We all know destructive thoughts. How we can manage not to let them darken our whole day.
There it is again, that mean, ugly thought. Has secretly sneaked up and is now standing right in front of you, exaggerated and hard to ignore: “You’re a failure. An imposter. You can’t do anything and you won’t achieve anything.”
You swallow. Feel how the sharp words cut into your flesh. “He’s right,” you think to yourself. “I am a loser.” How we perceive the world is primarily determined by our psyche and the filters we use to perceive the reality around us – for better or for worse. We live, so we think, it’s difficult to separate them from each other, the carousel of thoughts keeps turning.
And yet we are not at the mercy of our thoughts, explains psychologist and clinical assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine Rachel Roldman in an interview with the online magazine “Veryvell Mind”: “Our thoughts, emotions and behaviors are all interconnected. Therefore, our thoughts also influence how we feel and how we act. It is therefore important to know how we should react when hindering thoughts arise from time to time so that we Don’t let them change the course of your day.”
But what can we do? We have collected some tips that can help break the negative (and often destructive) thought cycle.
Look closely at your thoughts
We tend to accept the inner critical voice unquestioningly. After all, who knows us better than that mean little critic in our head? After all, he is there all the time and knows full well that we are actually just bluffing, regardless of the everyday situation. It would often do us good to take a critical look at the critical voice itself. Where does the voice actually get its arguments from? What are the arguments anyway? What kind of thought is this? And would perhaps a differentiated approach be appropriate?
What do we mean by that? The brain is fundamentally structured in a fairly binary way: if it’s not one, it must be the other, black or white, yes or no. The world is of course more complex and, fortunately, we are generally able to recognize and understand these many layers as such.
Instinctively, however, we tend to think in pigeonholes; after all, we are still wired to have to react quickly; in evolutionary terms, it was not that long ago that a decision (flight or fight) decided whether to live or die.
And unfortunately that leads us to think in extremes: Oh, I messed up in this situation? Apparently I’m a total failure! Oh, this person is angry with me? Then he will probably hate me forever! Ai, I feel stomach ache in this situation. Obviously it’s not good for me and I’m breaking everything off here and now!
The three (admittedly quite exaggerated) examples show several problems with the inner voice: it tends to rush to “results” that are not really well-founded, it likes to catastrophize and generalize complex issues with a self-evident way that we actually don’t should be frightened, and often draws completely wrong conclusions from things that, when viewed calmly (and in a differentiated way), have no connection.
So next time the inner voice tends to have overly dark thoughts, grab it and take a closer look. Is this idea valid or is this just another catastrophizing or generalization that the beams are bending?
Learn to appreciate your inner voice
This might sound a bit contradictory at first: should we now praise this nasty voice that makes our lives difficult? Yes, that would help. It may not feel like it sometimes – especially when the inner thoughts are particularly panicky or unfair – but most of the time our psyche actually wants to protect us from everything.
For example, if we feel very afraid in a situation and curse inside because we can’t do anything and function with the sweat, the racing heart and the confused thoughts, then our psyche doesn’t do this to annoy us, but because fear is intended to protect us from danger.
Pushing it away and suppressing it will not make it go away permanently. The lesson she learns from this is that she probably needs to be a little louder next time. And a little louder the next time. Until it becomes so loud that we can no longer ignore it – and the suffering is so high that we can hardly think of anything other than fear.
It’s not a pleasant conversation because it’s rarely a pleasant topic, but as the online magazine “Mind Body Green” writes, it can help if we enter into dialogue with our inner, restless thoughts. We can give this abstract figure a name, for example Petra.
- “Hello, Petra, what do you want right now?”
- “Hello! You’re going to die sometime. Maybe tomorrow.”
- “Okay, thank you, Petra. You’re right, life is finite and nobody knows exactly how much time we have left. Thank you very much for reminding me that we won’t be here on earth until infinity. I use this drive and I’m going to make the most of tomorrow that I can, okay? But now it’s late and I want to sleep.
Right now I’m alive and right now I’m doing well. That’ll have to do for tonight, okay? But I promise you that I will address your concerns in a constructive way.”
As I said: It doesn’t help if we try to downplay all our worries and fears and push them away from us. But if we respond to the concerns, take them seriously and treat them, then we keep them in check because they are “heard”. But we shouldn’t do this 24 hours a day, but rather provide the most solid framework possible for dealing with our concerns. Which leads us to the final point.
Give yourself a time frame for your worries and fears
It’s the same thing with thoughts – especially supposedly negative ones: they don’t always come when you’re supposed to. Most of the time they even come at a really inconvenient time. But we can get used to giving our worries a fixed – and temporary – place in our everyday lives. “The time for negative thoughts should be ten minutes and should take place every day,” explains coach Julie Kantor in an interview with Forbes. Anyone who experiences negative thoughts during the day outside of this framework should write them down and tell themselves that they will be checked during the negative thought time. “Over time, you will gain control and the negative thinking will stop,” Kantor promises.
This is also about not repressing your thoughts, but giving them the space they need. Ultimately, they want to draw your attention to something – whether these are well-founded concerns or exaggerated horror stories is ultimately up to you to decide. It’s best to do this during the ten minutes that you give your worries every day and look at them (as calmly, critically and differentiatedly as possible, see tip 1).
Sources used: forbes.com, verywellmind.com, mindbodygreen.com, psychologytoday.com