Dethroning Your Negative Thoughts

If you haven’t read last week’s ‘Mindful Monday’ post take a moment to catch up on Change Your Mind. Change Your Body.

Hopefully you’ve begun to recognize the negative thoughts that have taken up space in your head. There’s a good chance that those thoughts have been putting down roots for years so it will take a bit of work to remove them and replace them with something better. I, for one, work at it on a daily basis.

So the question becomes, “what now? I can hear the negativity spinning around in my head, but what do I do about it?”

Now it’s time to dethrone them and laugh at them. I’m serious. It’s time to rid them of the silly power that they’ve been allowed to hold without your permission. Recognizing them for what they are (laughable lies) will help you to break the habit of believing them to be true.

Genneen Roth, author of “Women, Food and God”, refers to this internal negativity as The Voice. Here is a brief excerpt from her book that aligns perfectly with what I believe:

“Byron Katie says, “I love my thoughts. I’m just not tempted to believe them.” The moment you stop believing The Voice, the moment you hear the You are the worst person in the world. You are the selfish and shallow with a dry withered heart and elephant skin neck, and you say, “Uh-huh, right, so what else is new?” or “Really? I am the worst person in the world? Is that true?” or “Honey sounds like you need a couple dozen margaritas. Talk to me after you’ve had them,” you are free. Freedom is hearing The Voice ramble and posture and lecture and not believing a word of it.”

There IS freedom from The Voice and with freedom comes hope, joy, change and new life. So, starting today, talk back. Talk back to yourself and remove the power from your negative thoughts surrounding your body and abilities. Even though it seems counter-intuitive, these thoughts are one of the key factors that are holding you back from making positive changes and finding balance.

For example, “Ugh, I feel fat, I need to work out more” is not motivating. We’ve been led to believe that these kind of thoughts will give us the extra push we need to get in shape and get health. This is dead wrong. They’re holding us back. Stop.
Don’t let yourself use guilt & negativity as a motivator one second longer.

Keep me posted on how it goes…