negative focus

Deborah Horton

Positive Focus

Most people in therapy do not react positively when it is suggested that they focus on the positive. To many, it seems like an oversimplification and that combatting life long trauma and negative beliefs cannot be that simple. It is not simple, but it is absolutely effective in combatting negative beliefs and trauma conditioning.

It is not simple, nor is it fast. Many people who come to therapy want both. A simple and quick solution to their problems. Likely, it is a combination of our society now where everything is easy and quick to get with just a click of a mouse or an app on our phones. The other part of the combination is that people just want their issues to go away like magic. Processing trauma and conditioned responses from trauma is work and nobod wants that.

The one thing people forget in all of this is that your thoughts are your life.

Whatever you think is how you will live your life. If you think you are not valued, not worthwhile, not lovable, not smart, not pretty, not able to love yourself this is exactly how you will live your life. It will be how you engage in every relationship from those points of view. It will be how you experience everything.

Negative thoughts and beliefs will impact every aspect of your life. Not only do they impact how you feel, but they also impact how you think others feel about you. Your responses will be guided by your thoughts and beliefs. Every decision will be based on what you think that gets translated into how you feel that gets translated into what you do.

Every negative thought and belief has an equal, absolute positive opposite you just have to be aware and find it. You have to be aware of the negative things you think and believe about yourself. The things you say to yourself repeatedly every day. If you stop and think about them you will know what they are. Your brain is intimately familiar with them. Ask yourself, what negative things do I believe and repeat to myself. Write them down just as they come to you word for word.

For each one also write down the absolute positive opposite. The brain works in absolutes. It absolutely believes you if you say I am not valued enough. It cannot differentiate between a lie and the truth or in this case conditioning and the truth. It will only believe what you tell it. If what you believe and think is I am not valued then the absolute positive is I am valuable. Absolute positive opposite.

You must come up with these for every negative thing you think and believe. Write them down. The next step is to incorporate them into your life. The incorpoation involves saying them, repeatedly and often. Saying them when the negatives are there. Putting them where you can see them repeatedly every day. Where you brush your teeth, on the refrigerator, at your workspace, as reminders on your phone. Say them often and with belief in them.

How long will it take for you to replace negatives with positives? There is no measurement to fit every person. For each person it is different, and it depends heavily on that person’s investment in doing the replacement. How long did it take you to get where you are right now with the negatives? A long time I would guess. But by being aware and noticing the differences that happen when your brain starts to incorporate and believe the positives, you will be able to move the process along.

Positive focus is a powerful force that can change your life forever if you are willing to invest the time and energy.

Until next time be well,

Deborah

Deborah Horton

Focus Your Reality

Photo by Abyan Athif on Unsplash

Your focus determines your reality. Where you direct your mind is where it will go. I also believe that when you focus in one direction or become hyperfocused in one direction, that your mind will manifest more similar things to focus on. The result is the creation of a wormhole that creates tunnel vision of the mind.

Most people never notice where they are focusing until it is too late. The wormhole is already created and they are stuck in it creating ever more similar focus thoughts until escape seems almost impossible. The mind follows directions from you. The mind does not direct you to think things, but it sure will help you out if it thinks that is what you want to think about.

If you direct your mind to think you are anxious it will follow through with that directive. If it then believes what you say is true, it will offer supporting evidence of anxiety related thoughts that it has on file from previous thoughts you provided. It will show them to you like little nuggets of anxiety fuel. See this, see that, you said this is how you feel when you are anxious. You said this is what you think when you are anxious. You said this is what kind of things make you anxious. And because this is where you are directing your focus, you manifest more and more thoughts and more and more anxiety.

It is the same with negative thoughts, sad thoughts, low self-esteem thoughts. The wormhole starts small with one thought and if not confronted, it will cascade into every thought until you are trapped. But most people are not able to see the first thought clearly enough to stop the cycle. If they could, the wormhole would also be stopped.

The wormhole does not always consist of negative things or inherently negative things, but hyperfocus can create a kind of blinders where we are unable to see anything else outside of it. If we are hyperfocused on work many times the rest of our lives suffer. We have less time for family, friends, or self care.

Being focused on good things and positive things can result in the same type of wormhole but it can be of benefit to us. If we wake up and focus on a single good thought and direct our brain to focus on good thoughts, we will with the help of our brains manifest more good thoughts. I always get push back from clients at this point that the negative thoughts still come into the mind. The only answer is to push back on those thoughts. With words, with thoughts, with actions.

Confront negative thinking the moment it occurs. The most effective confrontation for the brain is immediate, absolute, positive replacement that is repeated and reinforced. Negative thought – I am not good enough. Positive replacement – I am enough. Negative thought – I will never be happy. Positive replacement – I can be happy in this moment. You cannot say the positives just once and think that solves it. They must be repeated and reinforced as often as is necessary to replace the negative thoughts that are already entrenched in your brain files.

And this is where clients give up. It is work to replace the things that have been created in your mind by trauma in your life. Notice I did not say created by you. Everything you think about yourself was created by someone else, by something else, you were born a blank slate and taught everything else you think you know about yourself. It is work to replace those things. It is work.

Where is your focus? Where do you direct your mind? If you can recognize the thoughts you can confront them. If you are willing to work.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates