How to Stop Negative Thinking by Making Friends with Your Thoughts

If you're asking yourself how to stop negative thinking...

Here's a little native american story that may give you an idea about how to go about it...

A grandfather is talking to his grandson and he says...

I have two wolfs inside of me...one is compassionate, loving, kind and the other one is evil, ruthless, and cruel...and they are fighting inside me to the death...

So which one will win? The one I feed...

It's just a metaphor...but it's a very useful way to look at your thoughts...

I've always found it very helpful to find real life situations to describe more conceptual ideas...

Like the concept of the thoughts inside my head...

It's not so much a lake or body of water so much as a river or stream of thoughts passing through...in...and...out...

Another visual image I use to understand how my thoughts affect my behaviors and feelings is...

I imagine thoughts as people walking down a street. Whether you've ever lived in a big city or just seen a busy street on TV, you know what that looks like...

People walking down the sidewalk on their way somewhere...

All of them going in different directions...some in unpleasant directions...some towards fun...

So many people passing through...and I couldn't tell you who they were ten minutes later...

Unless I stopped to talk to one of them...

Thoughts are no different...they come...they go...and until I stop and pay attention to one of them...have a chat...invite it in for coffee or tea...

How you feel and eventually how you behave...

Will tell you which thoughts you are chatting with and inviting over for coffee...

It doesn't really matter to me which ones you make friends with, but if you don't like the way you are feeling or how you are behaving...

Then you might want to find some other thoughts to hang out with.

And while we're on the subject of How to Stop Negative Thinking...

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Looking forward to hearing from you!

Suzanne

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