An Easy Technique to Change Your Thoughts

by Michelle

On Valentine's Day my hubby told me a story about running into a woman he used to work with years ago. The woman is as sweet as can be. She remembered all of our kids names and asked how they were doing and then asked, "And what is Michelle into these days?" My husband's reply was, "Funny you should mention that, she just started doing something new again, this time with yarn."

We had a good laugh about it because it is true. I am the kind of person who always wants to try to do new things. I have explored so many different things and I get excited each time.

I will say, there was a part of me that felt a little hurt. I felt a little tinge of failure at being the flighty person who is known for always doing something new. Of course my response to my husband was, "Aren't you lucky you are married to such an interesting woman?" and yet internally I thought, 'Why am I like this?'

It all goes back to learning to love and accept ourselves just as we are. Not feeling like we have to fix anything, just accepting our gifts, talents, idiosyncrasies, "faults". It can be difficult and yet when we recognize ourselves going there we can choose to wallow in our own self depreciating self talk or we can STOP it!

I have a technique for stopping it head on. Whenever I catch myself going there I see picture a big "don't sign" in my head and stop those negative thoughts in their tracks and then I replace them with something positive.

It is amazingly effective but it does take some time. You are basically rewiring the neural network in your brain away from the negative and into the positive. I like to think of it like water etching the earth into streams and rivers. It's easiest for the water to follow the path of least resistance making deeper and wider crevices. If you want the water to go a different way you have to build yourself a dam and redirect that water where you want it to go. It's as simple as that.

There are many different techniques for changing your thought patterns, this just happens to be my favorite. How do you do it? What works for you? We would love to hear it.