When I think about how destructive the cycle of negative thinking can be, one particular story comes to mind.
It happened a couple of years ago.
I had just had a bad presentation. While speaking I felt my voice go wobbly and i mumbled through most of the words. I forgot most of the things I had planned to say and stopped way earlier than the time allotted. To say I was mortified would be an understatement. I was so ashamed and couldn’t believe what had just happened. I had been one of the people representing my team project and I felt like I had let the team down.
After the call, I felt terrible and couldn’t even reach out to my teammates.
Now, it wasn’t competition just a presentation about our progress on a project.
But for the rest of that day, I moved around with a dour expression and kept reliving the cringe-worthy moments. You can imagine that the rest of my day didn’t go so well after that.
My thoughts spiralled and I started labelling myself as a poor presenter, as someone who couldn’t string two sentences together.
It took a stark look at my actions a few days later to realise that I had allowed one singular event to spoil the rest of my week.
Have you ever experienced something like this?
After my experience, I started reading about negative thinking, and I came across an interesting research that showed:
About 75% of our thinking time is spent on negative thoughts.
Did you catch that?
Not 20%, 30% or even 50% but a full on 75%. That’s 45,000 negative thoughts a day
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 back to the power of our thoughts and how our thoughts control our mental health.
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 their 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 thoughts, 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 teammates were disappointed in me.
I started interpreting their actions considering 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 back then.
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 ..
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.
4. Reframe the Issues
The prayer helped to centre me and allowed me to look at the situation objectively.
I knew I had to reframe the issues. In this instance, the issue was with inadequate presentation skills. 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 time for self-awareness and self-love.
5. Shine Light on your Thoughts
Shame thrives in secret.
Our fears are amplified in the dark, in those secret thoughts that we do not and 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 is important to enable you address the problem.
6. Learn from that 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.
We must be intentional about taking the lessons from our past experiences and ignoring the rest, if not, we may find ourselves back in that cycle of guilt and shame.
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 about you, 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.
Leave a Reply