How to I Stopped My Negative Thoughts

As long as I can remember I have had negative thoughts. Of course, we all have negative thoughts that pop up from time to time. For me, the negative thoughts were constant and at times debilitating. Negative thoughts ruled me for a long time. I was limited in what I could do or believed I could do. I wanted to find the way out of this dark mindset but was blocked by the negative thoughts themselves. Leaving my thoughts to run negative for so long led me to believe that this was just how life was going to be for me. In fact, I think I was a little obsessed with proving that my thoughts were right. For example, when I did attempt to prove my negative thoughts wrong but failed, I was sure it was because my initial thoughts were correct. This summer has been my most negative and I have been feeling my lowest. I decided I did not want to feel that way anymore.

This summer I wanted to figure myself out. I decided to read a lot of self-help books and some success books. Following the advice from the books I started to set up a routine in which I repeated a mantra to myself every morning. Every morning I look in the mirror and tell myself “Only good things happen to me” a few times over. I’ll be honest the first time I said this to myself it felt like a joke. My mind immediately came up with reasons why this was not true, still I said it each morning. Next, I read in a book that no matter what problems you perceived were in your way you must push through and have an “I don’t care” attitude about those beliefs. This attitude really helped me out. I think it helped me out because I did not have to try stopping the thoughts from coming. I simply needed not to care about them when they came to me.

Next, on my list was setting up a routine to meditate and journal. I decided to be honest in my journaling. Most times I held back in my journaling out of fear that someone from my family might ever find them and read them. This time I decided to pour my heart and soul, much like I am doing now with vocal and these pieces I write, and it felt very liberating. I read back my journal everyday, no matter how painful a day was for me, to try and understand why I felt the way I did. I have noticed that with everything I am doing now my negative thoughts are way less than they used to be. Each day I feel a little better and brighter. There are of course those days when everything goes wrong and I am tempted to head back to my old ways but remember how much harder it was to live in the negative bubble.

Something new I have also added to my routine is meditation. I used to tell myself I could not meditate, my mind convinced me that the kind of person who could meditate was a smart person who was the opposite of myself. The few times I had tried I believed I was doing it wrong and I should just quit. This summer I pushed myself and started to meditate. I took my time and found a guided meditation that helped me get to that quiet place inside my mind. It took quite a few days and quite a few videos but I finally found it. The first times I meditated I was bombarded by negative thoughts telling me to quit because this wasn’t for me. It was very hard. But using the tools I have I pushed beyond my thoughts and now I meditate almost daily. I noticed that I freak out a lot less and am more calm. I’m not sure how meditation does this but I am thankful that it's doing something. So that is what I have been doing to combat my negative thoughts. I know if I can somehow dominate them I will be a much calmer and happier person. For now I am calmer and happier is probably on its way.