How To Stop Negative Thoughts

In this talk, we explore 5 steps to discover, remove and replace negative thoughts. What we listen to all day long affects us. Changing our thoughts can change our lives. So often we are completely unaware of how our thoughts effects our live.

(Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Negative thoughts,

Negative thinking,

They can be so damaging to our well-being,

To our sense of self,

To our happiness.

Where do they come from and how do we change them?

That's going to be the focus of this podcast.

I don't know if you've ever been to an antique car show or know anyone who has an old car.

But in the past,

The cars used to have radios in them and what you did is you turned this dial to tune into the specific station that you want to find.

Now because of pre-programming,

Most of us when we get into our cars,

If we even listen to the radio,

It's pre-programmed into our car.

However,

When we travel and if we didn't bring our player with us,

We sometimes have to find stations and the way we do that is we press a button and wait until the next station shows up.

And I'm using this analogy because our thoughts are much like a radio station.

It's what are we tuning into because whatever we tune into,

It's going to affect us.

So in the very literal concrete sense of this,

Over the years what I've seen is young people sometimes when they're very angry,

They love to listen to music that's very discordant,

Very harsh and critical of other people and in many ways reflecting what they're feeling inside.

The question we have to ask ourselves is are they angry so they're attracted towards their music or is the music adding to their anger?

Or let's go to the opposite extreme.

Let's say we go to a beautiful spa or a retreat center that's centered on relaxation and peace.

The type of music that we're going to find there is going to be beautiful,

Peaceful,

Calming and tranquil.

And so people tending to visit spas or meditation retreats tend to be in a more calm,

Peaceful place.

But again,

The question to ask ourselves is does the music affect them or are they attracted to the music because of where their heart's at?

So these are two concrete examples of how our external environment influences our internal environment.

But I like the analogy because it's like this with negative thinking.

What are we tuning into all day long?

What are the thoughts that we're giving energy towards in our head that we think about throughout the day?

Because whatever we're tuning into is going to impact us throughout the day.

So for the remainder of this talk,

I want to explore the five steps towards changing our negative thoughts into something far more beautiful and healthy for us.

The first thing we have to do is discover what are we listening to?

What channel are we exposing ourselves to throughout the day?

And that's through reflection.

That's through observation.

We pause throughout the day and say,

Hmm,

What am I thinking about?

What are the thoughts going through my head?

Perhaps meditation could be so helpful here because I just love meditation.

But what meditation does,

It allows us to focus on our breath and say,

Hmm,

When I'm breathing,

A lot of thoughts are still going through my head.

What are these thoughts?

And so what we do is we explore which channel are we listening to?

Something positive,

Uplifting,

Or something negative?

And we know through research of dealing with people that are depressed and angry that they listen to a lot of negative things throughout the day.

And that beats their depression or their anger.

So we have to start with awareness.

Awareness means,

What am I listening to right now?

That's the first step and it's a very important step because we can't change what we're listening to until we know what we're listening to.

And sometimes our negative thoughts are very irrational but we just think,

They're the truth.

So until we expose them,

We can't really challenge them.

And our thoughts are very tricky.

We could be one of the most beautiful people in the world.

We could make more than 90% of other people and feel ugly or feel poor based upon our thoughts.

They're often not based on reality.

They're based upon negative thinking.

But the only way we're going to change them is by first exposing the thoughts.

Well,

Once we discover what negative things we are thinking,

We have to ask ourselves and probably ask other people,

Are they true?

Because in our very narrow world,

They can seem true.

Again,

Let's use the example of going to college and we get a degree but we have a hard time finding our first job.

Our negative thinking can say,

I'm such a loser,

I can't even get a job,

What's wrong with me?

I'm going to fail throughout my life.

And other people would challenge that and say,

You did go to college and only 33% of people finish university so you're already above the average and it's only been six weeks.

Why are you being so hard on yourself?

Again,

Our thoughts have to be challenged.

That's the first step.

And truly,

Any negative thought can be challenged no matter who we compare ourselves to because negative thoughts are almost always about comparing.

They're comparing about our past where we used to be happier,

Where things used to go better.

We compare ourselves against other people,

How they're doing better than us.

We compare ourselves against what we expected to be right now.

I can't even tell you the number of people that are in their 30s or 40s that feel their failures even though they're doing extremely well because they thought they were going to do better at this point in their life than they did.

Probably one of the most extreme examples of this was when I was in graduate school at Princeton.

My professor told me he was counseling one of the students that was a doctoral candidate and even though he was at Princeton getting his PhD,

Which is probably something he could be proud of,

He literally felt he was a failure because he was turning 30 and he hadn't published a great work by this other person that he knew in his field that had lived in the past.

You may have heard of him,

Karl Barth.

But this man Karl Barth had published his major work before he was 30 and the student of my professors,

He was so depressed because he was turning 30 and hadn't done anything remotely as great as that.

And he was a failure.

He felt he was a loser.

Again,

We kind of laugh at that,

But that's what our negative thoughts do.

They need to be challenged because they're often very silly and anything can be challenged.

Again,

I like to use the example and it's a good one.

As long as one person on the planet is in our situation and doing well,

Then we can too.

And that's how we shift it.

We say,

You know,

I didn't work out the way I wanted them to.

I'm divorced now or I'm a single mom or I can't find a job,

Whatever it may be.

We can challenge these thoughts and say,

You know,

I can think negatively,

I can,

But then I'm going to feel horrible.

I would rather work on changing these thoughts and really start being a happier person.

And that's where part three comes in,

Changing our thoughts.

When we realize what the thoughts are and that they're silly,

We challenge them and say,

Okay,

This is not helpful.

This is not good for us.

There's nothing good going to come by me looking in the mirror and saying I'm ugly.

I mean,

That's just not kind.

And most of our negative thoughts are actually that not kind.

We would hate it if anyone said it to us,

But we can say it to ourselves all day long.

I'm telling you,

Saying it to ourselves all day long is just as bad.

We have to stop doing that because it's unhelpful and we're going to stay stuck.

So the way we change our thoughts is,

Again,

Challenge them and perhaps put something else in there,

Something positive,

Something neutral.

Again,

We may be having a negative thought of,

Say,

Looking in the mirror and not liking what we see.

So,

You know,

We're all going to age.

I'm just going to go out and enjoy my life and not look in mirrors as often.

When I do,

I'm going to say,

Well,

That's so bad for who I am.

And we just begin to challenge our thoughts.

Or,

If we see someone,

Again,

The comparison game,

If we see someone doing better than us,

The way we would challenge that is by stop comparing ourselves to other people.

The comparison game is a losing game.

We all lose at that game.

It is far better just to enjoy what's before us and do that.

And that's one of the secrets of changing our thoughts is that we get present with what is.

You see,

Our minds can actually only be on one thing at a time.

So when we have a negative thought,

We say,

Okay,

I get it.

I assume they think this is true.

But if I do this instead,

Perhaps go play with my dog or have dinner with a friend or read a good book,

I'm changing my thoughts because I'm not thinking that negative thought anymore.

And negative thoughts are just bad for us.

They're like poison.

They're like listening to a really bad radio station that we need to turn the dial and turn it into something far more positive and uplifting.

And that's where the fourth part comes in.

The fourth part is making sure our external world is reinforcing our positive internal world that we want to go towards.

Again,

Everything we watch,

Every conversation we participate in,

Everything we listen to matters.

It's like eating food.

What we eat absolutely matters.

What we expose ourselves to throughout the day matters.

If we're watching violence on television or in the movies,

If we're engaged in political talk that is negative,

If we're hanging out with people that are really critical and harsh,

All these things are going to impact us.

The music we listen to,

The podcasts that we listen to,

The YouTube videos that we watch,

They all matter.

People that do well surround themselves with very healthy and positive external stimuli because they realize that these external things get in and impact them.

So the way,

Step four,

The way we find to get rid of and eliminate our negative thoughts is by surrounding ourselves by things positive,

Beautiful,

And uplifting.

And I'm telling you it really works.

If you're ever around a person who's depressed or angry,

You're going to see the world as being dark.

If you see someone who's happy and doing well,

You're going to find that their world is very positive and beautiful.

Our external world really reflects our internal world.

And the cool thing is with time what we also will find is that we become very attracted towards positive uplifting things instead of negative things.

Again,

It's like eating well.

People that eat well really have a hard time eating poorly and people that eat poorly really have a hard time eating well.

Our thoughts work the exact same way.

If we get around a depressed person,

They're going to be challenged by doing something positive or exposing them to something uplifting.

But the same is true if we force ourselves initially to expose ourselves to things that are positive and really stay away from anything that's negative.

I know this may be hard to do because sometimes the negative things can be like candy.

It's like a YouTube video that's very dramatic and someone is doing something horrible to another person.

It's interesting.

It's engaging.

But it's negative.

And it would be far better for us to watch,

To listen to,

To engage in things that are positive,

Uplifting pretty much all the time.

It's almost like we have an allergy towards anything negative and we just stay away from it.

And the truth is what you'll find is people that truly are doing well in life,

That's exactly what they do.

They can't stand negative things and they stay away from them at any cost.

So if we can expose ourselves throughout the day to things that are uplifting and good for our soul,

What we'll find with time is our souls will begin to change and we will find greater happiness in our lives.

And then finally,

Step five is if we can work towards not having so many thoughts in our mind,

Either negative or positive,

But just be.

When we're in the state of being without any thoughts,

Life is just beautiful.

It goes so much better and we're just in the zone.

We're like living in the zone because we're not having these thoughts either negative or positive.

Now mind you,

Positive is far better than negative,

But ultimately we just want to be.

We just want to watch the sunsets.

We just want to listen to that beautiful symphony.

We just want to have that really engaging conversation that's uplifting with our dear friend.

That's what we want to work towards and that's what we want to do.

Mind you,

It is hard to do that,

But if we work at this,

We can find that our lives can be truly beautiful.

We just have to remember do the five steps.

First,

Discover what we're thinking.

What are our thoughts?

Second is challenging those thoughts and saying are they true?

Third is,

If they're negative,

Changing those thoughts and exposing ourselves to things far more positive.

Fourth is externally expose ourselves to positive uplifting things.

And then five is working towards having not so many thoughts in our head,

Either negative or positive,

But just work on being living in the present moment.

Again,

We can all have beautiful lives.

It takes work.

It takes effort,

But the rewards are a truly beautiful life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

I always love Dr. Puff's talks, and today helped me get through a tough moment. I ended up smiling and moving on quickly from that bad moment. Thank you ☀️🙏♥️

Thank you! I really needed that!

Always full of truth, spot on message

Thank you Dr. Robert, this is a most helpful talk and I am most grateful.

Thank you very much 🙏