How To Stop Negative Thoughts And The Spiral Of Negativity

In this talk, I share some powerful techniques to stop negative thoughts and replace them with more empowering ones.

We create our reality with our thoughts, so when you learn to minimize thoughts that are not serving you and your narrative becomes more empowering, you will be aligned and ready to manifest the abundance, love, and joy you deserve!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Positive Mindset Tribe,

A refreshing and empowering podcast on how to become a magnet for love,

Abundance and joy.

And as you've probably guessed,

It all starts with your mindset.

I am your host,

Veronica Moreno,

A mindset coach,

Therapist and energy healer.

And my mission is to share with you my most powerful tips,

Psychological tools and energy healing techniques so you can manifest the joyful,

Meaningful and successful life you deserve.

So,

Are you ready for your weekly dose of motivation,

Confidence and empowerment?

Let's get started!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to another episode of the Positive Mindset Tribe.

In this episode,

I'm going to be talking about a very popular topic,

Which is negative thoughts.

I'm going to be sharing with you what to do when we have a negative thought,

Which leads to another one and another one and then another one.

And the next thing we know,

We are caught in this terrible spiral of negativity and it seems impossible to snap out of it.

I'm sure this happened to you,

It's happened to me many,

Many,

Many times.

So I want to share some tips and tools with you to avoid getting caught in this spiral of negativity and how to minimize these thoughts.

So today I'm going to be covering why we have negative thoughts,

Why we have these negative thoughts in the first place.

I'm going to be talking about the importance,

How important it is for our mindset,

For our mental well-being to be aware of our thoughts,

To make an effort to become aware of our thoughts and to do something about them.

I'm going to be explaining how to avoid getting caught in this spiral of negativity,

Which once we get caught in it,

It seems like a trap and it seems impossible to get out of it.

But trust me,

It is possible to get out of it.

And I'm also going to be sharing some tips to minimize these negative thoughts and to train the mind.

The best way to deal with our thoughts is to train the mind.

So this is what's in for you for this episode.

So let's get started.

Right.

So why do we have negative thoughts in the first place?

Because some of you might be thinking,

I really don't understand why I have these negative thoughts.

They are useless.

They are harmful.

I don't see the point.

And yeah,

Negative thoughts can take the form of self-criticism.

We can be our worst enemies.

Right.

Sometimes we say things to ourselves or we have thoughts about ourselves that if we told them to someone else,

They would think we are so cruel.

We can be really,

Really harsh on ourselves.

Negative thoughts can also take the form of possible potential catastrophic events.

And this is very common as well.

So,

For example,

We have an extra expense once one month and that leads to thinking,

Oh,

My God,

Everything is so expensive now.

I don't have enough money to pay the bills.

What if I can't afford my mortgage?

What if I can't pay for my rent?

What if I end up starving to death?

Right.

So sometimes something like an extra expense that would be relatively easy to deal with can end up in such a negative thought as I'm going to starve to death.

And this is very common that one innocent thought ends up in a very catastrophic scenario.

Right.

We do that all the time.

And they might seem pointless,

Like what is the what is the point?

This is only hurting me.

But actually,

Negative thoughts of any form are here to protect us.

We don't have random thoughts.

They're always there for a reason.

So our negative thoughts might be old programs or limiting beliefs about ourselves that maybe we developed earlier in life to protect ourselves.

Maybe our negative thoughts sometimes can be thoughts inherited from family members,

From our parents,

School teachers,

Parental figures,

Society.

So but they always have a function.

They always there to protect ourselves.

They always have a purpose.

So for example,

If I'm telling myself,

You're not good enough for that job,

You're not smart enough.

Don't even bother applying for that job.

As annoying as it sounds,

Maybe what I'm doing with with those thoughts is to protect myself from being rejected or from or maybe I'm very nervous to go to an interview and I'm trying to protect myself from going through such a traumatic experience.

Maybe I'm protecting myself from being disappointment.

Maybe I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to do the work properly.

So I'm trying to to protect myself from from failure or from being fired.

It could be many different things.

It will be different things for different people.

Obviously,

Or in the case of catastrophic events,

For example,

When something triggers a series of catastrophic ideas or the worst possible scenarios that could happen in our life,

When these thoughts,

When our thoughts are driven by fear.

We are also trying to protect ourselves.

Maybe we're trying to protect ourselves from a painful event.

Sometimes it is our instinct to to survive,

Right,

To make sure that we have enough food in the fridge,

That we have shelter,

That we are not alone.

Right.

So sometimes fear can also be there to protect ourselves.

Now,

A bit of self-criticism is good,

Very healthy for self-improvement,

To keep growing,

You know,

To keep ourselves accountable,

To keep trying to be better people.

Right.

A bit of self-criticism is fine.

Fear to some extent as a natural reaction,

Which is inherent to humans,

Is the way we protect ourselves.

That's healthy.

That's fine.

Now,

The problem is when they become limiting.

So for example,

If I stop going to some activities that I know that I would really enjoy because I keep telling myself that people are going to laugh at me or the people are not going to like me,

Or if I don't follow my dreams,

If I don't follow my purpose because I think that I am not good enough,

Then,

Yeah,

I'm trying to protect myself from being hurt,

From being disappointed,

From failure,

Whatever.

But I am limiting myself.

I am not living my fullest potential.

And that is when it becomes a problem.

And that is when we need to do something about it.

So the first thing we need to do is to understand,

To become aware of what thoughts we have and we entertain.

It is very,

Very important that we become aware of these negative thoughts and know what to do with them.

So when we have a negative thought,

We have two options.

We can stop,

Understand where this thought is coming from and decide to do something about it.

Or we can entertain it and feed it.

And what do we normally do?

We feed it.

We entertain it because this is the habit,

The autopilot,

Right?

And where we put our attention,

Our energy follows.

And the more attention we give to a negative thought,

The more we entertain it,

The more we follow that chain of thoughts,

The more we feed it,

The stronger it is going to grow.

And if we knew the power our thoughts have,

Oh my God,

We would be so careful with what we think.

We wouldn't allow a single negative thought in our life if we understood the power our thoughts have.

Because same in our last episode or one of our last episodes,

I was talking about manifestation and setting intentions and how visualizing your goals and visualizing what you want to attract into your life will help you manifest it.

So it was all about repeat it in your head,

Visualize it with as many details as possible,

Really connect with that elevated emotion,

How you feel.

So the same idea,

Guess what?

When you are entertaining negative thoughts,

You are creating that reality.

The same principle applies.

So if by visualizing an event and connecting with that emotion,

You can attract it into your life when you give energy to a negative thought and you are in those low vibration emotions of fear,

Anger,

Frustration,

Guilt,

Whatever it is,

You are becoming in resonance with them.

And the more likely you will end up attracting those experiences into your life.

So the power of thoughts is not to be underestimated because we can create our own reality.

We do it.

We do it all the time,

Whether we are aware of it or not.

So it is kind of up to us to decide what type of thoughts we want to entertain,

We want to feed.

Because when we put our attention,

The energy follows.

And by feeding those negative thoughts,

Those possible scenarios that we think is just an innocent thought,

We are actually making them happen.

And our negative thoughts grow because we feed them.

Full stop.

They don't happen randomly.

If they're there and if they become strong,

If they become big,

It's because we are feeding them,

Because we are giving them our attention.

But we do have the choice.

And this is so important.

We are the ones who choose if we want to entertain and feed and grow a negative thought or if we want to stop it and do something about it.

Now,

I understand that this is not as easy as it sounds.

It's kind of simple,

Though.

But I understand that in practice,

It can be a bit tricky.

But don't worry,

Because I'm going to be sharing some tips with you.

So how do we do this?

How do we snap out of this spiral of negativity?

How do we avoid one negative thought becoming this series of catastrophic events,

Scenarios,

Or this really hard self-criticism?

Now,

I know this is easier said than done,

Especially when we have had one negative thought and we have taken the bait and the spiral of negativity starts.

And then you think,

How did I even get here?

And now how do I get out of it?

So this will require practice,

Because the spiral of negativity,

We get caught in the spiral of negativity,

Normally it's because it's a habit.

It normally happens in autopilot mode.

So first,

We need first the awareness to be aware of these thoughts,

And second,

The willpower to stop and react differently.

So two very important,

Two key points.

Awareness,

Become aware of the thoughts,

Be able to be an observer of these thoughts.

And second,

Instead of engaging with them,

Decide to stop and react differently.

So let's start with awareness.

Becoming aware of our negative thoughts is the first step,

Because sometimes we can get caught in the spiral of negativity without even realizing.

And you ask yourself,

How on earth did I get here?

So from now on,

My invitation is for you to spend some time reflecting about the type of thoughts you have in a day,

Like average thoughts,

I don't know,

Recurring thoughts that you have every day,

Every week,

What type of negative thoughts are more common.

And keep a journal about your thoughts.

And especially as soon as you spot a negative thought,

Write it down.

And that way you will feel that you are in control.

It is much easier to feel that you are in control of your thoughts when you write them down or even when you say them out loud or when you talk about them to someone else,

That when they are just in your mind,

When they are just in your mind,

They can feel like a big monster we can't control.

And when does this happen normally?

At night,

When you are lying down on bed and you want to sleep,

But you can't,

And you have a negative thought and then you entertain it and it seems like it just can't stop and it's all in your mind and it feels like such a big monster.

And then eventually you go to sleep and the day after you think about it,

You journal about it or you share it with your partner or your best friend,

Whatever.

And once you've said it,

Once you've talked about it,

You think,

It actually wasn't that bad.

It wasn't such a big problem.

It's just that sometimes when you're alone with your thoughts,

They can feel like this big monster that it's impossible to control.

So write them down,

Say them out loud,

Share them with someone.

Be very,

Very mindful about what thoughts come to mind,

Especially before bed or when you start the day,

Right?

Because that will have a huge impact on your mindset.

The first thoughts you have when you wake up,

Do you wake up thinking,

Oh my God,

Another terrible day.

I can't be bothered to go to work.

I hate my work.

I hate my life.

Or before going to bed,

You know,

What are the thoughts that you have before going to bed and become aware of them?

Now,

No judgment and no criticism about these thoughts.

Just an observer.

Just be an observer.

Just become aware of them.

Pay attention to them.

Just observing.

Right.

So first step,

Awareness.

The second step,

Once we are aware that we have had a negative thought,

Then we can take two routes,

Right?

Feed it or avoid it or do something about it.

And we all have negative thoughts sometimes.

This is normal,

Right?

So it is not about eliminating all negative thoughts because that will be a real challenge.

And if you manage to do this,

Please contact me and let me know how you've done it because you're a real hero.

It is not about eliminating all negative thoughts.

It is about knowing what to do with them.

It is about knowing how to react to them.

Right?

It is about how we react to these thoughts,

Not about trying to eliminate all negative thoughts from our mind.

So next time you have a negative thought,

First of all,

Like I said,

Don't judge it.

Feed yourself with compassion and kindness always,

Always.

And ask yourself,

Right,

If I feed this thought,

This negative thought,

Where is this going to take me?

And see what will happen if you continued this line of thoughts.

Where is this going to take me?

Does this serve me?

Is this serving me?

Is this in my highest interest to go down this path?

And also ask yourself,

Where does this thought come from?

Or who used to think like this?

And what is this thought trying to protect me from?

What is this thought trying to achieve?

Because all negative thoughts have a purpose.

All of them.

They are not random.

We don't have random thoughts.

They're always there for a reason,

A very specific reason.

Even if we might not understand it at the beginning,

They're always there for a reason.

They're not random.

And when we understand the purpose of the thoughts we have,

We can meet those needs in a different and healthier way.

So for example,

Imagine I'm very worried about my health and I can't sleep at night thinking that I might get ill,

That something's going to happen to me and I'm really worried.

And this fear is becoming very limiting because I can't sleep,

I can't work.

It's always in the back of my mind,

Right?

And I keep having negative thoughts about how many terrible things can happen to me,

Right?

So then I can ask myself,

As soon as I spot the first negative thought about my health,

I can stop and ask myself,

Right,

What are these thoughts trying to protect me from?

And I think,

Okay,

So these thoughts want me to be healthy,

Obviously,

To not get sick.

But instead of entertaining those thoughts and focusing on the worst possible scenarios,

I could make a plan to have a healthy diet,

To change my habits,

To exercise more,

To spend more time in nature,

Maybe to take some natural supplements to have optimal health.

And then if I know that I'm doing everything I can to be healthy and to take care of myself,

Then I don't need to entertain those negative thoughts.

I don't need to feed those terrible potential maybe they will happen scenarios,

Right?

So if we know the purpose of the thought or what the thought is trying to protect us from,

We can do something about it so we no longer need this thought.

And they will go on their own because they're there for a reason.

And once they no longer have a purpose,

They're not needed.

So they're not going to come back,

Right?

So awareness and deciding what to do about these thoughts.

And remember,

We are more powerful than we think,

And it is our choice.

It is our choice to decide what to do with our thoughts.

Now,

Even though I said that it is impossible to eliminate all negative thoughts,

It's true that we can minimize them.

We can try to minimize them,

Right?

So one line of work would be,

Right,

Okay,

So every time I have a negative thought,

Instead of getting caught in it and entertain it and feed it,

I'm going to become aware of it and react in a different way.

But inevitably,

We are still going to have negative thoughts.

But it is true that many negative thoughts we could avoid in the first place.

We can minimize them.

And here are some tips about how to minimize negative thoughts in the first place.

So the main thing,

Avoid the news,

TV and or social media.

They are all about fear,

Anger and separation.

Low vibration,

Very low frequency.

And they're not going to have a positive impact on your mindset.

And they will very,

Very likely trigger negative thoughts.

They will trigger feelings of fear,

Of anger,

Frustration.

So avoid it at all costs.

Actually,

They are pretty much designed for that,

To keep us in control,

You know,

To instigate fear and anger,

To keep us in control,

To keep us angry,

To keep us distracted from our life purpose.

So this is something to avoid at all costs.

And one of the main triggers of negative thoughts,

In my experience.

Another thing is,

Pay attention to the people you spend time with,

Because thoughts are contagious.

And same as when you spend time with someone who has like really bright energy,

Who is fresh,

Who is full of life,

And you feel energized,

Happier just by being next to them.

Well,

Same thing,

If you spend a lot of time listening to someone who's very negative,

Someone who's always sharing negative thoughts,

Very likely that's either going to trigger negative thoughts in you,

Or you will end up absorbing their negative thoughts.

So I understand that sometimes our family members can be complicated,

And we don't choose them or sometimes we have to deal with negative people at work,

And we cannot just ignore them.

But again,

Be very aware of it,

Of what people you are surrounding yourself with.

And if you can avoid negative people,

Great.

If you can't avoid them,

Maybe you need to set boundaries,

Or maybe you need to protect yourself energetically so that negativity,

So those negative thoughts don't get to you.

Because this again is a big trigger and a big factor,

Right?

Right,

And the last tip I'm going to share with you is,

I think I've said before in some other episodes,

That one of my favourite tools for pretty much everything is meditation.

So I said before in this episode that one of the most important things is to be aware of those,

Of the thoughts we have,

Right?

And stop and reflect on where they come from before we react,

Before we feed them and get caught in the spiral of negativity.

And for this,

We need to train our mind to be able to do this.

Remember I said before,

You're going to need practice.

You're going to need to train your mind to be able to do this.

And one of my favourite tools to do this is meditation.

And I mean,

Same as we know that to train the body,

To train the muscles in the body,

We have to go to the gym and we have to exercise,

Right?

We tend to forget to train one of the most important parts of our body,

Which is the brain,

Right?

The mind can be trained,

The brain can be trained.

Like you train your muscles in the gym.

And in my opinion,

In my experience,

The best way to train the mind is with meditation.

Sorry,

With meditation.

Because meditation is all about being aware of our thoughts.

That's how I would define meditation,

As being aware.

It's not about leaving the mind blank.

Because unless you're a monk and have lived in a cave for the last 10 years,

It is pretty much impossible that you're going to be able to leave your mind completely blank.

So for me,

Meditation is about awareness,

It's about being aware of what's going on,

Not getting caught in it,

Not reacting without control.

It's about being aware,

About being an observer,

About being able to observe with detachment,

Without getting involved,

Without reacting.

That way,

When you train your mind,

As soon as you identify a negative thought,

You have the power to stop it.

Because you have trained your mind to become aware of your thoughts,

To not feed them.

The monkey mind is one of our worst enemies.

So dangerous.

All that chatter,

Blah blah blah blah blah,

That just won't stop.

And it won't stop unless you train your mind to be quiet.

And for me,

Meditation is the best tool to train the mind.

It is one of my favourite tools,

Like,

Ever.

For pretty much everything.

I have a YouTube channel full of guided meditations that you can go and have a look at for different purposes.

But for the purpose of training the mind,

And to be able to not get caught in the negative thoughts,

To be able to be in control of our thoughts,

To be able to be an observer and to decide what to do with them,

It doesn't need to be anything complicated.

You need literally five minutes.

You just need to sit in a quiet place,

Set a timer for five minutes,

Close your eyes,

And during those five minutes,

Just bring your awareness to your breath.

If any thoughts come to mind,

Let them go,

Visualize them disappearing like clouds in the sky.

Let them come and go,

Come and go.

Just don't engage with them.

Bring your awareness to your breath.

Air in,

Air out.

Inhaling,

Exhaling.

Just bring the awareness to the breath,

Feel it coming in through your nose,

Going all the way down to your lungs.

And again,

If thoughts come in,

Just let them go.

We're not trying to eliminate them.

We're not trying to leave the mind blank.

That's impossible and it leads to a lot of frustration.

It is just about being aware of them.

And you will notice that if you do it the first time,

Three,

Even three minutes,

Might feel like a lifetime.

I remember when I started,

The first time I ever tried meditation,

I think I did three minutes and I just did that.

I set a timer for three minutes,

Sat down,

Closed my eyes,

Then there I was,

My monkey mind,

It was like having ten voices at the same time,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Nonstop.

And I thought the timer was not working because I thought,

Oh my God,

I think I've been here for half an hour.

Yeah,

Three minutes.

The timer was definitely working.

It went off after three minutes and it felt like a lifetime.

It felt very,

Very long.

And what I did was I started with a few minutes,

Then five,

Then 10,

Then 15,

And then you can increase it as much as you like or do other guided meditations or other techniques.

But if you do this five minutes every day,

It's going to make a huge difference in your mindset,

It's going to make a huge difference in your ability to be able to control the negative thoughts.

Not to control them as in eliminating them,

But to be able to be aware of them,

Observe them and not react and not get engaged with them.

So that is the last tool I wanted to share with you.

So just to recap before we finish.

First of all,

Understand that all negative thoughts are there for a reason,

Normally to protect ourselves,

Sometimes inherited from other people,

But they are not random.

They're always there for a reason.

So one of the most important things to do to become aware of them,

Of our negative thoughts,

Understand where they come from,

What their purpose is,

With compassion and kindness,

No judgment.

And then when we are aware of them,

We can decide what to do,

Because maybe it's a limiting belief and we need to go deeper into understanding what this comes from.

Maybe we need to do some deeper healing.

Maybe it's a recurring topic and we need to do some inner work around it,

Right?

To stop the spiral of negativity,

One of the best tools you can use is train your mind with meditation,

Because otherwise it's very,

Very easy to just get caught in the monkey mind.

And yeah,

Same as you train your muscles in the gym.

If you want to have a healthy,

Positive mindset,

Training your mind is so,

So,

So important.

Okay,

My loves,

So that's all from me today.

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

And if you're enjoying this podcast,

Please subscribe,

Give it a good review,

And please,

Please,

Please share it with your friends,

With your loved ones,

Invite people to join the Positive Mindset Tribe.

I will leave,

As always,

A link to my website and to my YouTube channel,

Since I mentioned all those guided meditations.

I'm going to share that in the description,

In the show notes,

For those of you who want to find out more about my background,

The work I do.

The topic of negative thoughts is something that comes up so much in my one-on-one sessions,

So common.

So if you need a bit of extra help with this,

If you would like some guidance and support around this topic,

Feel free to book a free consultation and learn more about what I do in my sessions.

And of course,

Feel free to reach out with any questions and also any suggestions of topics that you would like me to cover in future episodes.

I'm always open to suggestions,

And I listen to you,

And I cover them in the content,

So please reach out.

Okay,

My loves,

Sending much love and light to everyone.

See you next week.

Bye-bye.