Negative thought streams happen to positive people. Venturing an educated guess, this is a big issue for many people. Arianna even coined a name for the critical inner voice. She says, “I call this voice the obnoxious roommate living in our head.” The great thing about negative thinking is that you can evict it.
Negative thinking can be boiled down to two groups: The first and perhaps most destructive are of the variety that barrage your thinking seemingly co-existing in your head with your goals, dreams, aspirations and everyday to do list. Sometimes you aren’t aware of them; they just cohabitate along your well-meaning intentions for yourself. The second category is the self-justified variety of complaints and observations. These are sourced from the idea that someone has done something to you. The someone is often yourself as you criticize yourself for anything you perceive as a mistake. The truth is no one can do anything to you without your permission.
3 Tips to Lose the Inner Critic:
1. Banish the past. Find your power to attract more of what you desire in the present moment. The past brings forward a backlash of old trash, shame and guilt that binds you to the past. Shame and guilt are a nasty projection of someone else’s trash placed on you without you doing anything shameful or deserving of guilt the vast majority of the time. Deciding to give the boot to the negativity will bring you a more conscious mindset of what is playing in the background. Once you are more self-aware, you can change it.
2. Re-frame. Shift your perspective. Here are three examples. First, with the negative thought and following with the re-frame. One: Those are the most gawdawful sunglasses I have ever seen/those are funny/the most interesting sunglasses or I can’t see myself choosing those sunglasses; Two: Oh my, that person is so ugly I wonder if they answer to Shrek/the Shrek movies are so endearing and adorable; Three: Calling yourself the dumbest person on the planet/the greatest good always comes after I make a blunder and learn about myself. Allow yourself to have fun with yourself and the negativity when it shows up. Much like you might try to humor the obnoxious roommate. Notice the shift of your perspective. When you realize how utterly annoying negative thinking is and nip it with re-framing, you make more room for thoughts that align with your true self.
3. Reconcile it. When any person or situation is really getting under your skin and generating much negativity in you, let it out. Productively get it out of your system. If you can’t speak it, write it, run it off or walk it off. Honestly tuning into the source of what is bothering you gives you a chance to reconcile it. Chances are the negativity in your head has less to do about your true internal chorus than simply being a matter of habit and you allowing it to exist.
As with everything worthwhile in life, practice gets you closer to perfect. Most of the thoughts we burden ourselves with aren’t worth the space they consume in our mind. Keep focused on the one goal: Restore and protect your vital energy. Freedom to choose your thoughts is your most powerful ally.
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