If you closely examine any thought, you will notice that thoughts are variable. Just as an example, think about a thought you were worried about last month or last year. How much significant it is for you now? Now, think about the intensity of the negative thoughts you had for any event or incident, it could be a visit to Head Masters Room, scoring fewer grades, or being heartbroken during your school days. You must have felt like there is no tomorrow, anxious and shattered. Is it a talk of concern for you now?

Negative thoughts are seldom real, it is just like an alarm set on the alarm clock. It rings according to the set pattern but that doesn’t mean it always has a purpose.  Learn the 6 ways to stop negative thoughts, that are life-changing:

Catch the negative thought early and turn it around.

Any disease caught early can save you dis-ease later. Same way, any negative thought caught up early can save you drama later. As Abraham Hicks says, “Negative thoughts are like the car driving uphill, it goes up at your pace but comes down sliding on its own. “

If you get aware to deal with it just as a thought, not attaching it with the “I” or the “little me” to make up mind stories then it can be easily observed. The most popular analogy is to see yourself as the sky and let the thoughts pass by like clouds. Does Sky ever get attached to any cloud and make it bigger? Just like we get attached to a particular thought and make it bigger. For instance, when a thought arises, I’m all alone, you hold it closer and make it bigger. But the Sky doesn’t bother about the shape, size, and color of the cloud. No cloud leaves any trace on the Sky. Same way, no thought can leave any trace on us. 

Skip it to the next day

How well do we skip something important for the next day? It is called Procrastination. Can we please do that with our negative thoughts? Can we procrastinate our negative thoughts? Skipping something important for the next day is just out of our habits, it is nothing personal. Similarly, we can develop the same habit to skip our negative thoughts as well.

The moment someone says something rude, nasty, or anything negative comes to our mind for that matter, can we skip to thinking about it the next day? If we skip our negative thoughts to the next day, our thoughts will die a natural death. We won’t have to force our negative thoughts to disappear. It would pass by without sticking to the surface just like any soap leaves the body without sticking to it. 

Don’t believe your Negative thoughts.

While the whole world is following the “Believe in yourself” trend, we somehow misunderstood it as to believe in everything our mind says. Believing in ourselves is an important step toward self-growth as it teaches us about accepting ourselves. But it doesn’t mean believing in every single thought we may think especially the negative ones. Just for example, if you put an old songs CD into the player, can it play new songs? It can only play what’s stored inside. Likewise, we can’t accept our minds to produce new thoughts if we keep on repeating what’s in there already. 

If your mind produces old expiry thoughts, that’s a simple way to know that it is negative. 

As Sadhguru says, sing a Song and say, “Shut up."

I know this will sound a bit funny and weird, but there is the truth whenever I had any negative thoughts, I said “Shut Up” out loud. Lol. This practice helped me a lot to soften my mind and come back to the present moment. “Don’t mess with me! everything is perfect” was my reply always to my negative thoughts. Soon the thoughts understood that this place isn’t for them anymore, and slowly and gradually they began to leave. 

When you don’t believe what your mind says, it loses its grip on you. The same analogy for fear, fear dies when you don’t entertain it.

Another pro tip: - Find a song and sing it to yourself wherever any negative thought troubles you and sticks around way too long- “Go away scary monster go away”, “Don’t believe me just watch”. Or if you like Bollywood songs you will find many gems there as well. I made a special song for thought that wasn’t leaving me “Hatja Pare” (GO AWAY) from the Originals “Lagja Gaye”

Is it Organic or Adulterated?

The thoughts that we are thinking are not ours in the first place, were they passed down from many people, generations, or might be many births, we don’t know. Even if it is coming from your last experience, it is equally stale.

Think about this – The last time you met a friend, and she said something that made you mad, now you think she isn’t good for you, and you start to keep your distance. You don’t know whether she truly meant what she said or not because her thoughts are playing around with her as well. Now, this can be addressed as adulterated thought. 

A good question to ask yourself is – Where are my thoughts coming from, is it adulterated or organic? Is it coming from love or judgment? Is it coming from fear or acceptance?

I once read somewhere 1 negative thought needs at least 16 positive ones to reverse it. The Law of attraction cannot ever work for us if we believe in our negative thoughts. 

Bring it back to the Now.

Every time you came back to this moment, your mind gets less attention, and your presence gets more. Just for this second come back to your best breath, slowly and gently release everything that is holding you back, let it completely go, and now pick up what’s left with your next breath.

Keep repeating till the time it is comfortable. The secret to a healthy mind is to not fight with thoughts. The best way to deal with a harmless child who keeps crying for attention is to play, laugh and forget.  Along with this, accepting your reality with open arms while being aware of the possibilities around you can help you manage negative thoughts. To understand how this works, read the blog – living a life of awareness in 2022.