More often than we realize, we are talking to ourselves. Think about the statistic I just shared with you about the number of thoughts we have each and every day…this is talking to ourselves. There is an old joke that goes something like, “Why do you talk to yourself so much? Because, I enjoy intelligent conversation.” But, if we look at the statistics again that are provided by Miss Hawthorne, 80 percent of all our thoughts are negative in nature, so can we really say this is intelligent conversation?

 

Once a thought enters our mind and gets into our subconsciousness, it embeds itself deeply, takes root and flourishes quite well. In fact, many of these thoughts never really go away, they linger quietly until the most opportune time for them to raise their heads and derail our self confidence and undermine our best laid plans. How can we then filter or eliminate negative self-talk? I do believe that working towards seeing the good in as many situations rather than the bad is indeed one of the best ways to do this.

 

A tool that is was introduced to me a number of years ago is something called “Now Awareness.” “Now Awareness” is a simple practice of disrupting your thoughts by distracting your mind onto other things. Here is an example of how to put this to work. When a negative or unwanted thought enters your mind, you immediately start naming things that you are currently aware of around you.

 

Here is an example, My unwanted thought is, “I am not very good at communicating,” as soon as I identify this as an unwanted thought, right away I start listing what I am aware of in my surroundings. The list may include things such as, “I am now aware of the birds singing in the distance, I am now aware of the sunshine on my face, I am now aware of the people visiting around me, I am now aware….” I think you get the idea. Continue to announce to yourself the things that you are now aware of that can replace the unwanted thought and continue doing so until the original thought is no longer your point of focus. If you are comfortable in doing so, you can even say the things you are now aware of out loud, as this will make a stronger impact of disrupting your original thought.

 

You can also try to change the negative thought into one that is positive in nature, instead of thinking you are not good at communicating, such as the example used above, turn that thought around into “I am good at communicating,” “ I communicate quite well, I do it all the time.” Or, instead of “I can’t solve this problem,” try stating the positive thought of “I will find a creative way to solve this problem, just like I have done in the past with other problems.” Sometimes just putting a positive spin on a negative thought can be a great tool that you can use to undo the harm that a negative thought can have on you.