Today we are talking about your Emotional Tool, Choice and how to choose a positive thought when things feel negative.
We have all gotten to a place where things feel heavy, negative, and really hard; which usually leads you to feel like life is happening to you. From this place you may feel like you have no choice but to keep reacting trying to keep your head above the water. You end up being taken down a negative spiral that can be really hard to get out of.
But here is the thing, how you feel all boils down to your thoughts. The good news is that you have the power to choose your thoughts.
That’s why today we are looking at the truth about positive and negative thoughts and your power to choose a positive thought even when you feel negative.
The positive thought and the negative thought are both true to you in that moment. If you are running on autopilot you may not be able to see or reach for the positive thought, but it is out there waiting for you to find for it.
As we look at your power to choose your thoughts I want to paint a picture for you that will help you take your mind off of autopilot and bring you to a place of conscious awareness.
Because if you are not making a conscious choice then you will most likely be picking thoughts according to your negative bias.
Your negative bias is a cognitive function designed to help you stay safe by scanning your life for everything that is negative or wrong. Left on autopilot without conscious awareness to sort it out, you end up focused on everything that is wrong.
Now because you have neuroplasticity you have the ability to form a positive bias. Some people have this more naturally then other but your brain is intelligently designed to continually change and build new pathways of thinking. This happens by taking your mind off of autopilot and creating conscious awareness of what is right and good in your life. You have the power to build a bias where you scan for what’s positive.
If you have been here with me for a while you have heard me talk about the Jellyfish Beach vs. the Pina Colada Beach.
Let’s paint the mental image of a grassy dune. Visualize the grass swaying in the breeze. You are at the base of the dune. Now if you look off to one side you can see a sandy path where the grass has been worn down because of continued use. You take that path and it leads you up the dune and crests at a beach.
The sun is bright, and there is no shade for a far as the eye can see. As you walk onto the beach you notice the sand is covered in jellyfish making it hard to walk without getting stung. You look out into the water and through it’s murkiness you notice the fins of a school of sharks. Everything about this beach is uncomfortable and negative. This is the Jellyfish beach and that path that you took to get here was a path of thinking.
One negative thought at a time you found your way to a deeper state of suffering on the beach. Your negative bias lead you down that path of thinking so many times that it wore the grass down making it easy for you to keep choosing that pattern of thought. This path of thinking is associated with your amygdala and keeps you in a state of fight, flight or freeze. Lot’s of stress hormones happen in this state and can be mentally and physically exhausting.
The sun is bright on this beach too but there are palm trees for shade, hammocks swaying in the breeze and chase lounges waiting to be used. Next to one of them you see a frosty Pina Colada waiting for you. The sand is pristine and as you walk closer to the water you see that it’s crystal clear. You can even see the sea turtles and dolphins wistfully swimming close to the shore. Everything about this beach feels like it’s at ease and positive. This is the Pina Colada beach and the path that you took to get here was a path of thinking.
One positive thought at a time you found your way to a deeper state of conscious awareness and possibility. With every thought down this path you were building a positive bias that helps you scan for what is feels more and more optimistic. This path of thinking is associated with your prefrontal cortex. This is where you find creativity, higher-level thinking, problem solving and a solution-oriented outlook on life.
The more you choose this path of thinking the more you wear down the grass and then the easier it will be to find that path. Each time you take the Pina Colada path of thinking you allow the grass to grow up over the Jellyfish path of thinking.
Both paths always exist and you get to choose which path you take. Metacognition is your ability to witness your thoughts and make a choice. That is a powerful thing to understand. YOU always have a choice. But you have to be willing to take your mind off autopilot and activate your conscious awareness so that you can determine where you are and where you want to go.
If you’re walking on the jellyfish beach and you just got stung you are not going to be able to get to the Pina Colada beach from there. So what do you do? Fist you activate your metacognition by bring your conscious awareness to where you are and you decide where you want to go. You get yourself back to the base of the dune by taking some deep breaths. This slows down your amygdala and helps to disengage the negative bias.
From there you activate your prefrontal cortex by scanning for things that are right and possible in this moment. Gratitude is a great and easy way to help you find that Pina Colada path of thinking. From there you just keep reaching for one thought at a time that feels better. Before you know it you will be on the Pina Colada beach fully in your prefrontal cortex finding inspired thought and thinking about what is possible and all of that will lead to inspired action and will allow you to feel not only better but more free.
Both the negative thought and the positive thought are true for you. They are coexisting at the same time. Each path laid out before you as an option. You get to choose which one you want to take. One thought and one feeling at a time you end up choosing how you feel because each thought is associated with a feeling.
I often ask my client to call out both paths for me. They come to me on the Jellyfish beach and I help them get back down to the base of the dune with some breathing. Then I ask them to find the correlating thought from the Pina Colada path of thinking. Then we walk down that path together till they find themselves nestle safely on their chase lounge finding their own inspired thoughts and actions.
The trick is coming back to that neutral place at the base of the dune and then making the choice. I hope this picture make that choice easier for you. You will have hundreds of opportunities everyday to practice, so just keep practicing.
If you find yourself on the Jellyfish Beach remember to breathe and take yourself back down to the base of the dune and reach for one thought that feels better. I know you have it in you.
Let me know if you have questions, I am here to help.
Subscribe to my emails and my YouTube channel, like and share the video and blog, and until next time, know I am holding a place of love for you where your path to the Pina Colada Beach is undeniable.
