How to stop negative thinking
We all think all day long. Depending on the research you look at, we think between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day — with the majority of thoughts being repetitive and self-defeating.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
For millennia — or at least for as long as we have been thinking — there have been tools to overcome negative thought patterns.
Thinking is uniquely human and evolved when we began to have symbol systems, language, when we began to give specific designators to things. This evolution is mirrored in individual development as well. When children begin to grasp language, they also begin to understand persistence of objects, usually around the age of two.
Once we begin to use symbols for things, we can begin to think. We can now project into the past or future using these symbol systems. It is what makes us “time binders” as Count Korzybski called it.
Thought is never in the moment, it deals with past or future. Both are imagined. Neither is “real”. Our past only exists in our imagination, so does our future. We assign meaning to events based on that.
Thinking is very helpful when reviewing the past or planning for the future, or for solving logic problems, but otherwise, it can easily get in the way.
Many of us suffer from our thoughts — especially those repetitive and self-defeating ones.
We keep thinking about what we could have said or done in a past situation, or we worry about what could happen in the future. This can become torture and actually keep us from being present to whatever is in front of us in the moment.
But we don’t have to think, or be slaves to our thoughts.
There are three key elements I have come across in my own work and studying various transformational tools from across the world, that can help to alleviate negative thought patterns: identifying beyond thought, having a set point, and using replacements.
Identity beyond thought
The very first thing is to understand that you are not your thoughts.
“I think therefore I am” is a reduction of what it means to be human. Useful in distinguishing our form of life from plants and animals who seem to have some level of consciousness (chemical and space binders according to Korzybski), but they do not get lost in thought, since they lack the faculties to create symbol systems (not to say they cannot learn — as has been shown with teaching apes sign language — once they understood language, they also became more “human” in that they began to reflect on past events or anticipate future in different ways).
“I think therefore I am” was key to the age of enlightenment. It was supposed to define us as rational beings. It was soon turned into “beings capable of reason”, as the majority of human activity originates in the somatic system, body and emotions, and is precognitive, learned by mirroring the adults around us, rather than learned through conscious thought — which does explain why most human behavior seems so thoughtless.
Thinking is just one of multiple possible ways to interface with reality. Who we really are is that observer who experiences herself through those interfaces like our body, emotions and our mind. We are not them, but we experience ourselves through them. This is in many ways a primary underlying concept of many of the worlds esoteric traditions.
So, as a very first step it is important to understand that you are not your thoughts, but you experience yourself through thoughts.
Having a Set Point
To support you in realizing that knowing, you need to create times when you are not thinking.
Mindfulness has become quite popular, but it should really be called mind-emptiness, as it is about not thinking, about creating spaces in which you consciously suspend all that noise in your head.
This requires practice. It is natural for us to think all day long. To create a space, where for 10min, 20min, maybe even 30min or longer, you simply sit back and observe the thoughts that arise and let them pass by like clouds, allows you to create a new set point for yourself — if you don’t know what it feels like to not think, how could you otherwise know when you are thinking?
Fundamental to stopping negative thought patterns is to know what it feels like to not think at all. Learn to create a state of neutrality that you can come back to when you are finding yourself overwhelmed by thought.
Using Replacements
When you have that basic set point, you now also have the opportunity to “step outside” of your own thoughts.
Thinking is a linear processor, meaning, you can only think one thing at a time. While, when you vision, there might be multiple streams of information happening in the form of insights or images, when you think in words and sentences, you cannot think two thoughts at the same time (try it, if you don’t believe me, and prepare to amuse yourself).
What is great about this feature of thought is that you can replace thoughts. You can choose to focus on other thoughts rather than the negative ones that might be troubling you.
Since thoughts are repetitive, you can probably identify some of the thoughts and beliefs you suffer from that would fall into the category of negative thought patterns. Write a list of them. Then ask yourself “who said?” for each of them. You will realize that most of them have little to no actual foundation and that oftentimes we adopt thought patterns from mother, father, preacher, teacher that we never question. As a third step, you can now create new thoughts for each of the thoughts on your list to replace the ones that bug you. Find thoughts that you can equally embrace and that — while they might be a bit of a stretch — you can also accept as true. E.g. “the world is going to shit” has some merit, but so does “Our systems are in transformation, and life has always found a way to continue.” Or “I will never succeed” can be replaced with “I have had some successes in my life, and I can continue to learn.”
Every time you find yourself in negative thought patterns, take a step back to your set point, and choose to think one of your replacement thoughts.
If you want something more neutral, you can also use Mantras (simple statements) that you can repeat in your head over and over. This is the basis of a lot of meditation techniques (e.g. Transcendental Meditation). When you think that mantra, you cannot think anything else at the same time, and if you do that for a moment or two, you will find that you have actually dispelled the negative thought.
I used dispel here for a reason as thoughts do become our reality and every time you think a negative thought, it is indeed a spell, a magickal invocation — a good reason to be really mindful of your thoughts.
If Mantras are a little too esoteric for you, you can also use a simple trick a Shaman friend of mine taught me years ago: every time you inhale, say out loud in your head “I am the one inhaling”. When you exhale, say “I am the one exhaling.” Doing that now ties your thought to your breath, which does three things:
- You stop thinking negative thoughts as you cannot think anything else while speaking to yourself out loud in your head.
- By breathing consciously, you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which triggers you to relax.
- If you take a moment and wonder who this “I” is, who is inhaling and exhaling, you are reminded of the fact that you are not your thoughts, but that you are a being experiencing itself through thought — the identity question we started with.
When my friend taught me this trick, I started doing that in my meditations and soon realized how much easier it was for me to not think while sitting. I proudly shared that with her, and she just laughed and said “no, do it all the time”. So I started doing it all the time, in client meetings, in conversations, throughout the day. What I realized was that this was not distracting as I had feared, but instead allowed me to be way more attentive to the situation and my environment. I was actually listening to people instead of thinking about what I might want to say next, what this might mean, or reacting to it with negative thought patterns.
After practicing this for a while I found myself thinking mostly when I wanted to, not because I had to. It also helped me shift more quickly when negative thought patterns arose.
And you can do that, too.
As the Zen Master said: don’t be a slave to your thoughts, become their master.
Or as a friend of mine once sang in a beautifully whimsical and quirky song: “Don’t let your thoughts think you, think your thoughts”.
The future belongs to those who create it. That is why I serve as a culture catalyst and planetary strategist for visionary leaders. Through my work with LUMAN and other projects, I provide frameworks and operating metaphors to support leaders around the world in their individual evolution and in growing innovation capacity in their teams and organizations — all with the aim of a planetary society. I have worked with startups, NGOs and with global Fortune 500 organizations in a variety of industries around the world. More at http://philiphorvath.com.
