HOW TO MOVE FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT

Within minutes of a single negative thought bubbling up, like shaking soda, our minds can fizz itself up, causing an uncontrolled spill or negative outburst. The consequences can be spoiling your mood or day to impacting your relationships, workspace, and career path.

While we may not always be able to prevent that first bubble from surfacing, with awareness and patience we can learn to control or diffuse the long-term impact. Here are 10 diffusers to help prevent the negativity stream from taking over your life.

1) Stay grateful – finding gratitude in all things is a natural blocker to negative thoughts. The extent to which you are grateful for what you have allows negativity to subside.

2) Difficult conversations – address situations that are hurtful or building resentment as soon as possible, in a safe space, to prevent festering of negative thoughts.

3) Daily reflections – make time for self-reflection to gain awareness of how you are contributing to a situation.  Understanding this can help with getting a sense of control and stopping the negative energy at the moment.

4) Break the pattern – stop the activity that triggers the negative thinking in the first place. For example, being in a toxic relationship can foster feelings of self-doubt and insecurity, if so, its time to end that pattern.

5) Forgiveness – practice forgiveness till it becomes more instinctive to let things go instead of holding onto a grudge. Start with letting go of small things like someone bumping you on a subway or cutting in front of you in a line.

6) Inner chant – find a motto, a quote or a song that can flip the switch for you and bring you back to a more peaceful state of mind. Something that reminds you that negativity only hurts you and doesn’t help.

7) Silver lining – make it a habit to always look for the silver lining and find a positive interpretation to what is happening to you. When life gives you lemons, how can you make the best lemonade?

8) Phone a friend –  Call that person in your life who is your best cheerleader, always makes you laugh and reminds you that you truly are amazing and things are gonna work out.

9) See the good – part of what triggers our negativity is seeing others in a harsh light.  Stop the judgement and actively make it a habit to find something good in the other person.  They are messy, sure, but could it also be they are working on many things at once and are motivated?

When you find yourself thinking or feeling thoughts like “life is unfair, why me, this is not right”, understand you are about to spiral into negativity.  Use one of these diffusers, or find your own, to put you back on track to your best self.

 

This article was first published by https://www.womenworking.com/profile/leena-roy/