Awareness

To make this all work well, it is very helpful to  notice what you are thinking. I know, there are people who are quite aware of everything. These are the people often saying “I´m thinking/ worrying to much” and having quite a bit of distress because of that. Good news for you: you won´t have the problem to be aware of your negative thoughts. And all the others: be patient. It won´t take long and you´ll notice your negative thoughts.

Because to start it doesn´t matter whether you notice three thoughts per day or per week. But once you started to realize the donut – shove the carrot  afterwards. It takes you maybe three or four attempts, suddenly you start to notice your negative thoughts even more. After a while it seemed to me as if they´d stick out like painted in red. By modifiying your “carrot” you might even find out what kind of belief is firing the negative thought.

Let´s say a friend wants you to go with him for a run. You might think “Me? I can´t go running!”. Answering that with a simple “Maybe I can run”. Why don´t you go running? Do you think you´re not athletic? Maybe the belief  “I´m not athletic” is firing that thought. If you think “I don´t want to run” – It is something completely different. As you can surely feel this is also not negative, because you are in charge what you WANT to do and not suffering from fear. But if there´s a fear in the background or a negative belief you´ll find out with the “carrot”. Because when you just don´t want top run and you tell yourself “I want to run” you can feel straight away that it feels less good. The more you apply the strategy the better you´ll get in noticing the emotional content of your thought. You can use your belly-feeling to find out what is going on in your subconscious.

Just in case…

Let´s say you feel you have got problems with it.  Go about it like with every negative belief.

I don´t feel like I´m noticing negative thoughts. Maybe I´m noticing negative thoughts soon.

I can´t do it. Maybe I can do it soon.

You might even be thinking: I just don´t notice negative thoughts.  Hey! Right in this moment I´m noticing it- I´m proceeding! Awareness is everything. Once you noticed that you don´t seem to notice negative thoughts, you are doing it already! Beacause thinking of not being able to do it is a negative thought. Whenever you seem to notice how it is going- this is the fist step! The first tiny little thing that will start the avalanche. Once you noticed that, you made the first step to awareness.

Don´t forget the carrot afterwards. Always critisize your negative thought!