of smokers, he or she is at a greater risk of picking up the habit than those who were not, and on the other hand, a child raised in a family of philanthropists will most likely grow up to be kind and compassionate givers. The same principle applies to negative thinking; if you grew up in a family that screamed, fought, cried and used harsh words as ways of communicating, punishing and degrading, then you are more at risk for growing up with the same mentality.
Disappointments: Life is often full of disappointments and sometimes it gets hard to trust life again, so you may inadvertently develop a shield in your mind in the form of negative thinking to help protect yourself from being disappointed by life again.
For example, say you applied for a job, your potential employer thinks that you exceed the qualifications and that you are the perfect fit for the position, she quickly calls you in for an interview. Meanwhile, you get the notice that they want you to come in for the interview and you immediately begin thinking thoughts of negativity.
You think thoughts like “I’m sure I am not going to get this job” or “it’s too far away, so I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time”. You think these thoughts to protect yourself from being disappointed if you don’t get the job.
On the day of the interview, the interviewer can feel your cloud of negativity which prompts her to give the position to someone else. It is a vicious circle: you are negative because of life’s disappointments and you are disappointed by life because of your negative mind.
Poor Physical Health: The state of your health has a lot to do with the thoughts in your mind. When you are in good physical health, you are in balance and your mind is in a state of peace. The exact opposite is true if your physical health is poor. When you are suffering from an ailment or a disorder, it is hard to think of anything but the areas of negativity within your body. You begin to refer to yourself as sick and unhealthy and the swarm of negative thinking grows bigger until it consumes you.
The Environment You Are In: Often, the environment that you are in influences your state of mind. It becomes difficult to keep a positive mind when you are in an environment that you despise. For example, if you are in a job that you hate or living in an area that is rundown and unsafe, your mind can become negative. Additionally, the environment that you are in refers to the company that you choose to keep. If you surround yourself with negative people then you will subconsciously adopt their negative way of thinking and acting.
Lack Of Confidence: Often lack of confidence and negative thinking goes hand in hand. It becomes hard to think positively if you do not think highly of yourself. Lack of confidence comes when you or someone else tells you that you are not good enough, that you are not worthy. You start to believe the ugliness of the verbal abuse and your confidence suffers and negativity sets in.
How To Stop Thinking Negative Thoughts
The way to stop negative thinking is to simply start thinking positively; as simple as that concept sounds, the process of thinking positively when your mind has been assaulted with negative thoughts can be daunting and difficult for a lot of people. Most negative thinkers are oblivious to the fact that their minds have been overrun with negativity until it consumes them or until someone else points it out. Below are some natural ways to stop the thoughts of negativity.
Understand Your Worth And Value
Everyone is born with extreme value and worth. Everyone has gifts and purpose that has the ability to enhance their lives and encourage greatness. When you understand how valuable you are to yourself and to the world, you will begin to see the positivity in every situation, no matter how dark it may be. To understand your value, you have to look within; do not let others define who you are. Get in touch with yourself and determine your strengths, weakness and unique gifts. When you have determined all of the positive and negative traits that makes you, begin to harness and nurture your positives and work on eradicating the negativity.
Fake It Until It Becomes True
Your mind is a powerful entity indeed, however it can be trained to believe whatever you want it to, that is why it is important to always think thoughts of positivity and value. To encourage positive thinking, you will have to fake it until it becomes true; essentially tricking your mind to believing you are a positive thinker until your mind believes it to be true. No matter the situation that you are in, think of the positive outcome, no matter how hopeless things may seem. For example; if you are stuck in traffic, instead of thinking about the fact that you are going to get home late, turn on the radio and begin to sing along. And say you missed the bus, don’t fret, start walking and think of it as an opportunity to exercise.
Meditate
Meditation is a powerful practice that has the extreme ability to balance your core, eradicate negativity and enhance the quality of your life. Although it is best to attend meditation classes, it is certainly not necessary to do so. To meditate effectively all you need is basic know how, a quiet place and open mind. When you meditate you are essentially getting in touch with your soul and learning a new way of thinking. You are going inside yourself, healing and repairing by clearing you mind, breathing deeply and gaining new perspective. There are many different types of meditation; some practices use the aid of chanting and music, while other incorporates posing. All forms of meditation has the ability to change the way you think and view life, it is up to you to find a form that best fits your lifestyle.
Be Healthier
Food can either be your medicine or your poison. Processed foods filled with synthetic ingredients, unnatural dyes and chemical preservatives can wreak havoc on your mental and physical health. Abusing such an unhealthy diet can degrade your health and create a negative imbalance in your mind. Nevertheless, adopting a healthy diet filled with natural foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, water and unprocessed protein can balance your mental state and help you to view life more positively. Being healthier doesn’t just refer to the foods that you eat; you have to make an effort to exercise and practice proper hygiene and care for yourself. When you take the time to care for yourself, your confidence and self-worth will grow.
Have Faith
Holding on to hope and faith will give you the almost magical ability to get through every negative situation. When you have it in your mind that the situation that you are in will change for the better, then you will become resistant to negativity. There is hope for change in every situation in life, even if the statistics and results try to tell you otherwise. Ignore the possibility of negativity and have faith in the positivity.
Forgive And Let Go
Yesterday is gone, never to return, it is time to forgive and let go of the situations in your past that influenced your negative state of mind. It is of no use to hold on to the hurt and pain of yesterday, because you are not allowing yourself to be all that you can be today. For some, forgiving and letting go is as easy as saying the words “I forgive my past and I let go of my past” however, for others it may not be so easy. Forgiving may mean facing the situations and people that caused you pain and made you negative. Whatever you have to face from your past to help you stop thinking negatively, just do it. Tell yourself that you no longer want to carry the weight of negatively and that you are worthy of living a happy and positive life and just forgive, let go and begin your life of positive thinking.
Rid Yourself Of Emotional Vampires
Emotional vampires are negative people and situations; these vampires beat you up with their ugly words and depressing atmosphere and encourage you to do the same. In order to be positive you have to get rid of all sources of your negativity. If you are in an unhappy marriage, then fix it. If you are unhappy at work, find a new one and if you hate where you live, move. If really is just that simple, you just have to take the leap of faith, believe and take action.
Recite Affirmations
Reciting positive affirmations goes in line with meditation and faking it until it becomes true. Repeating thoughts of positivity will create an atmosphere of belief which is powerful enough to correct negative thinking. The affirmations that you wish to recite can be anything at you want in your life. For example, in times of both positivity and negativity you can recite affirmations such as “I am strong, I am confident” or “I am worthy, I am faithful”. When you are alone, you can recite your affirmations out loud; proclaiming it to the universe, when you are in the presence of others, you can close your eyes and recite to yourself, getting in touch with the inner you.
Succeed
When you succeed at something that you have been working on, your confidence will grow and when your confidence grows so will your thoughts of positivity. Create goals for yourself in areas of your life that bring you joy and work hard at achieving them; do not stop until you have succeeded, if one way doesn’t work, don’t quit, find new ways to succeed. Your goals can be anything that you deem important enough to pursue. For example, your goal can be to lose weight, finish a project, move out, eradicate debt or save more, whatever your goal; determine your plan of action and attack it until you succeed.
It is no secret that we live in a negative world. You see it every day on the news and in your community. The stories of sadness, hurt and anger. However, stories of positivity, bravery and selflessness do exists and those are what you should be focusing on in order to encourage your own positivity to grow. Negative thoughts can stop you from reaching your full potential, it can cause you to lose your family and friends and it can ruin your life. The atmosphere that you create for yourself is how the world will view you, so be sure to create an aura of positivity and lightness. No, I am not saying that if you think positively that all of life’s problems and issues will magically melt away, however, when you have a peaceful, positive mind, you will find that your problems and issues become easier to deal with.
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I just love this article- I really think it’s something that needs to be talked about more! I think women in general, but mom’s especially, are prone to getting down on themselves. There is just so much out there in the media telling us what we should be, and how we should act it can be easy to lose yourself under all the expectations (especially so when you’re a new Mom and everyone in the world thinks you should be doing things a certain way!). One thing that has really worked for me, and is mentioned here, is learning to value myself more. I actually do a call with a few other women once a month and one of the things we’ve decided to do (after a long conversation about things that weren’t going well in our lives) was to take time every week to do something for ourselves (because we deserve it!). And not only that, but we have to check in EVERY Friday and tell the others what we did that week JUST for ourselves- not for our spouse, not for our child- but something that we did for us alone. It’s really helped us to realize that we are a lot more valuable to the world than we sometimes think- I highly recommend others to do the same, you could even just do it with a friend once a week for a few minutes over the phone! It makes a world of difference!
Brilliant! I agree with Ainsley (previous comment). I see many parents who are getting down on themselves and have constant negative self talk going on. I used to do it all the time. Learning how to handle negative emotions and beliefs has been so empowering.
The sad thing is most parents are really doing a great job.
A trick I use and teach is thought swaps. Every time you spot a negative thought you simply swap it for something better feeling. Affirmations make good swaps too.
Best wishes mums everywhere x
Ha! This is so great. I just gave my students an assignment in my qigong class (with qigong, it’s all about maximizing chi and minimizing things that steal your chi). I asked them to write at the top of a piece of paper, “Thank you, God, that I’m _______ (broke, fat, unappreciate, etc.)” and list as many reasons as they could come up with why this is an advantage or benefit somehow then to do this with every complaint they could come up with. Eventually, it just becomes automatic. Thank you!