Breaking Through Bad Thoughts
Have you ever had a fearful thought that began to spiral then suddenly gripped you leaving you fear stricken or debilitated with anxiety?
Or maybe you started with a simple concern or worry in your mind, and before you know it you have a full blown worse case scenario complete with a beginning, middle climax, and unhappy ending.
One of my favorite authors Brene Brown calls this a SFD or a sh*tty first draft.
This is the story we tell ourselves when we allow fear and anxiety to grip our minds.
Have you ever truly written down a SFD maybe when you were journaling or processing through a scenario in your life. Read it outloud. Sounds kinda silly right? How many times has this worst possible scenario come to fruition? Almost never.
Furthermore, what we fix our energy and attention on will grow. If we are feeding our thoughts to negativity and yes, even the reality of the situation, unfortunate outcomes will inevitably grow.
On the contrary, when we take back the power and control over our minds and BREAK THROUGH these bad thoughts, we can use these situations to empower us and bring about positive change in our lives.
These negative thought patterns are something I have struggled with and left me disempowered and with physical symptoms. Everyone has the power to overcome ANY negative circumstance in their life through the innate power they possess in their mind. However, most do not experience breakthroughs because they spend their limited brain power on feeding into negative thoughts which only attract, and bring them closer to negative outcomes. What you think about, you bring about.
In case you’re a special kind of human that never experiences negative thought patterns I will give you a few examples of what the rest of us sometimes encounter.. If we are struggling with a chronic physical or mental illness it is common on our worst days to assume this is just my life, I better get used to living with these symptoms instead of generating positive thinking to uncover alternative solutions or answers for their health they have not yet discovered. Or maybe we haven’t heard from a friend in awhile and we are creating this story in our minds about how this person is mad at us or doesn’t care about the relationship which could feed negativity to a perfectly intact friendship. By the time we do hear from or encounter this friend we have a negative predisposition towards this person that invokes tension. Lastly, we have probably all had a financial worry at some point in our abundance path. Instead of focusing on gratitude for all the ways we’re currently blessed which feeds our creativity to generate even more abundance, we spiral into worry and negative thinking. This further lowers our energy and the mental stress and worry can begin to elicit a cortisol response within our body and begin to alter our blood chemistry, making us sick.
This is the most important point I want to make here. Our thoughts control the chemistry of our blood. The chemistry of our blood determines not only our physical health but our mental health as well. If we can reprogram our thinking, we can reprogram how our bodies ultimately function and feel.
So how do we break through these bad thought patterns when they begin to spiral and captivate us into a panic?
Our mind is constantly working even when we’re asleep. Essentially, there are two main mental pathways our thoughts are running through at any given time..
Mental path 1 is the easy path or brains prefer to take. This path takes no thought energy and operates out of the hypnotic rhythm we have thus far installed into our brains. This is the path of least resistance for our minds and is now we are thinking 90% of the time, unconsciously.
Mental path 2 is our conscious thinking mind, this path can be uncomfortable for us as we’re reprogramming our thought patterns. This is the part of the mind that consciously evaluates the way we’re thinking, reacting, and handling a situation. We must begin to spend more time in this mental path to positively reprogram mental path 1.
We’re all on a journey to our highest self and healthiest state of mind. Just when we think we have finally “arrived” we catch ourselves having a deconstructive thought laced with negativity and ego. Just when we think we’re out of the woods and have landed permanently on the path of positive healing thoughts, another panic attack sneaks back up on us. It is a never ending process, one that as long as we continue to work at, we will continue to win in over and over again.
Let me help you out of the fear and into healing for anxious thoughts with the following three steps:
Complete the thought- just as we talked about that SFD (sh*tty first draft), this is where you complete and verbalize out loud or write down the fear you are having.. “If I don’t meet this deadline I will lose my job, lose my paycheck, lose my house, lose my family, then be living alone under a bridge. Or maybe it sounds more like “I am never going to heal, I am always going to be living with these autoimmune symptoms, my best days are behind me, and I have nothing to look forward to in life.” Did these statements sound a little wonky to you? That is because they are, but this is how we think subconsciously until we expose our dark thoughts to the light and examine them for what they really are! Write down or record yourself completing the story inside your head. Then read it back to yourself and consider the validity, or have a friend read it back to you, how would you respond to them? I remember thinking this way about my autoimmune disease and the miserable state of suffering I was once in. Then when I began to think out loud I really heard myself and thought, “you know what, if other people can overcome cancer I can overcome this beast in my body” and you know what, I DID!
Condition the thought- After you have exposed your SFD to the light, begin to condition the thought by rewriting the script. “I am going to meet the deadline early and with EXCELLENCE. I work incredibly well under pressure and I can do whatever I set my mind to. I have all day today and tomorrow morning to complete this project. I can feel how satisfied I will be when I turn in my work now. I am a master at managing my time and will complete the work by tomorrow at 10 A.M.” Just stopping to rework the panic and negativity into a positive game plan will completely change the energy in your mind and release you from the grips of fear. This will allow you to begin to think more creatively, with more positivity, and bring you closer to the desired outcome you really want. I used this approach to fuel the desire to heal my autoimmune disease. I remember thinking “I still have breath in my lungs and I will continue to seek information and new methods until I am healed, and I WILL BE HEALED.” I have no doubt in my mind that had I stayed in negativity I never would have risen above my circumstances and proven the doctors wrong that said I would live with the disease forever.
Take Action to demonstrate command to your mind. What you just said you’re going to do to create change in your thinking, now go do the first step, even if it is a tiny step. This may look like writing down positive affirmations before you can make a first action step. You will not feel like doing it, I promise. You still have the old negative programming running it’s tapes until you fill the tape with a new script, and this takes time. So just do the next best thing, start working for ten minutes on the project. Reach out to someone who has been in your shoes only to rise above. DO SOMETHING immediately and do not think twice about it. This will create the momentum for you to create change in your thought pattern.
Think of the worry in the back of your mind right now, and then take yourself mentally through these steps. You feel more at ease already huh?
This method is tried and true and works like charm to break through those bad thoughts that leave us spiraling inside our minds and creating an environment for disease within the body.
Even if you do not have the solution immediately, staying in an elevated state of mind and not succumbing to the fear monster or internal villains will keep your brain relaxed & in a optimal hormonal state to receive the inspiration when it comes.
Stay well friends!
