It is ok to have negative thoughts – just make sure they don’t stay long
We are living in uncertain times right now. And in those times, it is ok to feel anxious and a bit lost sometimes. When we look at the media, we are confronted with bad news that have the purpose to accelerate our anxiety and make us be fearful about the future. The good news is, we have a choice here. We have a choice of buying into the never-ending spiral of fear and negative outlooks, or if we consciously see those negative thoughts coming in from time to time, but not let them bother us for very long. It I a choice - that will determine our long term happiness.
With lots of uncertainty and major political turmoil in the work right now, many people feel a sense of fear and tension. The future seems ever less predictable and what we thought was secure today does not have to be tomorrow. The media tries to capitalize on those fears of ours and therefore bombards us with ever more apocalyptic scenarios. We can now choose to go with the flow of building up tremendous fear about the future and get torn into the narrative that everything will become worse, or, there is the alternative of managing those fears and anxieties of ours in a way to still be positive about the future and our life in general. This is currently not easy, but it is possible.
Firstly, we need to realize that we have a choice. We have a choice weather to have a negative or positive outlook on our life and the future. After realization, comes reflection. We need to reflect and identify those moment when we are overwhelmed by our fears. For example, is it the moment we wake up and check the news? Is it when we are so stressed that things seem to overwhelm us because we fail to manage our own expectations? When is the time we feel the most anxious and what make those negative thoughts come into our head in the first place are key questions to ask here?
The great things is, once we reflected on those points, we can actively work on them, to reduce our exposure to situations where we are most anxious and fearful in. For example, if we know listening to the news most of the day makes us anxious, why don’t we reduce the time of the day where we consume news media? Those are easy ways to minimize our exposure to external environments that triggers our overall anxiety and makes us overwhelmed by our fears. It is not always easy to identify those triggers of fear, however it is important to do to actively eliminate them from our life.
If we still experience one of those moments of fear, the next step is to consciously be aware of fear and anxiety overwhelming us right in this moment. We can visualize this as a dark cloud. First the cloud is in front of us, but then when our anxieties become so strong, we are walking into the dark cloud that scares us and we feel we are surrounded by negativity and fear. We have to consciously realize when we are walking into those dark clouds, to then actively take a step to the right and walk out of them back into the light. This can be hard work, but very often is only requires a small step. It is however an active step that we have to do, nobody else for us. It is therefore ok to have negative thoughts, but when they come, be aware of them in the moment, and actively replace them with positivity in this moment.
Over time, it will require less active positive thinking to get over the fear, rather you will do it unconsciously and have an overall more positive outlook on life. When negativity comes back, think about the cloud again, and actively step into the light of positivity. It will get easier with time, you just have to do it to get out of the general flow of negative thoughts all around us.
