You will never stop negative thoughts from popping up. Or negative feelings.
It’s just part of being human.
But you can (1) change your relationship with your thoughts, (2) rewire thought patterns, and (3) embrace the non-negotiable reality that you will always be a human with negative thoughts and emotions.
All of which will change what your life feels like and looks like for the better.
▫️Changing Your Relationship With Your Thoughts▫️
Often we don’t even know what’s going on in our own heads.
And even when we do, we often take our thoughts at face value.
And then we shame ourselves for the way we are thinking, how those thoughts makes us feel, and how we are showing up.
Changing your relationship with your thoughts involves:
(1) engaging in mindfulness to create awareness about what is going on in your head and separating yourself from your thoughts; and
(2) questioning your thoughts and recognizing them for what they are - just thoughts.
▫️Rewiring▫️
Many of our negative thoughts are part of longstanding thought patterns that we learned along the way to adulthood. Beliefs we picked up early on that have become habitual and just happen on repeat. Even when they aren’t serving us.
You can pick them up from a million different places - your caregivers, your religion, the media you consumed, your teachers, your friends, strangers, etc.
Rewiring involves changing your relationship to your thoughts and then actively choosing to think differently to create new neural pathways.
▫️Embracing Your Humanity▫️
Embracing your humanity requires approaching yourself and both of the above with non-judgmental compassion and accepting that the human experience will always include negative thoughts and feelings.
This involves changing the way that you think about and talk to yourself. The way you think about and treat your emotions.
A ❤️ note to you: This is what coaching with me is all about. Having an objective, non-judgmental person to help you uncover what you are currently thinking, how it is impacting you, how to navigate that, how to rewire your brain, how to change the way you treat yourself, and how to accept that you’re going to be a human with all its glorious messiness no matter what you do. To get started, send me an email (jenn@jenndealcoaching.com) or sign up for a free call with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult.
