Do you often find yourself stuck in negativity?

Are you ever stuck in a negative story which continuously plays in your head? Do you have any of these thoughts?

I just don’t fit in anywhere

I can’t do anything right, I am so scared to fail

I don’t have anything to offer anyone

I feel so judged by people

I can’t cope

I am not strong enough

I am scared I will let people down

Where do I belong

These may not be your exact words, but you know exactly what your negative narration is.  And if you feel frustrated, isolated or weighed down by your negative thoughts well guess what…I am afraid to say that you are among a large proportion of people who feel exactly the same!

Do you know we have around 12,000- 60,000 thoughts per day. 98% of those thoughts are the same every day and about 80% of those thoughts are negative! 40 Million Americans in USA suffer from anxiety, 44% of people in the UK suffer from stress and in Australian, every year, 1 million people will suffer from Depression and about 2 million will suffer from anxiety. And whether it is stress, depression or anxiety it all starts with a negative thought! These statistics show how real and prevalent negative thinking is and how much they are effecting our lives.

Every thought we have holds an electrical current which effects our body. Every thought we have sends an electrical current through our neural pathways and these neural pathways form our conditioned and habitual behavior. These Neural Pathways become our inner mapping or coding. This mapping represents who we are based on every thought we have had. And if we have the same thoughts day after day after day, than these neural pathways become like thick roads of cement directing our decisions and behaviors along the same route to stress, anxiety, depression and negativity. We become stuck in our conditioning.

However, in between certain neural pathways we have tiny gaps called synapses, which represent what we do not know and do not have the pathways to perform. These gaps means that we do not have the neural pathways to execute certain thinking or behavioral patterns. So when we learn something new we have to literally create a bridge between brain cells to create a new neural pathway. As we learn something new a link or a pathway is made between neural pathways, closing this gap.

The first time we create this connection is the hardest, because it is completely unfamiliar to the brain. Think of the very first time you did something new which you did not know how to do, like ride a bike or drive a car. Once that first connection is made, the brain learns something new and the more we repeat that same pattern, thought or behavior, the stronger that connection becomes and the more conditioned the behavior becomes.

If we stop doing certain behaviors which do not serve us and replace them with other behaviors which help to build us, then those old neural pathways will become less dominant and weaker and the new ones will become our focus.

So what does this mean for our negative thinking?

So what we really need to do is throw a circuit breaker into our thought pattern. A circuit breaker will stop the habitual conditioned response and will stop those thoughts in their tracks.  And once we have stopped the electrical current, it is like switching of a light switch, which means no energy or electricity can flow, to fire off the same result. We can now begin to focus on new positive thoughts and when we repeat them, than the old thoughts will become an old story replaced by a new updated and positive story.

The best circuit breaker is to literally think about stopping your thought. Say the word stop to yourself, visualize a big RED STOP SIGN, and feel the electrical current of that thought come to a stop. Put your hand up, snap your fingers, clap your hands, or flick a rubber band…Whatever it takes to break the flow of that thought.

Now begin to challenge that thought by creating a reframe. Re-frames mean you literally change the frame of the way you are seeing something- like putting on a different lens to a camera. A re-frame means you begin to change the meaning you are attaching to your thought. Once you change the meaning, you begin to direct the brain in a new direction which will bring up different feelings and emotions. To make your re-frame effective, Think of the most empowering or positive thought you could have.

For example:

Old negative thought: ‘I cannot do that’

Re-frame: ‘All I need to do is do it once and then I will know how to do it.’

This reframe gives you motivation for movement. Instead of being frozen in fear, you will take one step forward to try. One step builds the bridge in the synapse and you create a link between brain cells which then creates the lining for the new pathway of behavior. The more you act on the new thought and behavior, the stronger the pathway will become.

To create your best re-frames take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the center, creating two columns. In the left hand column write out all your negative thoughts which you are aware of and in the right hand column write out all your new positive re-frames.

Next we need to build the pathways of your reframe. The best way to train your brain and build solid pathways is to direct all of your senses towards your positive focus.

Take your new positive thought and now do these three steps:

1. Say the new positive message to yourself, which affirms your new self-talk. This activates your hearing sense and directs your inner dialogue towards your positive story.
   For example: “I can do this once and then I will know it”
2. Now visualize yourself doing the new behavior. Really see the picture of yourself in your mind doing the behavior. If for example, you are training your brain to let go of the fear of public speaking, focus on speaking confidently in front of a group of people, exactly how you want it to be.
3. Notice how those words and the positive picture make you feel. Feel that positivity throughout your body and turn up those feelings so that the body gets all the positive vibes and positive effects. This will help your body strive to experience those positive feelings again.

These three steps program your senses of sight, hearing and feeling to process the experience of the new thought in your body. If you only think about your positive thoughts it will remain in your intellectual awareness, once you start to feel the effects of your thoughts, your body starts to experience them. This experience in your feeling body, is a major step to re-conditioning behavior.  Next steps are repeat, practice, repeat, practice, repeat, practice. The more you do this and the more you stop and challenge your old thoughts, the more you will grow into a more positive, energetic and calmer person.

A great way to practice and learn these new thought patterns is through meditation.

To help you learn these steps, practice this inner strength guided meditation and train your brain to to access your true essence, and actualize your true potential with calmness, peace and happiness.

To your truth and freedom with lots of love,

Cheryne x