Rid Yourself of Negative Thoughts

Dawn Damon 0:07

Hey, beautiful women. This is Dawn Damon, the brave heart mentor and you're listening to the brave hearted woman. This is a podcast designed to help you find your brave so you can live out your beautiful vision. I have been working with women for years. And now I want to help you too. I'm here to awaken the brave heart inside of you. So you can ignite the flame of your vision, you can reach your goals and achieve your dreams. Come on this good brain.

Hey, everybody, you Braveheart women out there, I hope you're doing well. I hope you got your brave on and that you're taking courageous steps of uncomfortable action on a regular basis, because that's how you're going to get ahead. Hey, today, I want to talk to you about ridding yourself from negative thoughts. Did you know that you could do that some people are really prone to negative thinking. But I want to let you know so that you don't feel too bad about yourself. That is natural. It is the natural condition of people that our brain automatically goes to the negative. You know, it's interesting, the second law of thermodynamics says that everything left in a closed system decays, it goes bad. And that's never more true than in our thought life. Because our brain has been wired and created to look for what's wrong, it looks for threats and problems, it wants to solve problems. And our permanent brain was designed to keep us alive to find out what was dangerous. So left to itself, the natural mind always goes back to find and focus on anything that's wrong, it goes to the negative, it's designed to keep us safe. And that's good for us, we need our brain to do its job. But the downside to that is that if it's left unchecked, if our brain is left in this closed system, it will continually show you the negative it will continually show you what's wrong, your filter will black out what's beautiful and good. And you'll continue just to perceive what's negative, what's a potential threat. And here's the thing, the brain doesn't differentiate between what's unsafe, and what's uncomfortable. Because there are times when you need to do things such as speak in front of people, or you know, any number of things that might your brain might go unsafe, unsafe, and give you all of the hormones and all the chemicals of flight or fight when in reality. It's not unsafe. It's just uncomfortable. And that's okay. But you have to be in charge of your brain. And what you're going to think about. Here's the other thing about the brain, we're more prone to remember the negative, the painful, we are more wired and prone, as I said, again, part of our creation, to think about what's wrong to remember it and then to be triggered by it. So we have to develop a disciplined mind. The brain is much like a two year old, I have a two year old granddaughter, I don't know how many of you might have a two year old or two year old granddaughter or grandson or niece or nephew or child but you think about a two year old their favorite words are why and mine. And every person on the planet appreciates parents who positively direct and guide and regulate their two year old because if you don't do that, you're going to have a wild crazy child on your hand. You know your brain is much like a two year old. It's like a toddler if you don't regulate it, if you don't discipline it, if you don't direct it and guide it positively. Your brain will just be wildly out of control. It will show you everything that's wrong, everything that's negative, and it'll help you remember all the painful experiences that you've had. psychologists and author Rick Hanson says this, the human brain has a natural tendency to give weight to and remember negative experiences or interactions more than positive ones. They stand out more, and psychologists refer to this as negativity bias. He goes on to say Rick Hansen says our brains are wired to scout for the bad stuff and fix on fixate on the threat. So that's so true, right? So you can give yourself a little bit of a break. When you think man, I'm just so negative. Understand that that is like the primitive natural condition of every person. Now what you do with that is up to you. So I'm going to give you five tips on ridding yourself of this negativity, and beginning to train your brain towards what is good and positive and pure and noble and true, and righteous and have good report. Instead of craving the juicy, negative gossip, what's wrong? critical fault finding garbage, right? Are you with me?

So the first thing is, you do have to guard your mind, you have to guard what you put into your mind. Think of your mind. And for that matter, think of your whole life, your body, your heart, your mind, as a garden. And you are solely responsible for what is planted in your garden, you are solely responsible for what takes root, and what grows there. And you don't want the wrong produce growing, choking out all of the beautiful plants. So you've got to guard your mind, sometimes the seeds of other people will float like pollen into your garden, you've got to read your mind, you've got to read your garden instantly from that and say, no, that's not going to take root. Sometimes someone will break into your garden, crawl over your fence and begin to pull up what's what's positive. And what's wonderful. I'm talking about toxic relationships, I'm talking about the words of other people, what you hear on the news, or what you read, you've got to guard your mind. Because whatever you put in your mind, whatever, whatever software, you load up, if you will, on that hard drive, whatever seeds you put in your garden, that's what's going to come out. So guard your mind, you get to qualify the seed that's going in not every person in your life should have access to speaking into your life or giving you direction, not everybody who comes into your life should be able to have 100% access to you or trust to you keep those keep those boundaries and keep those guards in place. The second tip that I want to give you is similar, but it's disciplined your mind as a practice. So this is kind of pruning your garden, not only are you going to plant the seeds, but now you've got to prune what comes because wild shoots are going to grow. You know that negative thoughts just come to you, right, they like little little arrows just shot, all of a sudden little thoughts just pop up, little wild shoots just crop up. But you have to replace them. And guess what you get to say no, to that terrible to, you get to say no to that toddler. No, it's called thought stopping, I'm not going to listen to that I'm not going to meditate on that, I'm not going to have fellowship with that negative thought and continue to dwell on that and think about that, it's not going to produce anything good in my garden. And so I'm going to stop it and, and I'm going to choose a better thought. And then I'm actually going to speak it out loud. So in doing this, you can train your brain to stop looking for all of the negative things and start looking for other things, positive things, uplifting things. So you've got to discipline your brain, just because a thought comes to you doesn't mean that thought is for you. And it doesn't mean that it's true. It's just a fiery Dart perhaps launched into your mind. And you've got to take authority over that. And take it down and say no, and then redirect your mind and tell it what it is going to think about. You have the power to do that. You have the choice to do that. Now the difficult thing is this, that in the beginning, it feels like work and sometimes positive, things don't feel as juicy. They're not as tantalizing. They don't stimulate as much as you think in the beginning. Like if you hear somebody start to say, oh, guess what, I got to tell you this. I mean, man, your your heart starts beating faster and chemical start flowing. You're thinking what what you know, it feels good. But what you don't know it's like sugar to your brain that it tastes good in one moment. But after that, it's poison to you. It creates at you know if inflammation and problems and addictions. So get rid of that. Okay, number three. Here's the third tip I'd want to share with you feed your mind the good stuff. So not not only are we pulling down what's wrong, but we're inserting what's right. It's not enough just to pull out negative seeds and uproot the bad stuff. We have to plant some good. So let me ask you, what are you planting in the garden of your mind your brain? What are you reading? What are you feeding your mind? What empowering materials are podcast while you're listening to this podcast? So I gotta say, congratulations, good job. Because I'm for you, I believe in you. I want to help plant good seed in your life and in your mind, what else are you listening to? What are you reading?

What are you focusing on? What are you speaking over yourself? Are you in the Bible? Are you in Scripture? Are you in some books that are going to speak truth to you, and when you walk away from that you feel empowered, you feel strong. So make sure that you're feeding your mind the good stuff, and some relationships will feed you good connections with people that are very positive and very empowering and very wise. Take time to schedule an opportunity, a phone, call a luncheon a coffee, and let someone pour into you to speak over you these positive messages. You need to feed your mind the good stuff. And listen, I don't have to tell you. There's a whole lot of bad stuff going on right now. 24, seven, any station that you turn on, anything that you watch on TV, there's fighting, there's gossiping, there's cursing, there's scary stuff. And those things that you're thinking on, those thoughts that you're dwelling on, they create feelings, and feelings, create actions and behavior. And pretty soon your life is the sum total of the negative thoughts that you've been thinking. Don't be surprised when things aren't going well in relationships are turned upside down and your body feels weak, and you're tired and exhausted and you don't have any enthusiasm. You've got to feed your mind the good stuff. And then for what your words, this is so critically important. Do you know that a single negative word can increase the activity in your amygdala, and that's the fear center of the brain. And when that happens, this releases, releases dozens of stress producing hormones and neurotransmitters, which in turn interrupts our brains functioning. This is, especially with regard to logic and reason and, and language. So in other words, angry words, send an alarm message through the brain. And they partially shut down the logic and reasoning center located in the frontal lobes, that leaves us just having this emotional explosion perhaps. So research has shown that the longer however, that you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of your brain. So negative words can absolutely create not just emotional sadness, but it's physical. So what are you speaking? You know, the

Bible says with our tongues that we can curse ourselves or we can bless ourselves that with our tongue, there is life or there is death. I'm just curious, what are you speaking over yourself? What are you speaking over your situation? or your spouse, or your family? Or your possessions? Or your finances? What are you speaking over your abilities over your talents over your body? For a while there, I was so frustrated with this increased weight that happened in my 50s. And I was like, thinking, you know, every time I'd look in the mirror, and I'm like, I can't lose weight. And I hate my arms. They're getting so fluffy. My dad called him meaty while you get MIDI arms. I hate this. I hate that. And I realized that I was literally cursing my body and that my body was hearing me I wouldn't treat anyone the way I was talking to myself. Why was I doing that? And I began to see that I really was not losing weight. That everything that I was speaking was coming true. Be careful what you say because you can have what you say. Now I've learned and when I look in the mirror I say Good job body. Good job heart I'm so proud of you legs. Good job way to be strong and sturdy and good job stomach way to have tight abs and I'm so thankful for you circulatory system, that you burn fat, like a fat burning machine, good job body. And when I started doing that, Can I just tell you that I'm starting to tone that I've lost the weight. I have some to go, but I recognize that my body was closing down shutting down under the negativity, but conversely, it was rising to the occasion of the positive words. That I was changing my brain. And my brain was sending messages to change the formation of my body. It all works together people, spirit, soul and body, there is the connection. Don't be, don't be surprised, don't be ignorant about it all works together. Here's something else I learned. Number five, you've got to watch your physiology, you can literally change once again, the chemicals and the neurobiology in your body, your moods by changing your physiology. In fact, if you just thought about it for a moment, I could ask you, how do you know someone's depressed? What do they look like? their shoulders are in, they breathe shallow will they have to breathe shallow because their shoulders are in and their collapse in their lungs, and they can't take in full breath. And that starts shunting oxygen to the brain. They don't feel good, their heads down. What does somebody look like who is excited or proud? They're sitting straight up, their shoulders are back, they have a smile on their face, you can change your mood by changing your physiology. So if you've got negative thoughts happening in your brain, stand up, do some jumping jacks smile. So I used to smile when I went through a season of depression and anxiety when I was in my 30s. And it hit me out of nowhere, it was very tormenting, quite frankly. And I had read that if I smile, that I would release molecules in my brain that would help me fight off stress and anxiety. So I'd sit on my bed and I'd smile. And I learned this. And pretty soon, you know, I began to understand that it was helping. It didn't completely change everything overnight. But I recognized that instead of sitting on the corner of my bed and complaining and crying and moaning that I was I was really activating and doing inner biological work by working with science. So when you smile, your brain releases tiny molecules called neuro peptides. And that fights off stress. And then other neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin and the endorphins, they come into play too. And then the endorphins act as a mild pain reliever, and the serotonin acts as an anti depressant. So according to a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, researchers found that smiling, even a fake smile can have a positive impact on your mood, especially triggering certain facial muscles, by smiling can trick your brain into thinking you're happy, it takes about 10 muscles to smile. And when you smile, those 10 muscles when they move, it signals your brain unhappy, and then the happy the happy molecules are released in your brain. So you literally can trick your brain. And the same thing is true with your body language. Did you know that simply standing like Wonder Woman, feet apart, hands on your hips, your chest out for like two minutes can reboot yourself. And this isn't a joke. This is science. Research shows that when this pose is held for about two minutes, cortisol, a stress hormone is reduced up to like 25%. And confidence and clarity go up because testosterone gets bumped up about 20%. And that's even for women. So pasture can affect our emotions. And it can affect how we confidently approach situations and solve problems. And you know, when negativity comes, we can't think straight. Do you know like when somebody is angry with you, or you sent stress, what happens? So many people told me so many women say I think the best things to say, like 30 minutes after the fact. Do you know that takes about 30 minutes for your brain to go out of fight or flight or that primitive part of us to go back to where we're rationally thinking, that's all chemicals, my friends. And so you can change that by your pasture. So if somebody starts to come at you, your brain is thinking it's a threat, it's a threat,

shut down, go into, you know, protection mode instead. And I'm not saying be cocky, but how somebody is words all of a sudden cause us to shrink, don't they? They cause us to fold up and fold down and fold in and, and collapse. And so if we can remember to train our brain to say that I'm going to have better products problem solving skills by by standing in my my courage right now, and I can remove myself from the situation. And I need to perhaps, but I'm not going to succumb to this negativity. And so you can have you can affect how powerful you appear to others by remembering to keep your body language. Well, so many things that we could talk about with this. I hope this has helped you today. I would love it if you would write a review. And if you would subscribe to this podcast. We're going to be coming to you every week. And our heart is to see you get brave and courageous, and to take bold steps of faith so that you can live an abundant and beautiful, amazing second half of your life. That's what I'm going to do. I hope you'll do it too. You can also check out my website at Don daymond calm. You'll hear the commercial in just a minute. Hey, I want to bless you have an amazing day. You're a powerful woman. You are an awesome, talented, skilled, beautiful woman. You've got greatness inside of you, and I'm excited for you to live your best life. So don't forget, uncover your brave vision. Find your courage. Live your vision, experience your dreams, and all that greatness that's inside of you. This is Dawn Damon the brave heart mentor.

Thanks for hanging out with me today and becoming brave. If this has helped you be sure to share it with someone and subscribe so you never have to miss another episode. For more about me my books, my coaching or online courses, visit Dawn damon.com. And as always be brave and live your vision

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