How many times during the course of one day, do you experience negative thoughts? I can say for myself, after considerable changes in my behavior and mind renewal, I am not dealing with an overwhelming amount of negative thoughts. But….prior to these changes, I would estimate most of my day was filled with fearful, negative thoughts. I think the time frame that I recall this being more of a problem, was during my separation and divorce and a few years following those events.
The events and activities that become a daily diet in our lives, can definitely influence the kinds of thoughts we entertain. I found in my own experience, that fear was a driving factor that fueled my thoughts. I was afraid I couldn’t parent my children (3 ages 8 months, 3.5 and 7 yrs old) alone, I was afraid I couldn’t finish my education, I was afraid I couldn’t financially support my children, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the strength to endure all the hardship I was facing; just all the unknown for my future had me very fearful! During this time, my mom was diagnosed with a fatal disease…Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I was trying to help my dad care for my mom while carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It was so stressful and overwhelming that my mind was fertile soil for negativity.
You don’t have to be going through a crisis to experience negative thoughts. Encountering frustrating situations at home, work, and other activities can stimulate thoughts that begin with worry and move more and more toward fearful, negative thoughts. Many times there will be a negative thought that we begin to build a scenario around that NEVER actually happens. I’ll give you an example: You’ve had a negative encounter with a co-worker and it was such that you thought you needed to address it privately with them. So, in preparing to speak with this person, you begin rehearsing what you will say to them. After you’ve settled on what you will say, you begin to hypothesize about the other person’s reaction. You go through all kinds of scenarios in your mind, based on what you already know about this person, their personality and experiences you’ve had in the past with them. Before you know it, you’ve run the gamut of possibilities that include reactions anywhere from accepting graciously to them rejecting violently to your comments and attacking you personally!
I’ve actually done this many times…rehearsed what I would say and how the person would react. I can tell you that any time I’ve contemplated a negative scenario, it NEVER happened and certainly didn’t happen HOW I thought it would. But the point here is that I entertained A LOT of negative thoughts, scenarios and emotions only to find it was a total waste of time! All those times, I was robbed. The negativity robbed me of time, energy and emotions. I felt drained after all those mental gymnastics. And more importantly, the time I was robbed of, I could have been using to do something much more productive! It was time I never recovered!! I was robbed!
Do realize that your negative thoughts can affect your relationships? Because we generally talk about what we think about, people will tire of hearing your negative chatter. People enjoy being around others that are positive, uplifting and encouraging. Very few people enjoy negative conversations. There are some that will entertain negativity if you are agreeing and promoting something that they are upset about and they are engaging in negativity as well. But most people avoid others that have allowed negativity to dominate their thoughts and conversations. Robbed again!
Negativity will limit your opportunities. If you are in the habit of thinking negatively and speaking negatively, you will become negative. Your natural state will gravitate toward negativity. So when you’re in that important interview for a job or promotion, guess what will slip out of your mouth? When institutions are searching for individuals to award citations, recognition and opportunity, a negative person will not be considered! When the corporation is engaged in team building, if you’re a Negative Nancy, I can assure you, you will be the last to be selected for a team! Once again Robbed!
If you want to live a peaceful life and truly feel contentment in every area of your life, then keep negative thoughts at bay! Negative thoughts, speech and actions motivated by them will always influence decisions. Your wisdom, ability to rationalize, and sort through facts will be hindered by negativity. If you allow negativity to invade your space and become a constant, you are already influenced in a particular way. When you attempt to sort through facts, evaluate circumstances, etc. you are not doing so from an impartial position. You have already taken a position, one that is highly negative. Negativity will prevent you making your best decisions. Robbed again!
Negative thoughts, or any kind of thought is always followed by speech that aligns with that thought. So if we are entertaining lots of negative thoughts, we will also be speaking lots of negative words. What almost always follows our speech is action. All actions begin with thought. We don’t do anything that doesn’t first begin with a thought. If we plan to shop for groceries, we think about that. After that thought, we picture the store, we go through the pantry and make a list, we make a plan to go (what time) and at some point we tell someone we are going, even if it’s just ourselves. After we’ve thought about going to the store and spoke about going…we act, we go! Thoughts are just the beginning point for ALL actions. So my title “Negative Thoughts Will Rob You of Everything” if a valid statement because negativity is a Robber!
Can you help that you have negative thoughts? Not completely, but you can certainly do things that will reduce how often you have them and the amount of negative thoughts. You can also control how long they remain in your mind. Allow me to make some suggestions about how to get rid of negative thoughts when they come and how to limit them altogether.
Monitor what you allow in your “Sense Gates”. This means don’t allow your eyes to view negative, scary, fearful movies, tv series, videos, etc. What you perceive with your eye becomes a direct link to your mind and what it thinks. Don’t listen to authors, podcasts, and radio that is primarily negative, fearful programming. Watching and listening to scary movies will at some point cause bad dreams and a rehearsal of certain scenes at later times. Fear is negative. Monitor your “Sense Gates”.
Limit your exposure to negative people. If some of these happen to be family or close family relationships, you must still limit your exposure. Erect boundaries. Don’t allow people with negative mindsets to cross those boundaries. Once you have established this, after a time, they will begin to notice you are not allowing them in your space for very long.
Stop ALL negative “Self-Talk”. This is the talking you do all day in your head. It is the talk you express verbally when you are alone. Everyone engages in “Self-Talk” all day long. When you notice it going in a negative direction. Stop. Say out loud the opposite of that talk. Use “Replacement Thinking” replace that thought with a positive thought.
You can’t always control a negative thought coming, but you can control how long it stays. Once you experience a negative thought, do the same as #3. Once you’ve done this for several days, you will quickly notice how often you are having these thoughts and will more quickly react to them. You will even get to the point that you don’t allow that thought to be completed…you will interrupt it and put it to an end.
Practice Grateful living! Make a point to journal everyday, morning, evening or both and write down what you are thankful for. What good things happened to you today. Begin to say these things out loud as you shower, drive the car, cook, etc. It will become a habit that will eventually influence your thought life!
In addition to these five things, I use my time in the early morning hours to meditate, pray and engage in Bible study. These things greatly add to my ability to renew my mind and control my thoughts...it's a daily detoxing of my mind! In order for you to live you best life everyday and achieve all you want, get control of your negative thoughts. Make a point to practice mind renewal everyday! You’ll never be robbed again due to negativity!
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