Taming our Wondrous Mind

Our minds are wondrous and creative. They allow us to dream of what seems impossible, then give us the creativity to make those dreams come true. Continuously, new inventions are produced, businesses are starting up, planets are being discovered….. Our curiosity and ideas have no bounds.

We continuously have thoughts that just “pop up” whether they are helpful or unhelpful. Many of these thoughts show up automatically and some are not necessarily welcome. Some examples of unhelpful thoughts are:

Labeling ourselves based on a situation we encountered such as: “I am a terrible driver!”, “I cause accidents”; when in fact you are a great driver and only scraped the bumper once backing into the garage 7 years ago.

Focusing on the negatives - When we are anxious we often find ourselves focusing on what’s negative and not what’s positive in a situation such as being at a social gathering and knowing that one person in the crowd is someone that doesn’t like you. Rather than enjoying yourself with the other 100 people that like you, you find yourself worrying about the one that doesn’t .

Predicting the future - Though it is important to learn from past experiences, it does not predict future experiences. For instance, just because you had a negative experience at a job interview and were turned down for a job doesn’t mean you will have the same negative experience and be turned down for a similar job in another company

Mind Reading - This is when we assume that we know what other people are thinking(usually about us) without any real evidence to suggest it's true. Like: My boss thinks 'I'm Stupid!'; or 'My work colleague is ignoring me.' but really he/she just has other things on their mind

So how do you start to deal with those thoughts that aren’t so helpful? You first need to be able to recognize

you are even having these thoughts. Here is an exercise and some steps to help you recognize your thought patterns and move past the negativity:

• For a few weeks, take a few minutes each day to write down the thoughts you had throughout the day.

• Review your thoughts and ask yourself:

  • Was this thought helpful?

  • Am I making some assumptions here? What are the facts?

  • Knowing the facts, can I look at this from a more positive angle?

  • Will this be important a year from now? How about 5 years?

It’s not about the thoughts that pop into our heads. It’s about what you do with them once they arrive. By practicing and making our unconscious thoughts conscious, we can then do something about them. We start to understand that some of those negative thoughts we have are just our assumptions and perceptions that we developed over time and are not based on fact.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”Alan Kay

What are some of the things you do to help overcome negativity in your life?