I am finiding it extremely hard to believe my positive talk...i have an extremely negative mind..everytime I try to change something negative into positive..my mind tells me I'm just saying the positive thing because the program says too...i don't reallie believe it

Hi aj,

It is difficult at first and it's due to the many years we have practised the negative thinking. If you keep practising and maybe try just thinking about pleasant images or something comforting rather than actually replacing words at first it might work better. Please be patient...it will all fall into place..it doesn't come natural to us at the start but will begin to change soon. Don't give up or get frustrated with yourself...just take baby steps.

Good Luck, You will get it

Hey AJ !

On week 3, they teach us to not make the positive so extereme. Don't say something like "I'm great and nothing's wrong", say something like "this is just anxiety and it will go away. It always eventually does. "

The positive statements were difficult for me to believe too, but just like the negative thoughts you give yourself now (and you believe those), you'll eventually start to believe the positive thoughts. The positive thoughts are the real truth anyway ! Just keep at it !

aj85

Hello again there. Sounds like you're having the same difficulty as pretty much everybody who has ever done this program, including myself. You are so used to thinking negative and so of course it is going to feel akward and unbelievable to start trying to think positive. How many practice opportunities have you had with the negative thinking? It might take a little while before you really start to believe the positives and this is alright. It also depends on how you are going about thinking positive.

For instance...while doing the negative thought replacement on paper it is very important to write the full negative thought. This means to write what it is that is bothering you and the feelings you get from it. So for example.

I really don't want to go to work today. What if I get those scary feelings again and i feel that i need to get out and I can't.

This is very very important because if you just write out that you don't want to do something and then try to replace that then, of course you won't feel good after doing this. It wouldn't matter how many times you tried to do that it would still leave you feeling bad. Here is the same example but less elaborated and with the positive replacement.

I really don't want to go to work today.

Positive- I need to go to work in order to make money and i'll be alright it's no big deal.

Does this really make anybody feel better? It sure doesn't bring my energy up and I can tell you that from experience because this is what I've done before and it isn't useful at all. Now for the positive. You also want to elaborate on this as well so you are addressing the feelings that come with the problem instead of just the problem itself.

Negative- I really don't want to go to work today. What if I get those scary feelings again and i feel that i need to get out and I can't.

Positive- Of course I don't want to go to work, I get those scary feelings and this is my mind trying to protect me from experiencing suffering and pain from some past situation that i went through. (If you know what this is then you can put that in there and if not then don't worry about it right now). I'm going to practice using my relaxation techniques to calm myself down if i get those feelings, watch what i eat and this will help me get through the day. The more I practice anything the better I get at it and this even includes calming myself down.


Another thing I'd like to touch base on would be what Monty'smom said and i'm very glad she said it.

quote:

If you keep practising and maybe try just thinking about pleasant images or something comforting rather than actually replacing words at first it might work better.

Yes you could do this and for sure it will help you out. I believe what would also help you out especially in the beginning is when you start to feel those scary feelings, you can write down the full negative thought and then either visualize those pleasant images or you can get really relaxing postcards and focus on all the little details (this came from a homework assignment in lesson 2) and then try to replace the negative thought with a positive one. It will be alot easier to do after this because you would already start to feel a little more relaxed and so you'd be able to believe that what you are practicing will help you out more. You can also use the relaxation cd after you write down the negative thought but you may want to interchange these as it can become somewhat difficult to use the cd after all the negative thoughts you want to replace.

I'm not going to lie to you, learning how to think more positively will take some time and it will be a gradual thing. This may seem overwhelming but you must realize which future is going to be better for you?

Where will you be in 5 years if you continue your cycle of negative thinking? Will you have more energy or less energy then today? Will you look more alive or less alive? What will your financial situation be like? How will your relationships be? How will it be in 10 years? Or 20 years?

Where will you be in 5 years if you continue working on being more positive? Will you have more energy or less energy then today? Will you look more alive or less alive? What will your financial situation be like? How will your relationships be? How will it be in 10 years? or 20 years?

If your life is like a ship on course and you change your direction by 2 degrees do you think you'll get to the same destination in 15 weeks time? Or will you arrive at a completely diffrent continent?

Mike

PS I highly suggest that someone creates a thread in order to practice the negative thought replacements. It is really wonderful to do this because we can get ideas from other people in order to try replacing our own thoughts and we can give our ideas to others and this can help them out and it can help us to practice more.