Seven ways to stop negative thoughts

Have you ever wondered how to overcome the onslaught of negative thoughts after a particularly bad or painful experience?

Me too.

Recently, I had a bad presentation.

During the presentation, my voice wobbled and I mumbled through most of the words.

Afterwards, I felt terrible and couldn’t even reach out to my teammates. I felt like I had let the team down.

Now, it wasn’t competition though it was an important presentation about our progress on a project.

And for the rest of that day, I moved around with a sour expression and kept reliving the cringe-worthy moments.

You can imagine that the day didn’t go so well after that.

Then last night, I was reading a blog  when I came across an interesting statement:

‘The average person has about 12,000 to 16,000 thoughts a day, 80% of which are negative thoughts and 95% are repetitive thoughts.’

Did you catch that?

Not 20%, 50% or even 70% but a full on 80%.

And the evidence was right there before me as I had spent most of the other day bemoaning my terrible presentation skills.

This got me thinking about the power of our thoughts and how our thoughts control our mental health.

How to stop the cycle of negative thinking 

The truth is that it’s so easy to lose ourselves in negative and pessimistic thoughts.

Our minds are quick to dwell on the things that didn’t go well, things that could have been better and things we failed to do. 

It would have been nice if these thoughts were opportunities to learn and do better.

Most times they are not.

They are moments when we bash ourselves and talk down on ourselves.

Let’s do a little exercise:

 

What were you thinking about just before you clicked on this post? Would you say your thoughts were positive or negative?

What about 2hours before?

Do you find that you’re often burdened with warring thoughts?

Perhaps you even find it hard to fall asleep because you keep reliving how bad your day, year or life is!

I know so many people who keep reliving past pains and regrets including broken relationships and financial mistakes.

These thoughts then clutter our minds making it impossible to make room for light and truth to dwell there.

And it gets worse.

The more we spend time on negative thinking, the more we reinforce our fears, and start to believe the lies we tell ourselves.

For instance, from dwelling on the bad presentation, I soon found myself doubting my skills, and believing that my team mates were disappointed in me.

I started interpreting their actions in light of what had happened. A frown meant they were annoyed with me and silence meant they hated me.

And each thought led to another and soon I was inundated with all my failings and what I “thought” people thought of me.

It’s funny now but it felt so real when I was dwelling on these thoughts.

What about you?

Have you ever found yourself in a cycle of negative thinking, where each thought seems to reinforce the one before making you spend even more time bemoaning your situation? 

You probably have.

Do you sometimes wish your mind would just quiet down?

Here are 7 things you can do to free yourself from harmful thoughts.

Seven steps to stop the cycle of negative thinking 

Before I list these seven steps, I would like to mention that this cycle of negative thinking is often caused by Internal and external expectations.

We often have these ideas of the kind of person we should be or the kind of person others expect us to be and when this doesn’t happen, it’s easy to beat ourselves up for not measuring up.

 

1. Acknowledge what’s going on

The first step is to acknowledge what you’re going through. We need to accept that we are going down the deep end and need to get ourselves out of the cycle of negative thinking.

 

2. Take a deep breath 

Breathe!

We often underestimate the power of taking a deep breath when we are agitated or worried. Studies show that taking a deep breath can reduce stress and blood pressure.

Taking a deep breath gives us a chance to calm down, it’s a way to clear the fog hanging over our minds in that moment.

I do agree that it is no silver bullet but it can go a long way to help you stop the cycle of negative thinking.

 

3. Ask for help

When I found myself struggling to get over my experience and the thoughts warring through my mind, I had to reach out for help.

I prayed.

I asked God to help me quiet my mind and its insistence to dwell on unhelpful thoughts.

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Hebrews 4:16

In addition to prayer, we can also reach out to trusted friends and mentors, though I would encourage you to allow God lead you on who you should share with.

4. Reframe the issues

Prayer centres us and allows us to look at issues with a new set of lens.

It allows us to reframe the issues.

We get to step back and look at the problem objectively.

In my case, the issue was with a less than adequate presentation. I also had to reframe the fact that a bad presentation didn’t make me a bad person or a failure.

I was also able to pinpoint the emotions coursing through me before, during and after the presentation.

This reframing stage is a time of self-awareness and self-love.

 

5. Shine light on your thoughts

Shame thrives in secret.

Our fears are amplified in the dark, and in those secret thoughts that we do not or cannot share with others. And this is why we need to be intentional about knowing ourselves better.

Being aware of your emotions and your penchant to think in certain (destructive) ways are important in order to be able to address the problem.

Here’s a scripture that puts this in perspective:

“But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you light.”

Ephesians 5:13-14

 

6. Learn from the experience

Our past experiences can be powerful tools in our growth and progress if channelled appropriately.

But as I mentioned before, we are often more likely to focus on the bad rather than the good that can come from the bad.

 

7. Live in truth

Living in truth is not a one-off exercise.

After all, you could say I should know better. That I should be able to arrest the negative and destructive thoughts. But that is easier said than done.

Living in God’s truth is a daily (hourly) exercise of faith and obedience.

It means feeding on God’s truth; what he says about you and not what you think the situation or experience dictates.

It is the truth and only the truth that can set us free.

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.”

Philippians 4:8