Hey Besties! Do you find yourself always battling negative thoughts?
With over 4,000 thoughts running through your mind daily, how many would you say are negative? The problem is not the negative thoughts themselves.
It is your inability to fight them with the correct sword. By the end of this blog, you will have the knowledge of how to let go of negative thoughts for good.
It’s time to learn how to protect your mind.
This post is all about letting go of negative thoughts.
Are you ready? Let’s geaux!
Why Negative Thoughts Come In Mind?
Your mind is like a woman’s womb. You know, the place where babies are housed until they are born into the world?
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 as a period. Then the process repeats itself until a woman becomes pregnant.
The same concept happens with your thoughts. Once something is heard, it has the ability to be built up to either be expelled or fertilized.
Negative thoughts usually come in through what you’re consuming or what has been consumed. If you notice, most negative thoughts are repeated in your mind constantly based on what you’ve experienced.
My best advice to you would be to pay close attention and get to the root of the negativity of the thoughts.
Effects Of Negative Thinking On The Brain (and Body)
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 is 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 find you also.
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.
Your mental health is also affected by negative thinking. One common thing that negative thinking leads to is depression.
Depression at its core means persistent sadness and feelings of hopelessness. If a person is experiencing depression, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are crying all of the time.
Depression is often not easy to detect. Many times it can manifest itself in things like unhealthy eating, anger, fear,and low self esteem just to name a few.
Sometimes you won’t be able to see depression until you are close to a person, but this doesn’t mean that you should hide it if you’re experiencing it.
If any of you are battling depression, please know that you are not alone and you don’t have to be ashamed. You weren’t made to have depression and you will not remain in depression.
{RELATED POST: 5 GENIUS Ways To Stop Intrusive Thoughts}
How To Let Go Of Negative Thoughts
It’s important that you learn how to let go of negative thoughts 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 let go of negative thoughts for good. This method is called P.U.R.G.E.
1. Process
Processing anything requires mindfulness. You will need to take time to focus on you. Even if you practice processing for 5 minutes of the day, it is 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 always catch up to you.
You have to face it head on. Processing where, why, how, and when negative thoughts came into your mind helps 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 into your mind.
Begin to answer the 4 Ws and 1H questions. Start with praying about when this started. Again most times negative thoughts are thoughts that are repeated.
When you can get to the bottom of when it started, you may be able to answer the other questions. For example, you might have been treated a certain way on a job that lead you to believe that you’re not enough.
Ever since you had that experience, you also have been having negative thoughts that allude to you not being enough. Unpacking helps you to get closer to the root behind the negative thoughts.
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).
The reason why you want to release is because all of your anxieties, worries, and concerns are too heavy for you to continue to carry. Imagine going on a vacation with lots of luggage.
You get to the airport of your destination and you’re exhausted, but a bellhop offers to take your luggage to your room. Wouldn’t you be relieved if this happened?
This is what God wants to do because he cares deeply for you. After you release, its time to reframe.
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. If you’re feeling not good enough based on how you’re being treated then you have to come to the realization that you don’t deserve to be treated badly.
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 there is because you’re more than enough and that specific place needs you.
4. Give
The step of giving will require you to feed yourself with the things that you are worthy of. 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 (Philippians 4:8).
How do you do this?
Choose. Choose to focus your thoughts on where you came from, who you are, and how you should live according to God’s wisdom.
Start with these two scriptures:
Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Matthew 6:33
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”.
These two scriptures are the basis of who you are, what you’re meant to have, and what you’re meant to do.
Reading the full chapters will give you more context around the scriptures.
5. Emerge
The word emerge means to move out or away from something and come into view. 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, do not pick up those negative thoughts again once they are 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.
The P.U.R.G.E. method will help the negative thoughts to decrease as you continue to practice it.
This post was all about letting go negative thoughts.
Remember you’re destined to win because He got up!
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