Rejecting negative thinking ......... well trying to anyways !

So, one of the things I have been working on, because it trips me up so badly, is rejecting negative thinking.  This is something that I have worked on with my talking therapist but also have targeted with Hypnotherapy as well ( even though I’m still a little sceptical there, I’ve still parted with my money!).

There are techniques that I have been told of or had explained to me.  I have tried them all but I haven’t found them all successful for me.  One of the first I was taught was the ‘throwing away’ technique which was taught through hypnotherapy and I haven’t really got it to work for me.  The idea here is that of visualisation and feeling, so taking the negative or anxietal thought in your head and moving it from your head down your head, shoulders and into your arm and then into your fist from which you throw it away, though I can find this technique relaxing I don’t find that the throwing away works for me.  Secondly I’ve been told of another technique that works better for me, it’s effectively a technique of distraction where when a negative/anxietal thought comes, you then do something else in your head alongside it, not for long, just for perhaps 30 seconds or so and if the thought comes back you do so again, you need to be disciplined.  Things to do are, go shopping in your mind, think of a list of shopping you currently need or list you favourite songs or think through some repetitive actions that do on a regular basis to carry out a practical task, ‘chopping and stacking wood’ maybe.  Thirdly, a practical version of the first above is to write your negative/anxietal thoughts down on post it notes or paper and throw them away or burn them, I haven’t tried this though I have been involved in a thankfulness exercise where post it notes were used and that is a positive distracting process.

Another thing that research has found is that worry and rumination can result from and in that being mirrored in other folks, so there is an idea that you should try and surround yourself with more positive people.  This is tricky for me, as if I think of myself as negative then what right do I have to expect positive people to want me around, but that’s a typical vicious circle with mental health.  I’m lucky that quite a lot of my friends are positive souls, not all of them, but enough that this can be uplifting for myself.

It’s said that if your negative thoughts result in feelings of loneliness often holding a hit liquid in your hands can be helpful, that you can gain comfort from a hot cup of tea/coffee/cocoa held in your hands, this works on substituting physical warmth for emotional warmth and I think even experts see this as just a sticking plaster for folks.  So ‘keep calm’ and ‘have a cup of tea’ I guess J

If you are having negative and anxietal thoughts an expert Winch says ‘ If your urge to ruminate is very strong, distracting yourself isn’t going to be easy.  So before you try, it may be necessary to reframe or reappraise the situation in your head’.   My understanding of this is that if you have a situation that’s playing out such as you are stuck at a bus station because of a cancelled bus or traffic jam for you getting there then don’t focus on what you are missing out on, instead use the time to do something positive like, ring your parents, get a little bit of work done, write a shopping list etc etc.  Once you have reframed the thoughts initially you may then find that you are more easier to distract yourself in the medium term from your ruminations.

I don’t know if any of this will help folks but it’s something that I have been thinking about recently.

Tony