If you have a habit of dwelling too much on the same negative thoughts then this method will help. Often there is no outward mental or physical manifestation associated to the negative thought – at this time. It is just negative thinking, like “I am so depressed” or “I hate my job” or “I cannot do this” or “I hate being fat.” Constantly revisiting your negative thoughts can cause the depression which may cause more negative thoughts. So how do you break a bad habit when it is entirely in your mind and not supported by external conditions.
There are quite a number of ways to overcome a negative thought pattern. The basic idea here is to replace the old thought pattern with a new one. Mentally resisting the negative thought will usually backfire, you will simply reinforce it and making it stronger and even worse. The more you run it around your mind in the same way, the stronger the pattern becomes.
Here is the method that is useful to break negative thought patterns. It is basically a combination of the swish pattern from Neuro Linguistic Programming and a memory technique known as chaining
Instead of trying to resist the negative thought pattern, you will be redirecting it. Think of it like a powerful mental exercise. Take the energy of the negative thought and convert it into a positive thought. With a little mental conditioning, whenever the negative thought occurs, your mind will automatically flow into the linked positive thought. It’s similar to Pavlov’s dogs learning to salivate when the bell rang.
Here is how it works:
Assume your negative thought is a subvocalization, meaning that it’s like you hear a voice in your head that says something you want to change, like, “I am an idiot.” If the negative thought is visual (a mental image) or bodily kinesthetic (a gut feeling), you can use a similar process. In many cases the thought will manifest as a combination of all three (visual, auditory, and bodily kinesthetic).
Step 1: Turn the negative thought into a mental image.
Turn the little voice into a corresponding mental picture. For example, if your thought is, “I am an idiot,” imagine yourself wearing a dunce cap, dressed very foolishly, and jumping around like a idiot. See yourself surrounded by other people all pointing at you while you shout, “I am an idiot.” The more the scene is exaggerated and memorable the better. Imagine bright colors, lots of animation and rapid movement. Rehearse this scene over and over in your mind until you reach the point where thinking the negative thought automatically and quickly brings up this outlandish imagery.
If you have trouble visualizing, you can also do the above in an auditory fashion. Translate the negative thought into a sound, such as a song that you sing. Go through the same process with sound instead of imagery. It works either way.
Step 2: Select an empowering replacement thought.
Now decide what thought you would prefer to have instead of the negative one. So if you have been thinking, “I am an idiot,” maybe you would like to replace that with “I am brilliant.” Choose a thought that empowers you in a way that disrupts the effect of the original negative thought.
Step 3: Turn the positive thought into a mental image.
Now go through the same process you used in Step 1 to create a new mental scene from the positive thought. So with the example “I am brilliant,” you might imagine yourself standing tall, posing like a super hero with your hands on your hips. Picture a giant light bulb appearing just above your head. The bulb turns on so bright that it’s blinding, and you see yourself yelling, “I am brilliant!” as loud as possible. Keep rehearsing this scene until merely thinking the positive line automatically brings up the associated imagery.
Step 4: Mentally chain the two images together.
Now take the images in Step 1 and Step 3, and mentally glue them together. This trick is used in memory techniques like chaining or pegging. You want to morph the first scene into the second scene. The NLP swish pattern would have you do a straight cut from one scene to the next, but it is recommended that you animate the first scene into the second. A cut is too sharp for the brain and often won’t stick. So instead pretend you are the director of a movie. You have the opening scene and the closing scene, and you have to fill in the middle. But you only have a few seconds of film left, so you want to find a way to make the transition happen as quickly as possible.
For example, one of the hecklers in the first scene might throw a light bulb at the idiot version of you. The idiot you will catch the bulb and screw it into the top of his head, wincing at the pain. The bulb then grows into a giant bulb and turns on so bright it blinds all the hecklers. You rip off your ridiculous clothing to reveal a shining white robe beneath it. You stand tall like Superman and yell loudly and confidently, “ I am brilliant!” The hecklers fall to their knees and begin worshipping you. Again, the more exaggeration you use, the better. Exaggeration makes it easier to remember the scene because our brains have evolved to remember the unusual.
Once you have the whole scene worked out, mentally rehearse it for speed. Replay the whole scene over and over until you can imagine it from beginning to end in less than two seconds, ideally in under one second. It should be lightning fast, much faster than you would see in the real world.
Step 5: Test.
Now you need to test your mental redirect to confirm it works. When you think the old negative thouhgt, your mind should automatically redirect you to the positive one. Merely thinking the negative thought should rapidly bring up the positive thought. If you’ve done this correctly, you won’t be able to help it. If not go back and practice the set-up until the action becomes second nature. The negative thought is the stimulus that causes your mind to run the whole pattern automatically. So whenever you happen to think, “I am an idiot,” even without being fully aware of it, you end up thinking, “I am brilliant.”
If you’ve never done visualizations like this before, it may take you several minutes or longer to go through this whole process. Speed comes with practice. The whole thing can literally be done in seconds once you get used to it. Don not let the slowness of the first time through discourage you; it will soon speed up with practice. This is a skill can be learned like any other, but it probably will feel a bit awkward the first times you run it.
It is recommended you experiment with different types of imagery. You will likely find some variations much more effective than others. Pay particular attention to association versus dissociation. When you are associated in a scene, you are imagining seeing it through your own eyes, the first-person perspective. When you are dissociated you are imagining seeing yourself in the scene, the third-person perspective. You usually get the best results when you dissociate in both scenes. Your results may vary. You may have to do some mental image work if you switch from dissociated to associated or vice versa, but it can be done with practice.
Within a few days, you should be able to reprogram dozens of negative thought patterns, assuming you have that many. Soon it will became hard for your mind to even produce a negative thought or emotion. Everything will keep getting redirected to the positive side. This form of mental conditioning is especially effective when used to redirect the thoughts of self-doubt to a more can-do mindset.
This type of mental conditioning will give you a lot more conscious control you’re your internal states. It will become so internalized that you just do it automatically without even thinking about it or realising it happened. Your subconscious should take over, so whenever you have a thought like “I cannot,” it automatically gets immediately switched into “How can I?” giving you an immediate advantage. Memory experts similarly report that with practice, techniques like pegging and chaining are taken over by the subconscious, just like riding a bicycle.
Give this process a try the next time you notice yourself dwelling on a negative thought.
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