Learning to Stop Negative and Intrusive thoughts.

We’ve all caught ourselves thinking thoughts that cause us discomfort or even pain.  Most times we can easily switch gears and start thinking about something else or get busy with other tasks that quickly absorb our attention and focus.  But at other times those thoughts seem to dig their heels in and refuse to give way to lighter and better thoughts and feelings and we just get deeper and deeper into those negative imaginings and our resulting mood and attitude pay the final price. During these times, its very difficult to stop that downward thought spiral am I right?  You know what I’m talking about.
You have a fear of something or keep getting a thought or memory that distresses you in some way, maybe a fight with a loved one, a confrontation at school, a rejection, or even a memory about a rough time in your life and you want to stop thinking about it for just a moment and think about something else but you JUST CANT!! No matter how hard you try.  You just keep ruminating and rehashing an event you don’t want to think about at all anymore but you seem to be completely powerless to just. move. on.  During these times we can feel trapped by our own minds and feel that nothing can be done as we get more and more depressed or distraught but it is not so.  Luckily we have a little known fact that can come to our aid if we know how to use it.  The Minds own limitation can be our greatest ally in this case.  “What limitation is that?”, you ask.  Well its the mind’s inability to focus on more that one thing at a time, of course!  You see,  since the mind literally cannot handle more than one thought at any given time, all you need to do is:

1. choose another thought, hopefully one that makes you feel better and more relaxed
2. slowly start to make that the focus of your attention.
   It may be difficult at first, but as the moments wear on, the mind will start to forget about the original intrusive thought and start to focus on the various dimensions of the new thought (and its associated feelings).
3. Most importantly, it helps if you are in a comfortable place and are able to close your eyes (safety first: don’t do this if your are driving or operating machinery, or in a location where your safety could be at stake) and start to slow your breathing down so that you:
   a. inhale very slowly and then
   b. exhale even slower…
   These actions will give you a bit more control over your inner dialogue and your feelings, and can now start to create a new path for yourself with the new, better thought and actions.

Now another word of caution: This is not something you can master overnight!  The first time you do it it might feel relaxing or mildly “fun” for you.  You might get it right off the bat.  But in fact it might be very difficult for some people.  It might make you irritable or even very upset.  The mind generally doesn’t like change so there might be a lot of resistance to the new way of being.  The trick in this case though is to keep doing it!  Keep breathing slowly and keep focusing on the new thought.  After a few times, I’m sure that 95% of people who try this earnestly will see and feel a marked difference and improvement in their mood and ability to change their focus at will.  I know this because it was difficult for me too at first but I have also seen scores of people most of my clients in fact,  improve their mental and emotional lives with this technique. There are a few other things that could make this exercise more effective such as including binaural beat sounds in the background and trying to look at the darkness behind your closed eyes as you breathe slowly but that’s an advanced step that we’ll leave for more experienced practitioners… I hope that this was helpful to you and would love to hear how you were affected your first time.  Also let me know if you have any questions about this relaxation method or about hypnotherapy broadly and I’ll respond in short order.   Blessings and joy to you!