Are Your thoughts more negative than you think?
I was listening to a podcast. This girl mentioned that “We often think, we think that we’re thinking positive thoughts but when we sit down and write them out, we realize that we’re not”. Now, how do you know if you are truly thinking positive thoughts or you’re not and you just aren’t aware of it? Well it’s by how you actually live. It’s by how you experience life as you’re going through it.
So when you walk into a room, are you a little socially insecure? When you are in a dating situation or you’re around men or you’re with your husband, are there negative body thoughts coming up? Or are there negative thoughts toward men coming up or scared thoughts around sex? All of this kind of stuff. There’s a little one when you’re with your children. Are there fearful thoughts coming up? Are there worried anxious thoughts that really aren’t biblical but are so natural feeling coming up?
So how does life happen for you?
Do you really think that that’s what it would look like if your thoughts were truly true, positive, well, biblical and all of that good stuff? Most people think that they’re thinking more positively than they are. And when we sit down and write out what’s going on through our heads, it’s like going through a trash dumpster sometimes. The things that come up are stunningly negative and angry and bitter and sad and despondent sometimes.
And so, I would encourage you to journal just a little bit. If it’s not something you’ve ever done, it doesn’t need to be a big grandiose-have-to-do-it-right some kind of thing. Take a scrap piece of paper and just start writing whatever’s in your head. If you don’t even know what’s in your head, you can just say, “I don’t know what’s in my head.”
If you are a little more advanced, then, pick a topic. Pick an area of your life where you’re not experiencing the kind of results you that you want to have. And just ask yourself a question. A great question to start with, to get you started is, “How do I feel about my body, marriage, friendships, children, house, job, relationships?” Fill in the blank with that and you might say, “Well I know how I feel about that” Do you? Or do you think you know how you feel about that? Write it down.
I have learned about myself at this point that I don’t even know what I’m thinking until I sit down and start writing. I have it like a general vague sense but if I can feel something stuck, like if I feel a fear around something, I can feel an insecurity around something or I can feel a sense of stuckness around something, I know that I’m going to have to sit down and start writing it in order to have an idea what’s in there and why that’s happening. Otherwise, I’m taking some pseudo educated guesses.
Writing
But for some reason, writing freehand, I really recommend. I really recommend handwriting. There’s a different connection to the brain when we write with our hands rather than just typing. That starts to reveal what’s in there. And you don’t have to have three hours to do this. Just a little 15 minutes here, a little 30 minutes there, a little 5 minutes reviewing and adding a couple of new thoughts sprinkled throughout a week, two weeks, a month is going to get you closer than you are now, right?
So the point is, underestimate the positivity of pure subconscious thinking. It’s depressing as it sounds. And sit down and write out just kind of random thoughts to see what’s going on in there. That has been my path to freedom in so many different areas in my life. It’s not obviously the only step. But it brings up what you actually have in there that needs to be worked on.
So, afterwards, you would do some other things. You pray over, you talk about it with someone. Research that topic more to get facts rather than the fears you have. But you first just need to know what kind of garbage is underneath there and nothing brings it out quite like writing.
Find Time
So find whatever time you have. I have kept journals in the bathroom before because that’s the only time I can get to myself sometimes. But if you need to in the morning while you’re eating breakfast, if you have 5 minutes of quiet. Or if it’s a dictation on your phone while you’re driving and it’s a red light or something. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t even have to hand write it.
It doesn’t have to be ideal but something is better than nothing. And again, if you don’t know where to begin, just pick an area of your life where you’re feeling a little bit less satisfied, a little less than healthy or a little stuck and say “I feel about” fill in the blank. Here’s what I feel about myself (fill in the blank) and then free write.
Just go with it and don’t judge or censor yourself.
No one’s going to see this and God already knows what you’re thinking better than you know yourself. So you can’t hide it from Him and you don’t, well, you might need to hide it from other people, right? But no one’s going to be looking over your shoulder and don’t even stop yourself from writing things that may be coming up that you wish weren’t, right?
So if you’re maybe, writing about your marriage or you’re writing about your body or you’re writing about, you know, your job or your kids and some pretty crappy stuff starts to come and you want to say“ Woah, woah, woah! I don’t think that, right? I don’t feel that way.” Apparently, you do. Apparently, there’s something in there that needs to be released.
So don’t try to stifle how you’re really feeling, what you’re really thinking when it comes up through writing. Don’t correct how you’re feeling because those feelings are just going to say “Well, there it is. She’s ignoring me again.” And they’re gonna go right back down in there where they have been causing trouble and you need them to come out.
It’s almost like vomiting out a poisonous awful of a metaphor is that is. But they need to get out of your system in order for your body to re-regulate, for your life to re-regulate and figure out, “okay, what is going on?” , “What is back on my healthy balance?”, “What is where I really want to be and called to be and need to be?”.
Until we get this stuff out, we don’t (A) Know what’s in there in the first place and (B) We can’t work with kind of a cleaner slate to get things back to where they need to be. So don’t underestimate the negativity of your deeper subconscious thoughts and feelings. Even if you think nothing’s wrong, even if things aren’t freaking fantastic and the areas that you have a great deal of control over, then, I would recommend, really journaling out what you’re thinking around that, what’s going on around that, how are you feeling around that.
Doesn’t mean, things are going to change, you’re suddenly getting a massive promotion tomorrow or wake up next to someone different. Let’s hope you don’t, right? But you’ll start to have something to work with to get things going in a better direction. And unless we’re willing to do this and it does kind of feel like vomiting sometimes, right? It’s really gross. Well everything comes out, it’s not pretty to look at it doesn’t feel good, sometimes there’s tears but we have to get it out to be able to get healthier.
We really do. It’s like when you have food poisoning and you think “This really sucks I have to go through this but it’s got to get out of my system. It’s gotta go out one way or the other. I’ve got to get it out so that my body can go back to being well and things can kind of re-sort themselves.”
So that’s my challenge for you today. I want to be able to serve you and get you closer to where you want to be and where God wants you to be. Get those negative junkie thoughts out on some paper. And figure out what you have to work with and get your body and your life back to a healthier spot,okay? Love you bombshells!
Jackie
