How to overcome negative thoughts and emotions? How to silence the negative talk in your mind?
We all encounter negative thoughts and we wish they’d never come.
It is okay to have negative thoughts at times. When you think a negative thought should never arise, then you encourage it.
Here is what you should do instead.
1. Accept Your Negative Thoughts
Accept even the most negative thoughts that come to you.If you chase a negative thought, it comes to you multiplied. If you keep resisting a negative thought and try to push it away, then it will follow you like a ghost. Shake hands with the negative thought. Just give it a tight hug and you will suddenly find that it has disappeared. The more you fight with the negative thought and try to push it away, the more it hounds you back. The moment you give it a hug, however negative it is, you will see that it just stops bothering you. Then you find it is not even there. It is just a dim energy.
2. Purify the Body
Having too many thoughts indicates there are impurities or some weakness in the body. Negative thoughts come if bowel movement is irregular. You can go on a fruit diet and cleanse your intestines. Undergo Shankh Prakshalan (Yogic method of cleansing the intestines). Take Triphala (an ayurvedic supplement) for a few days and something to soothe your nervous system like Shatavari. These herbs calm and soothe the system.
3. Improve Circulation in the Body
Negative thoughts also come when your blood circulation is not good. Improve circulation in your body. If your head is filled with too many thoughts, lie down on the floor and keep rolling and you will see the circulation in the body improves. When circulation improves, then the mind feels better. So, move around, exercise, sing, dance and do yoga.
4. Practice Pranayama and Meditation
If you tell your mind to not have negative thoughts, it will not work. Pranayama and meditation are the best ways to apply brakes to the buzzing mind. They are very effective and can instantly calm your mind down. With meditation, silence, and Sudarshan Kriya, the source of negativity is nipped at the root. Pranayama purifies the mind and meditation purifies the consciousness.
5. Rise above Thoughts
Become a witness to your thoughts. You cannot stop a thought or know a thought before it comes. And when it comes, it also goes away immediately. If you are a witness to the thought, it simply drifts away and vanishes. But if you hold on to it and chew on it, then it stays with you. Thoughts come and go, but that which is the basis of thoughts is the atma (soul). And that is what you are. You are like the sky, and thoughts are like clouds. Clouds come and go in the sky, but can they disturb or limit the vastness of the sky in any way? When you fly above the clouds, you see that the sky is untouched. It is the same – unchanged. Similarly, it is only the thoughts that keep moving. This is what happens in meditation. That is when you come into Sakshi Bhaav i.e. when you simply become a witness to the thoughts. We do not have to attach ourselves to our thoughts. Whether they are good thoughts or bad thoughts, they come and go. You are far above and beyond all this.
6. Become Aware of Your Company and the Changing time
The company of negative people can affect your mind. Similarly, time also affects the mind. At certain times, certain planetary positions and certain cosmic energies can affect your mind. But all this will pass. Don’t be paranoid about anything. Just know that time moves on.
7. Recognize the Root of Negativity
Negativity cannot remain without support. Positivity can be without any reason. The mind goes on trying to find support for its negativity. It looks for a hook to hang its negativity on (if not this person, then that thing or person). This perpetuates the delusion.
If you are given ten compliments and one insult, you hold on to that one insult and blow it out of proportion. We leave all those ten compliments away. When we do this time and again, we should realize, “I am going on a negative trip.” and immediately come back to here and now.
The creeper of negativity needs support in order to grow. But negativity or aversion for even one person can guarantee a one-way ticket to hell. All negativity is a pointer to move to the center and broaden the vision to cosmic intelligence.
Your Center is Positive
The structure of human consciousness or the mind is very similar to that of an atom. The positively charged protons are in the center of the atom, while the negatively charged electrons are only on the circumference. Similarly, even in human consciousness, all the negativities are only in the periphery. The center of your existence is all positive. You are akin to the structure of an atom. Go back to your center where you find that all your negative thoughts just dissolve. Your true nature is peace and love.
