Back by popular demand, Lynette Patterson shares some strategies about how to neutralize negative thoughts.
Are the ANTs Spoiling Your Picnic?Each day, the average person has 80,000 thoughts...60% of which are negative. It’s not enough that these negative thoughts lead to anxiety and depression, Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) actually increase the stress hormones, including cortisol, which promotes fat storage (not fair, right?). So it makes sense to believe that eliminating, or at least reducing, these negative thoughts would create a difference in your health. But how? So glad you asked!
Let’s begin by better understanding the ANTs. You know the ANTs are in your pants when they are:
- Automatic – you don’t decide to think them and they may have become such a habit that it is hard NOT to think them
- Negative – They make you feel bad about yourself. For example, “I’m useless, I’m lazy, I’m fat, I’ll never be good at it”.
- Believable – They simply feel real and they seem to be true. You even accept them as a fact in your life. “My metabolism is slow and I’ll always be overweight. My genes are like my moms and I’ll always be this shape.”
- Is it true?
- Can I absolutely know it is true, what facts evidence this as true?
- How does it make me feel?
- Who would I be without this thought?
If you will take a few moments to examine these questions, you can often realize that the negative thoughts were simply random ideas that caught you off guard. Let’s use the example of weight to see how using these questions can neutralize ANTs for you.
Negative thought – “I don’t have enough willpower to be thin.”
Ask yourself…is it true? Have there been times when you demonstrated willpower? Have you passed by dessert or chose a healthier meal? If you did it once, it is possible to do it again. And if it is possible to do it again, you can do it a third time. So the negative thought isn’t true…you HAVE demonstrated willpower in the past.
What evidence is there? Can you, without a doubt, have a doctor locate your broken willpower? Where does it reside in you? Can you pet it? Poke it? Does it have a name? Of course not, it is simply a concept that you’ve bought into, with the conclusion that you don’t have any!!How does it make you feel? Be careful with this one. On the outside, saying that you have no willpower can make you feel vulnerable and sad, as if this “thing” that is broken inside of you is out of your control. Digging deeper, placing blame on things outside of ourselves creates a sense of resignation and resignation can take a strong hold on you. It keeps you on the couch. Keeps you stuck.
Who would I be without this thought? If you didn’t have this negative thought holding onto you, who would you be? Would you be the thin, energetic person you were meant to be? And what part of the current you would have to be changed? Would you have to have crucial conversations with people around you, would you have to be brave and say no to requests, would you need to be more organized and plan your life by design, would you have to take the steering wheel of your life and drive your own path.?
When you start to get the hang of catching these thoughts, it’s a good idea to write them down. This can help you to look over the thoughts, understand where they come from and challenge them with the questions. Even if you don’t have time or in the right space to ask the questions in that moment, take the time later.
Determination is required to build resilience and it’s a discipline you can strengthen. You CAN eliminate the ANTs in your life. Manage them powerfully and create a new, and healthy, future for yourself!!!And when you begin to eliminate these negative thought, you develop an uncommon common sense, a bone-deep faith in your belief in your ability to cope in any situation, faith that you can figure out what to do, figure out how to do it, pick up the pieces and move on.
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