Your negative thoughts feel like the enemy. They sure can get in the way of your goals and dreams! But when you embrace your negative thinking, you'll uncover a surprising paradox that suddenly turns them into your most powerful allies. In this episode of Relationship Alive, you'll learn how to transform your negative thoughts into fuel for your biggest goals. In the process, you'll heal old wounds...and free up tons of energy and motivation that's been stuck.
Resources:
*FREE 3-step communication guide:
https://www.neilsattin.com/relate
*Regulate your nervous system and develop Emotional Resilience:
https://www.neilsattin.com/foundationcourse
*Communication Workshop co-taught with Peter Levine:
https://www.neilsattin.com/workshop
*Support for the process:
https://www.neilsattin.com/coaching
Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. I'm your host Neil Satin, and today I’m going to share with you a path to eliminating the powerful hold that negative thoughts can have over you…by using their power for your own good!
Take that, negative thoughts!
Actually your negative thoughts will be pleased to know that they will be truly making your life better for once. So don’t worry - everyone is welcome here. In fact, we need those negative thoughts for what we’re about to do.
If you're one of those miraculous people who doesn't have a single negative thought holding you back, then you should keep listening anyway, because I'm going to share with you a strategy that will be helpful for other people you know, who undoubtedly do experience negative thoughts.
I'm talking about the kind of thoughts that you may have heard, and internalized, when you were younger - from, say, a well-meaning parent who was trying in their own way to encourage you - or maybe they were trying to discourage you from a certain path.
But unfortunately, the way that our little young brains work, we internalize those negative messages and give them more meaning and weight than they deserve.
I’ll even give those adults the benefit of the doubt and say that how those negative thoughts got internalized were probably not what the adult intended. They were probably - not always, but in most cases - doing their best to protect you, with whatever they were capable of in that moment. This is a moment where you get to show up, help your young self understand that experience that you went through, make a boundary with whoever outside of you was responsible for that negative belief, and reclaim your responsibility for yourself. And, even better, you get to meet those negative beliefs with appreciation and compassion - and to integrate them into your life, now, in a way that will be more purposeful.
I’ll be giving you some very personal examples of this because this technique is something that I stumbled upon in my own life, a combination of several other strategies that emerged, spontaneously, that *I* found to be super-effective, and that’s worked for clients as well.
So, how do those negative thoughts get lodged in there to begin with?....
