Negative thoughts are unfortunately ever-present in our daily lives. It’s probably easier said than done, but it is possible to better control your mind to protect it from dark thoughts and other anxiety-provoking thoughts. We repeat: it is possible, but complex, especially when these thought patterns are repeated, even automated, generating a tendency to always see things negatively on a daily basis.
“The mental load can become unbearable. Throughout the day, we receive millions of stimuli and experience millions of situations that can be very mild or very serious. As soon as we get out of bed, things come to us and without realizing it, we begin to make negative evaluations of these events. When this happens, all these destructive thoughts reinforce each other and overshadow the more favorable things that happen to us”, explains psychologist Adela Berrozpe, lecturer in psychology at UIC Barcelona, ??who describes this accumulation of negative thoughts as a “mountain of psychic waste”.
It is difficult to alter our assessment of reality or the constant negative anticipation that makes us worry and even suffer from things before they happen, but on the flip side, it is totally possible to work on a better management of these thoughts.
“We tend to repeat thought patterns and, therefore, feelings and behaviors. If there’s anything truly empowering about being human, it’s the ability to change. The person who enters this process is forced to feel, think and do something in a different way. On many occasions, we act according to established mechanical patterns and it is difficult to abandon them. It is necessary to work on the emotions and to let the person discover for themselves that they have the ability to leave these patterns behind and, in a way, to be reborn with new ideas or thoughts. We change through complete personal experience, not through a course or advice,” says Juan José López Jurado, psychologist at Mundopsicologos.
López Jurado explains that the interpretations we make of situations are the key to the creation of these negative, even obsessive thoughts. “Sometimes we find ourselves unable to objectively examine our mind’s interpretations,” notes the expert, who lists some of the mistakes that lead us to a pessimistic interpretation.
Perceiving reality in black and white.
- “If what we do is not perfect, we consider ourselves failures”, he says.
We filter reality
- “We dwell on a single negative detail and end up clouding our view of the facts or over-generalizing a single negative event makes us see patterns of defeat,” he says.
The twin thing
- That is, we maximize the importance of something, (a mistake, for example) or we reduce things to the extreme until they diminish them (like our qualities).
We punish ourselves by telling ourselves “we must” or “we should”.
- “The consequences are feelings of guilt. We feel anger or resentment when we direct these ‘duties’ to others,” says the expert.
Personalization of reality
- “We see ourselves as the cause of a negative external event that we are not not really responsible”, explains López Jurado.
López Jurado advises doing a routine exercise with these negative thoughts to eliminate them. It’s about noting how and when these thoughts arise and briefly describing how we experience them.
“This technique can help us ‘re-evaluate’ them : dwell on their irrationality, see them as an opportunity rather than a threat. Doing this re-evaluation is much more effective than trying to suppress the thoughts,” he says.
For clinical psychologist Brídiga H. Madsen, since when we only see the negative side of things, we miss the good sides, it is also advisable to balance our thoughts by becoming aware of the positive events that have occurred during of the day.
“It may be hard at first, but it will get easier and easier. And it will definitely help you feel better about yourself and the rest of the world,” she says.
Juan José Lopez Jurado adds, “Working with positive thoughts as a distraction seems to be useful in suppressing negative elements.”
Adela Berrozpe also encourages the power of our mind to work on this tendency to negativity and its ability to minimize mental burdens.
“We must be aware that, in the face of a stimulus, most of the evaluations and thoughts that this stimulus generates in us are of our own making and do not correspond precisely to the absolute truth. We always have the possibility of reviewing a same fact from other angles”. To do this, it is important to isolate these emotions and not mix up all the events that occur in our lives. It’s about learning to break down the facts that make up our daily lives. “Every thing that happens to us, every concern that we have is different, it generates different emotions and has different solutions, so we have to differentiate them clearly,” she continues. “There are two days in life when nothing can be done; one is yesterday and the other is tomorrow,” she concludes.
López Jurado’s reflection on toxic positivity is interesting, though, which has nothing to do with controlling negative and obsessive thoughts. As always, the virtue lies in the happy medium.
“We are currently undergoing a negative current for mental health and personal balance, it is what psychologist Barbara S. Held calls the tyranny of the positive”. She, and other important authors, indeed warn us against the dangers of psychology which would always want to be positive and optimistic. Because we actually have to prepare ourselves and develop the psychic strength to deal with negativity. We can make positive changes, but also accept the fact that the negative aspects of life will never really go away. It can help us to accept this, because by staying blindly positive all the time, we run the risk of an even bigger shock when things go really wrong.”
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