As I have expanded awareness of the thoughts that circulate through my brain, I have realized more and more that many of those initial fleeting negative thoughts are beyond my control. What is entirely within my control is whether I allow myself to feed those thoughts by believing them and giving them more energy by feeling fear. Negative thinking generates feelings of fear and anxiety when we allow this pattern, and that in turn generates more negative thinking. It can be come a vicious downward spiral.
To turn the energy around when you notice yourself in a negative thought pattern, here are some steps I follow myself:
- Ground energy into the earth. You can do this in your mind by sending a root to the center of the earth and wrapping around that big ball of fire to stabilize yourself. You can also do this by simply standing on the earth barefoot for 10 minutes.
- Go into the center of the fear/anxiety. Often the temptation is to push away the fear or submerge it. More powerful is to go into the center of it and dissolve it. The way to do this is to close your eyes, allow yourself to feel the fear/anxiety fully, and ask “What belief is causing this fear?” As you do this, breathe out the fear energy as if it is black smoke, and inhale clear energy as sparkly clean light to replace it.
- Examine the belief when it arises. What happens if you believe it fully? Feel your emotional reactions and breathe them out as black smoke, breathing in the clear light to replace them. Face the worst possible scenario and hold yourself through it. This might be uncomfortable at first, but on the other side is freedom from this belief. If you need to, take out a paper and pen and write in one column all the reasons this belief might be true, and in another column all the reasons this belief might be false. Examine the list.
- Make a new positive agreement with yourself. Assess the emotional risk of fully committing to this new agreement and letting go of the old false belief. Assess the potential beneficial outcome from fully committing to this new agreement, and how you would feel KNOWING it was 100% true. Decide to accept the risk, invite the beneficial outcome, and not look back.
