You Don’t Have To Be Afraid of Your Negative Thinking
There is a well known Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” This statement tends to lead people in the direction of positive thinking and create superstition about negative thoughts. I speak with people who work very hard at trying to maintain their positive thinking. It can take a lot of time and effort. I used to be one of those people. I spent lots of time trying to manage and fix my thinking and it never ultimately worked. I was never able to banish my negative thought. This led me to feel constantly disappointed in myself whenever I was in a low mood or a negative mindset. I felt like I was doing something wrong.
Now I see all of the work I did to banish and reframe my negative thinking was like me getting a cold and working really hard to get rid of the cold as if it was a terrible thing by taking numerous supplements and doing all kinds of healing strategies and techniques. And then heal from the cold after five days instead of three because I didn’t let myself to relax and allow the intelligence within my body to do what it knows to do.
If I don’t see the cold as a problem and understand my symptoms are a reflection of the health of my body, I feel at peace and relaxed in the experience of my body healing itself. I may get an inner prompting to eat something or take something, but that is very different than my focused intent on trying to get rid of my cold.
Negative thoughts and negative feelings are part of our innate mental health. They give us feedback about our state of mind. They are not anything to worry about. They don’t mean anything about you. They don’t need to be fixed. There is nothing to heal. They are part of the normal, healthy human mental and emotional ecosystem. They do not get in the way of our success. They do not have any intrinsic power to jinx us and mess up our lives. The power is always within us and not in the content of our thinking.
If you become less fascinated by the content of all of your thoughts and more interested in the infinite source from which all thoughts arise, it becomes clear that there is nothing to fear when it comes to our thoughts and our feelings. They all arise from the same formless source of infinite potential that is your true nature. No thought can take that away from you. No matter how much you run with and engage with your negative thinking you cannot damage or destroy who you are.
What I find when I see my thoughts for what they are, ephemeral and always changing, I am much less concerned about the content of them especially when it is dark. I am less likely to make more meaning up like my negative thinking means something about me, my future, or what I am capable of. It doesn’t matter if the thoughts are memories or future imagining. They are not rooted in anything.
So what about creation? Don’t I need to believe I can to get something done?
I don’t think so. The energy of creation is what thoughts are made of it is not the content of the thoughts. I have done plenty of things in my life that I did not believe myself capable of doing, but there was a forward movement within me that carried me forward. I didn’t believe I could finish my thesis and I did. Not only did I complete it I was amazed by what I wrote. I didn’t think I could write a weekly blog, but I do. I didn’t think I could stay married, but I am. I didn’t think I could have a business I love that makes money but I do. If I had spent my time trying to fix my thinking and working on my beliefs none of this would probably have happened. For two reasons:
- I wouldn’t have any energy left over to get anything done.
- My trying to change or fix my negative thoughts only makes them look more real and problematic. It gives them a power they do not have on their own.
Sometimes you will feel positive. Sometimes you will feel negative. Sometimes you will feel confident and other times you will feel insecure. That doesn’t matter. Your thoughts and feelings are like the weather. They come and they go. Your true nature, the divine intelligence that is behind all things doesn’t care how you feel or what you think. It just wants to express. The dandelion will find a crack and grow through concrete. The city of Chernobyl has been taken over by the forest even with the radioactivity. The life force finds a way to express. The more you allow it and don’t worry about managing yourself the more space there is for your impersonal nature to come through.
It doesn’t matter whether you think you can or you can’t. Do what you want to do. Create what you are inspired to create. Allow your unique expression to be seen in the world in whatever form you are inspired express it. You are the field of infinite possibility. Look in that direction and allow your heart to sing whatever song comes through.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. You can get her free ebook Relationships here. Rohini currently has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. She is also the founder of The Soul-Centered Series: Psychology, Spirituality, and the Teachings of Sydney Banks. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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Jeanne Monteiro
14.01.2019 at 12:42Thank you, again, Rohini for your soothing words and beautiful pointers. I have learned to create more space for all the parts of ME, and I now know that my moods and dark days are not who I am. However, I often feel guilty because of the impact they may have on those I most love . When I am overwhelmed and confused, I am often unkind to my children or unfair to my husband. It is the thought of how my moods may negatively affect them that make me feel sad and frustrated about them. Then, I am back in the loop of feeling bad about my ” not so positive parts. “
Rohini
20.01.2019 at 09:48Hi Jeanne,
Thanks so much for sharing. I encourage you to see the wellbeing and resilience of those you love. You are always doing the best you can. See if you can see that and see your innocence. You can only do your best, and when you rebalance you can rebuild rapport. You are learning, as we all are. Your ability to be kind and compassionate with yourself and to reconnect and apologize when necessary is great modeling. Remember you are not responsible for others experience. You can’t damage them. They are resilient and bounce back just like you do. That is the health. The ability to bounce back. Perfection is not required. Sending you love, Rohini