January 2019

Deborah Horton

Where Is Your Proof?

Many people battle with negative automatic thoughts. These thoughts come from several sources including our families and friends, strangers, people in authority over us (teachers, coaches, bosses), social media, and of course from inside our own minds. However, those inside the mind came from somewhere or someone else almost all of the time.

A message, or seed, is introduced to our mind. Something someone has said, a way someone has acted or not acted, an assumption we have made about what someone has said or done or what we have seen online. This seed is at first nothing just as the words we hear or we create are nothing but thoughts. They have no life, unless we provide them with what they need to grow. If we water them, fertilize them, give them a place in our minds to live they become implanted and are always there.

There is of course one other thing we must do in order to grow our negative thought seeds – give them truth. By agreeing that this thoughts are true and using absolutes to describe them – I am, I do, I can’t, I don’t, etc. – the brain then views them as truths – not thoughts or seeds. But where is your proof that these thoughts are true? Where is your absolute proof?

When these thoughts appear, we must stop and question them just as any lawyer would do in court to prove an accusation is true. Imagine a stop sign appearing when the thought appears. Imagine yourself looking at this thought (only words) and asking where is your proof? Just because you think it does not make it true. Just because someone else said it does not make it true. Just because you read it does not make it true. Where is your proof? Almost always the proof will not be found except the truth that the thought is just words we have given life to and assumed a truth about.

Where is the proof that the thought is false? For example, if you have the thought “I never do anything right.” What is your proof of things and times where you have done things right? Did you put on your own clothes, take a shower, do your hair or makeup, drive a car, pass a test, complete a job task today? If you did, you obviously did it right. Therefore, “I never” cannot be true. There is no proof.

Without proof, we are left with giving truth to just words because we assume there must be some proof or we wouldn’t think these thoughts. Thoughts come and go all the time. It is up to us whether or not they grow and live in our minds or whether they are dismissed for lack of proof.

Where is your proof?

Until next time,
Deborah

I am now accepting new clients, girls and women, for counseling in Montana. If you would like to set up a FREE initial consultation please call me at 406-413-9904, email mindfulmontanawellness@gmail.com or click the Book Now button on Facebook.

Deborah Horton

Be Proud Of Yourself

As humans, we are so very quick to criticize ourselves, have less faith in ourselves, create negative beliefs about ourselves. We are even more quick to allow others to criticize us, lose faith in us, say negative things about us. The negative is easy. It’s like slipping into a stretched out pair of old sweatpants – it’s easy. We become comfortable there. We believe it is who we are and what we deserve no matter what good things we are doing, believing, creating.

If we spent even one tenth of the time that we spend on putting on the negative on the positive things about ourselves our lives would look completely different. We would be amazed at the positiveness of our lives, of our minds, of our spirits. When we focus on the negative our focus becomes negative. It prevents us from recognizing the positive in ourselves and in others. What we slip into is what we become.

For just one moment, think of one positive thing about yourself. It can be anything. A part of your personality, something you are good at, anything you do well, choices you have made, anything that is even minimally positive, anything that creates even minimal steps forward, anything that makes you smile and feel good about yourself.

Every time you do something make a positive choice, that you choose to be kind, that you accomplish anything and anything can be as simple as getting out of bed, when you think something positive instead of negative, when you feel good about anything you do or anything you don’t do. If you do something well at school or at your job be proud. If you choose to get up and get dressed be proud. If you choose forgiveness over anger be proud. If you choose to be positive instead of negative be proud.

Acknowledge yourself. Pay attention to your positive self. Notice each individual good no matter how small. Allow yourself to be proud of you. It is okay to be proud of yourself. In fact, it is necessary for a positive life. If you are always waiting, looking, expecting to find someone else to be proud of you until you can feel proud and happy you need to stop and look at yourself.

Be proud of yourself – not just in the big things – but in everything.

Until next time,
Deborah

I am now accepting new clients (girls and women) for counseling. If you would like to make an appointment for a FREE initial consultation call 406-413-9904 email mindfulmontanawellness@gmail.com or click the Book Now button on Facebook

Deborah Horton

Building Walls

Building walls has been a very popular topic for the last few months. I thought it might be a good time to talk about mental walls. The kind that many people construct every single day adding to them brick by brick until they are trapped behind a wall of their own making wondering why they are there.

Mental walls are constructed first by the negative messages we receive into our brains. These messages can come from family, friends, strangers, or ourselves. We can be imprinted with them from very young ages in the form of brain chemical messages. They become part of our environment when repeated over and over. We then start to believe they must be true, especially those from those we love and who are supposed to take care of us – mother, father, romantic partner. We believe them and we add a brick.

With time, we continue to add bricks from outside messages but add to those our own inside messages. We meet new people and these messages present themselves from the first words out of our mouths. They must be thinking I am (insert negative message here – fat, stupid, not good enough, ugly, and on an on). Immediately we begin to add bricks to forming any kind of new relationship. We shut down, we pull away, we create our own separation. We push others away by our own beliefs. We assume that we know what they are thinking because others have thought the same and said so and we have thought the same and believe it. It becomes our truth and our reality.

The wall grows with each and every negative thought. Soon we cannot see over it and we feel alone. Soon we cannot go around it and we feel trapped. Soon we cannot break through it and we feel helpless. But by repeating what we were told and by believing it, we have created the wall and our own misery.

So how do we break it down? The same way we built it, one brick at a time. By examining each one and asking, what evidence, what actual truth is there to support this brick? What are the positives I can put in place of this brick to destroy it? Can I allow others to say what they think of me before I assume I already know?

Most walls are built with the a very few beliefs repeated over and over. Processing them, questioning them, replacing them one at a time is how you demolish your wall. Pick a brick and get started.

Until next time,
Deborah

If you think you need help deconstructing your walls, set up a FREE initial consultation appointment with me to see if you think we can work together to accomplish this. Call 406-413-9904 or email mindfulmontanawellness@gmail.com to set up an appointment.