How to let go of negative thoughts
As a result of COVID, especially the lockdowns, I ended up putting on quite a bit of weight. I suppose it was a culmination of the stress and the constrained way of life during that time that caused me to be less active and eat poorly. So, in an attempt to get back to a healthier state, I've started going to the gym on a regular basis and focusing on eating healthily.
Whenever you try to change what you usually do automatically, like your eating habits your mind will try to convince you to go back to eating as you usually do.
The mind doesn’t like change, as you may have noticed.
One of my new habits is to eat within a time slot, so I don’t eat after 6 pm in the evening. However around 8 pm my mind kicks in to tell me I should eat something. And then the inner conflict begins.
But it was at the gym that I really noticed this battle between the side of my mind that wants me to believe I can’t do it and the other side which doesn’t have a view at all.
You may recognise this happening to you too.
There’s a part of you that wants to do something new or different and then there is another part that almost compels you to stay right where you are, in the known and comfortable.
Anyway the other day my personal conflict started in the morning with the familiar conversation
Ms Negative:
“You’re too busy to go to the gym Anna, you should stay home and get work done”.
Ms Positive:
“No going to the gym is important Anna, you promised yourself”.
And this conversation goes on for a while, I try to ignore it and soon find myself in my car driving to the gym. First battle won!
Then I step into the gym and the conflict heightens.
“Your legs hurt, you can’t go any faster on that bike” – creeps in Ms Negative.
“Oh yes I can!!” – shouts Ms Positive.
So I manage to get through the fight on the assault bike. Battle two won!
But then I move onto the weights and my trainer decides I’m strong enough to go up a kilo on what I’m about to lift. And I am absolutely terrified and yes convinced that I can’t do it, what’s more I begin to question why I should do it anyway.
And it was at this point that I really start to notice that internal battle.
What makes me at 61 years old want to be in a gym, wouldn’t it be easier to just go for a short walk and eat whatever I want, don’t I deserve that by now? – asks the negative, stay in your comfort zone Anna.
Then the upbeat, ambitious Anna steps in with
“But Anna you’re not old, you have so much you want to do still and you can do it!! – also going to the gym is part of staying fit and healthy, which means so much to you, right?” – I love this Anna, much more me than the other one!
So I decide to pull out of the box a mindfulness practice and I close my eyes as I begin my next set of lifts.
This time I take my focus down to my belly and follow my breath up through my stomach, chest, throat and out through my nose. And I pay close attention to my breath, counting as I lift and purposefully breathing out when I finish one repetition.
Now I’m in total silence, nothing but me and the weights. Everything is in harmony.
Meanwhile my trainer is standing silently watching, obviously not aware of that internal battle.
And before I know it and with relative ease not only did I finish, I did more than I was supposed to do.
“You killed it Anna” - says my trainer.
I should know by now that those thoughts are not real, how can they be?
Our thoughts can't predict what lies ahead.
They're just a bunch of memories from the past, trying to make sense of the present and steer our future in a certain direction.
Our negative thoughts come from the part of our mind that wants us to stay right where we are because its familiar and safe.
However let me clarify something before we move on.
You cannot stop your negative thoughts but you can make your positive thoughts louder so they take over.
To let go of negative thoughts:
Awareness: The only way to change what is no longer serving you or not good for you is to become aware of those internal conversations. I’d argue that as soon as you begin to notice those disempowering thoughts, you’re already halfway there!
Move your focus: Once you become aware of a negative thought pattern, move your focus to something else. As I showed above you can use the breath. (I’ve recorded the practice, link below).
Give up the fight: You’ll notice that the negative thoughts will try to creep back in, that’s normal. So just keep going, notice the thought, maybe even say hello to it and go back to breathing.
The main thing is to not get trapped into that thought and the way to do that is to not fight it.
What I’ve learned from all the years of practising and teaching Mindfulness is that if it doesn’t permeate every aspect of our lives, then what good is it?