The BEST Method To Overcome Negative Thinking

Are you ready to learn the BEST method to overcome negative thinking? 

With over 4,000 thoughts running through your mind daily, how many would you say are negative? Overcoming negative thinking will require you to fight with the correct sword. 

By the end of this post, you will have the knowledge of how to overcome negative thinking and a powerful method that will help you to cultivate a positive mindset. Get ready to rejoice in your victory. 

This post is all about about the best method to overcome negative thinking. 

Are you ready? Let’s geaux!

Why Negative Thoughts Come In Mind

Your mind is very similar to a woman’s womb. What’s interesting about the womb is that it prepares the female body every single month for a potential pregnancy.

What happens is hormones called estrogen and progesterone are released into the ovaries. The hormones cause the lining of the womb to be built up to catch a fertilized egg.

When there is no fertilized egg, the lining breaks down, and is expelled through what is known menstruation. The process then repeats itself until a woman becomes pregnant. 

The same concept happens within your mind. Once you hear something, it has the ability to be built up later to be expelled or fertilized. 

Here are some common reasons why negative thoughts come to mind:

1. Negative Experiences And Conditioning

Negative experiences and conditioning are learned and reinforced over time. If you’ve ever experienced any type of trauma, your mind uses those negative experiences to protect you from any further damage.

Childhood is usually when the first negative experiences and conditioning affects us the most because it shapes how we see and perceive the world around us.

Tip To Overcome Negative Experiences And Conditioning: Spend time with God to begin to recognize the patterns. Once you’re aware you’ll be able to challenge your beliefs.

2. Black-And-White Thinking

Black-and-white thinking is considered a cognitive distortion in psychology. It’s where a person views people, situations, or events as either ‘good and bad’ or ‘right or wrong’ with no in between.

This type of thinking can cause you to become frustrated, hurt, and stressed out.

Tip To Overcome Black-And-White Thinking: If the situation involves another person, try to consider how the other person may have felt. You have to get away from thinking that your feelings are the only ones that matter. Your needs are just as important as theirs and vice versa. Most situations are more complex than what meets the eye.

{Related Post: How To Turn Negative Thoughts Into Positive Thoughts: 11 Effective Strategies}

3. Low Self-Esteem

Focusing on your shortcomings and mistakes lead you down the path of negative thinking. Let me ask you a couple questions: Who created you? What does your Creator have to say about you?

Tip To Overcome Low Self-Esteem: Remind yourself of what God has already spoken over you. It was Him who decided to choose you to represent Him on this Earth. Pray and ask Him to help you build your self-esteem.

4. Mental Health Condition

Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can cause you to have frequent negative thoughts. Conditions like these can often make one feel trapped and hopeless, but luckily God is above it all.

Tip To Overcome Depression And Anxiety: Get to the root by praying with God. Eat healthy and exercise. Seek help through talk therapy and natural medications.

5. Social Media

Social media is what I’ll describe as a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the ability to communicate and share with those all around the world is beautiful.

On the other hand, it’s the place where comparison festers. When comparison is allowed to penetrate the mind, it brings on negative thinking.

Tips To Overcome Social Media: Take breaks from it! Remember social media is a false perception of life. It’s not real. Get out and live!

What Are The Effects Of Negative Thinking

Negative thinking effects both the brain and the body. Here’s how:

The brain is the control center of your body. It controls what you think and remember, how you respond and react, and how you feel and move. 

The brain also controls your heartbeat and your breathing. If the brain is responsible for all of this and more; then it’s vital to keep it healthy and happy.

When negative thoughts repetitively consume you, it can lead to increased anxiety, stress, and worry. If you’ve ever been in an environment that demanded a lot from you, then you know what these things can feel like. 

When you try to control things that you were never meant to control, stress can also find you.

In stressful situations, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. High levels of cortisol can cause high blood pressure, fatigue, constipation, bloating, headache, and many other diseases that affect your body. 

Of course, your mental health is effected as well.

The BEST METHOD To Overcome Negative Thinking

It’s important that you learn how to overcome negative thinking because your thoughts give birth to your ideas and actions. If your ideas are predominantly negative, they can impact your health, family, friends, and purpose. 

I’ve come up with a method that will help you overcome negative thinking. The method is called “The P.U.R.G.E Method”. 

(Here is a printable pdf copy of the method….Enjoy!)

1. Process

Processing anything requires mindfulness. You’ll need to take time to focus on you.

Even if you practice processing for five minutes of the day, it’s essential to getting to the bottom of where your negative thinking comes from. 

It has to start with you centering yourself in the quiet. I won’t lie, this can be scary especially when you intentionally try to stay busy to avoid hearing your thoughts.

But if you keep running from anything, it will eventually catch up to you.

You have to face this head on. Processing where, why, how, and when negative thinking comes to mind will help you to recognize and feel without blaming and judging yourself. 

2. Unpack

After you process by centering yourself, it’s time to unpack your thoughts with God. You can do this by writing out the negative thoughts that come to your mind. 

Start with praying about when this started. Again, negative thinking can come to mind from negative experiences that are reinforced over time. 

For example, you may have been treated a unfairly on a job and that led you to believe that you’re not enough. Ever since then, you’ve been having experiences that aid that belief.

Unpacking helps you to get closer to the root behind the negative thinking. 

3. Release and Reframe

Once you unpack with God, it’s time to release it to Him. There is no need to dwell on the negativity. Releasing it over to God is simply casting your cares unto him (1 Peter 5:7 ESV). 

The reason why you want to release is because all of the anxiety, worry, and concerns are too heavy for you to continue to carry.

Imagine going on a vacation with loads of luggage and arriving to your destination extremely tired. Instead of you taking your own luggage to the room, a bellhop offers to do it at no extra charge. 

Wouldn’t you be relieved if this happened? This is what God wants to do because He deeply cares for you.

After you release the thoughts, its time to reframe them.  Reframing is all about getting God’s perspective.

What does God say about you and the situation at hand? 

Let’s go back to our previous example about the job. In this scenario, reframing would help you to see that how others treat you is based on their perception of themselves and how it has very little to do with you as a person. 

In situations like these, you have to stir yourself up in what God says about you. The feelings may remain, but the knowledge about you being good enough will outlast them. 

You’ll even start to see that the reason why you’ve been placed in that specific situation is because you’re more than enough and that specific place needs the God in you. 

4. Give

The step of giving will require you to feed yourself with the things that you are worthy of.

Philippians 4:8 says “Fix your thoughts on what is true, what is honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise”.

How do you do this? You have to make conscious effort to choose to do so. Choose to focus your thoughts on God’s character, who you are in Him, and how you should live according to God’s wisdom. 

5. Emerge

The word emerge means to move out or away from something and come into view of another. It also means to become known or apparent, and to rise from.

Many times negative thoughts are lies and you have to move away from them towards the truth. 

The P.U.R.G.E method opens the door for you to emerge. By processing, unpacking, releasing, reframing, and giving; you are emerging!

Bestie, don’t pick up the negative thoughts again once they’re gone. 

When they begin to play in your mind, say the opposite of them aloud. For example, if they say you’re not enough, speak that you are enough. Declare God’s word over your life. 

As you practice “The P.U.R.G.E. method” the negative thoughts will decrease more and more. 

Which part of the P.U.R.G.E. Method do you find most helpful? Also if you have any other methods to overcome negative thinking be sure to comment them down below! 

This post was all about the BEST method to overcome negative thinking. 

Always remember you’re destined to win because He got up!