Getting stuck in the negatives (and how to get unstuck) | Alison Ledgerwood

Great insight on negative thinking and how to change it.. :)

Cara Delevingne's Powerful Life Advice on Overcoming Depression and Anxiety

Tips for Thinking Clearly When Facing Difficult Challenges

I'm sure you've had times in your life when you wondered how you were going to get through.

But the fact is, if you are reading this article, you obviously got through whatever challenge was facing you. You may have judgement about how well you handled whatever it was you were stuck on, but you can't deny that you got through!

How did you do it?

How might you have done it better...or at least believe you did it better, so as to generate less judgment within yourself about how you did it?

Understanding how you perceive, process, and respond to crisis, or any challenging situation, is vital to moving forward and being able to handle these types of situations as well as you possibly can.

So, let's take a look.

One thing you may have observed about yourself in crisis is that it's often difficult to think clearly when you're highly challenged by how things are happening around you.

It'd difficult to think clearly when what is happening is different from What you expected or how you wanted things to go.

Perhaps you were busy saying to yourself, "This can't be happening!", or "Oh no, I can't possibly handle this!", or even, "I'm going to die!"

When your brain goes into denial mode, and then moves quickly into survival mode, it's difficult to get a clear picture of what's actually going on in the situation, or what to do about what's happening.

Albert Ellis, noted psychologist, speaker, and author refers to the phenomenon as "awful-izing." It's the Oh-my-god, Oh-my-god, Oh-my-god chatter that goes on in your brain when you're overwhelmed and feeling out of your league in finding a way out of whatever situation you're in.

But this type of thinking mentally gets in your way and interferes with clarity of focus, attention, and problem-solving capability. Once the primal, reptilian brain is activated, the decisions you make are geared toward keeping you safe.

Decisions made out of this mind-set are automatically generated to insure survival and do not involve much conscious thought. They are a knee-jerk reaction to a felt sense that you are in danger. And whether you are actually in danger or not, the behaviors that come from this process are an assumption that there is a real threat to your safety that must be handled...right now!

How can you get around this mechanism?

First, let me be clear that I am not suggesting you ignore truly dangerous situations. The primal reflexes are hard-wired into us for a reason.

There is nothing abnormal or pathological about an initial knee-jerk reaction to something. If there is a real threat to your safety, this mechanism allows you to react without having to think about it first.

That's really important if you might die in the next 5-10 seconds!

And there is no technique in the world that will override that initial survival mechanism. (Try not jerking your leg when the doctor hits the front of your knee with a mallet!)

But, you can refrain from hitting the doctor!

When the first 5-10 seconds have passed and you aren't dead or seriously injured, here are some tips for managing your primal brain and allowing yourself access to the rational, cognitive portion of the brain which is much better suited to assessing (after the immediate gut reaction) whether a challenging situation is truly dangerous to your actual survival and what is ultimately the wisest course of action.

In other words, it will help you assess whether there's a tiger in the room, or whether what you are seeing is merely the shadow of a couch?

First of all, take a deep breath...or two or three...

Breathing is good! It gives you a moment of waiting, as well as providing more oxygen to the brain to help with mental clarity.

Next, take a metaphorical, or actual, step away from the situation. Give yourself some room (and some time) to look at things in a broader scope, to see the whole picture rather than just the part that is scaring the dickens out of you.

Now, count to three, or four, or ten...whatever is required to stop your head from spinning, and to allow you to plant yourself firmly in time and space. Make sure you are sitting in the middle of the present moment in time.

Finally, ask yourself three questions:

1. What will most likely happen if I do nothing?
2. Is it just my feelings that are hurt? Is this perhaps an emotional affront to my sense of who I am and how I believe I deserve to be treated?
3. What other options might there be for handling the situation, rather than fight, flight, or freeze?

Bingo!

That's where using your interpersonal skills of communication, emotional intelligence, collaboration, compromise, working on win/win solutions, etc. come in!

Give it a try!

You'll be amazed how much your relationships will improve and how much closer you can feel to people in you life when you no longer act as if many of them are out to get you, and when your reactions are kept in check sufficiently so that you feel more in charge of how you respond to situations in your life!

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IT'S POSSIBLE (Les Brown's Greatest Hits)

For your morning inspiration.

The Ultimate Mantra is to Laugh Alot to Deal with Negative Emotions in a Positive Way

The Great Mughal Emperor Shahenshah Akbar asked his Grand Vizier Birbal, one day - "Birbal, can you think of one and only one sentence, that would make me sad if I were happy and happy when I am feeling sad?"

The wise Birbal quickly replied - "This too, shall pass!"

It's not that we don't know difficult times are also going to pass and our ship is going to sail through. But sometimes we simply lose our grip on this fundamental fact. Happens even to the strongest of people, the sanest, most sensible and most level-headed of people too. Do not feel bad about it, do not let it break your confidence. Everyone comes to a point where all you see around yourself is negativity. Negative people, negative emotions, negative everything. Even the sky turns grey and the sun goes on a holiday. We cannot stop it from raining, but we can learn to float paper boats in the flowing water instead, isn't it?

Handling Negativity Positively - Is it Really Possible?

YES! It is ABSOLUTELY possible. All emotions have a force, a power that we seldom learn to recognize and identify. I will give you an example. Have you ever got up one fine day feeling so fine that nothing in the world could bring you down and like you could take on absolutely anything? How did you feel the rest of day? You felt great and on top of the world, didn't you? Similarly on the days you get up with this heavy boulder in your gut, you can take it from me, you are gonna have a boring day. Does that mean we are at the mercy of our emotions? NO! It means we can drive the power and energy that emotions have in the right direction to our benefit. Bogged down by a bad score on your test? Use the disappointment to make yourself work harder! Sad about your dog's death? Adopt a stray puppy and give it a home. Angry over your friend? Wear your trainers and hit the track. Run your frustration and anger out of your system!

How To Deal with Negative Emotions?

To make it easy for you to follow, I am going to group all negative feelings under three categories and then give you ways to tackle with each of them. I am sure it will work for you, as it did for me and few of my friends. At the end of each, I have given a special tip that personally works for me. So ready? Here we go...

~ Sadness ~

...sadness, blues, down, gloomy,
depression, hopelessness, pessimism,
despair, dejected, unhappy, mopey...

Feeling any of that? Sadness, or any of the above emotions, incapacitate you from having a good time and enjoying your life! It stops you from being happy. Sadness is a negative emotion in its purest form, and it is one that hits most of us, and also hits us the most. The best way to get rid of sadness is to find yourself some company. Friends, family-members, even pets for that matter. It is a fact that animals have emotions. My German shepherd Jerry (May his soul rest in peace) had this uncanny ability to know exactly when I was feeling sad. He would then roll himself into my blanket and fake like he was caught in it and would try to wriggle himself out. He would keep peeping out of the blanket to see if I were smiling or not, and he would keep doing it till I did! 

And the moment I smiled, he would come and jump all over me. Do things that you love doing, things that make you happy. Make yourself some hot chocolate, or a chocolate shake, read a book, listen to music, watch funny movies, and let the tears flow if they want to. Crying is like a therapy; I simply cannot understand why people find it so hard to cry. You shouldn't block those tears. Let them come out. Cry till you can cry no more, and promise yourself that you will never cry about the same thing again.

My Mantra - Look in the mirror and kiss your reflection. As downright ridiculous as that sounds, it actually lifts your spirits!

~ Anger ~

...frustration, irritation, touchy, angry,
mad, upset, furious, rage, crossness,
wrath, resentment, grumpy, grouchy...

Anger is short madness; and believe me when I say this, madness is addictive. The absolute best thing to do when you are angry is just slip on your trainers and hit the track. Run it out, sweat it out, channelize all your anger into your legs and run, Run, RUN. At the end of it, you will have driven all the anger out of your system, and probably also burned a couple-hundred calories. Isn't that good? The next best thing to do is to take it out on a pillow. Hit the pillow, throw it around, squeeze down on it. It feels mighty good! If that doesn't work too, then just play some loud music and dance. Head bang. Most of the time the things we get angry at are not even worth it. And that is why I believe anger is one of the easiest negative emotions to tackle. All you have to do is diffuse the anger. And the best way to do that is let it out.

My Mantra - Play Eminem songs on your iPod and sing them out, loud n clear, WITH the swear words. Of course, don't forget to bolt your door and shut the windows!

~ Other Emotions ~

...jealousy, inferiority, suspicion, fear,

hatred, loathing, possessiveness, grudge,
nervousness, anxiousness, boredom...

Each of the above emotions has very simple and basic cures, as I will shortly explain. Jealousy arises from mistrust - learn to trust. Inferiority stems from low self-worth - love yourself. Suspicion in any relationship comes out of insecurity - build a strong, deep bond. Fear comes only and only out of lack of knowledge - strive to enlighten yourself about things you don't know. Hatred comes more out of dissatisfaction with yourself - groom yourself. Possessiveness arises out of mistrust - learn to trust people and have faith in yourself. Grudges do you no good at all - accept the apology and move on. Anxiousness come out of lack of self-confidence - know yourself and have faith. Boredom - well; there is one thing I cannot understand. For I believe in what Robert Louis Stevenson said - The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings!

My Mantra - Nip it in the bud. Address the cause, and the effect will automatically be taken care of.

          The Ultimate Mantra

- Laugh, A LOT.

In the end, I have only one thing to say; negativity - in any form, of any kind, for any reason - is totally not worth it and a complete waste of time and energy! It is tiring, and unnecessary. The sooner you grab on this fact, the quicker are you going to march towards a life full of positivity, peace and contentment. I am on my way already... are you going to join me?

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Who is in charge of your emotions?

Everyone wants to enhance their quality of life. Everyone wants to be more fulfilled. But almost all of us get stuck at times in our limiting beliefs and emotional patterns. We make habits out of feeling frustrated, worried, sad or overwhelmed. But it is these disempowering habits that prevent us from doing what we are really capable of – even if that something is just being happy. 


While we cannot control the events that happen in our lives, we can master how we experience these events. People are always going to encounter stressful times. It could be losing a job, losing your health or even losing a loved one. Something happens that is outside our control, and it knocks us down. But stress, anger, sadness – these feelings don’t come from the facts, they come from the meaning that we give the facts. Of course, the terrible things that happen are real. But the question is, how are you going to allow that to shape your life? Are you going to let it tear you down, or are you going to use it to empower and enlighten the way you go through life?

It’s all about the meaning that you give the events and experiences of your life. Because when you come up with a new meaning, you can get a new perspective, and, ultimately, a new life.

THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES

We unconsciously decide what events and experiences in our life mean; we do it all the time, but may not be aware of it.

Take a downturn in the economy, for example. One person could interpret that as, “I’m going to be broke.” Another person, though, might say, “This means I’m going to work harder and I’m going to be more creative about saving.”

What do you think the outcome of this thought pattern will be for each of these individuals? Pretty different, right? Is it apparent why each will have very different approaches to life, and why each will experience very different emotions? That all comes from the meaning each person assigned to the event.

Now, let’s move to something a little more personal. Consider a woman who had been adopted as a baby. One path she could take is to devalue herself, to believe that because she was adopted, that she wasn’t good enough to be loved. She could also take the opposite approach, and consider the fact that someone chose her and chose to love her. What’s the significance of her decisions over what story to choose? How will this impact her decisions in her daily life? How will it affect her bigger decisions?

The former story creates a sense of loss, while the latter celebrates her life and her worth. And the story she chooses will impact her whole life – because the decisions that control us are the decisions about meaning, and meaning equals emotion.

TRADE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR APPRECIATION

If choosing the disempowering story sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. We all tell ourselves stories that make us miserable when we could be feeling joy. We make ourselves feel sad, worried, anxious, shameful, guilty, fearful and enraged on a consistent basis. Why? Because we are wired that way.

The human mind is always looking for what you could lose, what you could have less of or what you could never have. It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s a matter of survival and of protection. You are biologically wired to prepare yourself for the worst at all times. That is why it is up to you to take conscious control over the stories you tell yourself and the resulting emotions you experience.

The secret to doing this is to trade your expectations for appreciation. If you do this, your whole life will change in that moment. And if you keep doing it, your life will change forever.

Go back to the woman who was adopted. She had an expectation that her biological mother and father should have kept her. And that expectation could have tainted her entire life. But if she shifted her expectations to appreciation that somebody picked her consciously and loved her, without the obligation or the biological imperative to do so, her entire life would change. This is the power of trading expectations for appreciation.

TAKING BACK CONTROL

The choice is yours. What are you going to focus on? What story are you going to let guide your life? You get to choose what meaning to assign. This is the one power that you have right now in this moment that can change everything.

The only thing keeping you from getting what you want is yourself. The only thing keeping you from the joy you deserve is the disempowering story you keep telling yourself. But what if you decided right now to offer yourself a new core of belief? What if everything in your life, including the most painful and traumatic events, was happening for you, not to you? What if everything was designed for you to actually have a greater life and have more to give and more to enjoy?

If you want real freedom in your life, you must make a decision to stop allowing external events to shape your happiness. And that is only done by becoming the master of meaning and finding the empowering meaning in anything and everything that comes your way.

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