Hacking the Negative Mind

I am not a natural positivist, quite the opposite actually. Often I tend to expect the worst of every situation and for a long time this was a source of great stress and anxiety in my life and one of the first things that sent me out of the path or personal development. To experience life through a lens of positivism sure is an advantage we all should seek for if we have any interest in growth.

Some people are blessed with an innate positive mind.  I believe we are all born with an inherent positivism that in many cases gets lost somewhere in our path to adulthood.

On several occasions the stress caused by the expectancy of the negative outcome was greater that the effect that the outcome actually had. The problem with negativism is that it is contagious to other aspects of our lives and to other individuals around us.  It does not fade away with time, it gets stronger.

Knowing by experience the effect that a negative pattern of thinking has on my emotional vibration and therefore on my life and on the life plan set out by my intentions, I looked everywhere for a cure.  I tried positive affirmations, visualization and more than one way to induce physical pain every time a negative thought got stuck in my mind. I once tried to walk around with a band in my wrist and I had to pull it every time I caught myself with a negative thought.  Nothing seemed to work for me.  As time passed by I actually felt worse. I felt frustrated and powerless, until I gave up.

Give up turned out to be the best way out.

Accept the Worst, Prepare for the Best

I do not recommend getting fixated into a negative thought if you are a positive thinker. If you can see sunshine and butterflies in every corner, then kudos to you and keep up the good work.  But if you are like me and struggle to see light at first sight, then keep on reading.

First of all, stop beating yourself.  You are a negative thinker, it sucks.  Now let’s find a way out.

The next time you find yourself stressed by all the negative possibilities that you foresee on a given situation, just stop and try to think about the worst thing that could logically happen.  Then accept that this is going to happen no matter what.  The roof is going to fall over your head, there is no question about it, IT HAS TO FALL.  Ok, now ask yourself the following questions:

There is something I can do to fix this once it happens? – If the answer is yes, you can prepare to fix it and if it happens, you are ready with the solution at hand.  If there is nothing you can do, then accept it; prepare to take the blow and to mitigate the damages as much as possible.

Here is the catch: once you truly accept and prepare for the worst, the negative pattern of thinking will vanish.  You will find calm.  There will be no stress, no anxiety and out of this state of mind your emotional vibration will attract the outcome that your thoughts have set up as ideal.  Your creativity will improve and you will find yourself with new ideas that were unavailable to you before.  Your performance in any given activity will improve considerably and believe me, you will surprise yourself.  The difference between a stressed mind and a calm one is impossible to ignore.

Accept with all your heart and mind that something you fear greatly IS GOING TO HAPPEN might be painful, but you must understand that being stuck in a loop of negative thinking affects every single area of your life and it drags everything around you into an abysm.  Accepting what you fear as inevitable in order to get free of a negative pattern of thinking is like cutting your hand to get out of a dead trap.  It might be painful, but if you don’t do it, you are going to die anyway.

Start Small

I actually stumbled upon this method by accident. I found myself in a situation where I could truly do nothing more than accept the worst possible outcome. But once I did and got myself free of negative thinking, for my amazement all the pieces around me started to fall in the right place.

The first time is the hardest, so start with something small and build your confidence little by little.  Once you experience the effect of accepting the worst case scenario, it gets much easier to practice this method on demand.  And every time you do it, easier it gets.