Sometimes a thought is just a thought, so what! It can’t do me any harm, can it?
I can just let it be a thought without going any further, but do I?
Our minds are a very powerful took which helps us learn and grow and manage our emotions.
They go through many levels as our mind is very complex and a hive of activity. Our thoughts fly into our heads, loads of ideas may surface, ruminations and regrets start coming towards us and our beliefs take over starting to weigh heavy.
We need to remember that how we think influences how we feel and how we act. There isn’t a magic switch to flick our thoughts off to help us regain control of our emotions. They just whir around embedding themselves further and further until we believe them to be true.
We can gain control of our emotions, but we need to shift our thinking and change our feelings by changing our thoughts. This isn’t easy, its actually hard work.
We need to banish unhelpful or untrue thoughts completely.
Here are the three levels:
The way we think – which affects
How we feel – and
How we act
We need to remind ourselves that not all thoughts are true. Just because we believe them to be true at that particular time doesn’t make them a fact. Feeling this emotion doesn’t make our thoughts true and of course we don’t need to act on our thoughts.
Perhaps you could consider when you might have acted on your thoughts due to a feeling you had and found this to be an unhelpful act or activity.
How to we manage to avoid following through unhelpful thoughts?
We need to be good at spotting unhelpful thinking, and metaphorically catch them and stop them in their tracks.
These might be things like “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do this” etc.
Also try and think helpful thoughts and focus on these instead.
Remember not all thinking is good i.e. unhelpful
Remember the feeling or emotion you have for this thinking doesn’t make it a fact
Remember we don’t need to act on the feeling which comes from an unhelpful thought.
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