It’s easy to look for and be negative. Human, even.
Back in the days of where survival of the fittest was a day-to-day or even hour-to-hour way of life, being vigilant about any kind of potential danger…kept you alive.
But now that dinosaurs eating us (Hey, don’t come at me with the whole “Dinosaurs and early humans didn’t exist at the same time,” thing. Let me live, ok?) isn’t a thing anymore, our negativity bias ends up hurting our quality of life much more often than helping it.
But, as we talk about a lot here at FEARLESS, you don’t want to just deny the negative thoughts and emotions, either. Positive thinking as it’s usually practiced ends up with too many people faking “Everything’s great!” when that’s not true at all.
Usually, forcing positivity doesn’t help much and ends up keeping you stuck, because all of those heavy feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are still all there deep down, unresolved.
I will say that for me in my personal development journey before FEARLESS, working on absorbing more positive beliefs about myself was helpful…to a point.
For example, I’d tell myself my disability could be a gift. That I was attractive and women were interested in me.
And that felt good at one level. I started to feel better about myself and tap into my confidence more. It did help move me forward and start having some semblance of a dating life.
But when those new beliefs were tested, they were pretty shaky. Skin deep. The old crap was still down there. And though I was now going on dates – and many went very well – I felt like I was “getting lucky”…and settling almost all of the time.
And my insecurities were making things a living hell when the women weren’t validating me like crazy. And when one I kind of liked actually stop responding, I would be a total mess.
At the extreme, positive thinking leads to those “spiritual” people who are, um, pretty weird…or even straight creepy. You know those people: Big, goofy smiles that just aren’t quite right, consistently overly intense eye contact. Because they’re PRESENT AND SOOOO HAPPY!!!!
Yeah, right.
So that brings me to this Buzzfeed article I came across the other day by Jasmine Vaughn-Hall: My Therapist Suggested I Try This Habit Whenever My Self-Doubts Creep In, And It’s Been Super Useful So Far
Now, I’m always a tad (or more) skeptical when it comes to talk therapists because for me, years of therapy and multiple therapists along with psychiatrists and different depression meds…didn’t do 1% of what any personal development coach did for me. Because I wasn’t really depressed – I was just insecure – and, I’ve been told, there are a LOT of not-so-great therapists out there.
That said, they’re certainly better than nothing. And for some people, they’re critical.
And in this case, the practice Vaughn-Hall’s therapist suggested seems pretty solid and somewhat similar to practices that we sometimes teach when it comes to Revealing (the FEARLESS take on letting go, aka releasing.)
In short, Vaughn-Hall’s therapist helped her realize how much she was beating herself up.
“…I was shocked that I was saying things to myself that I would probably fight someone else for saying. Twisted, right?
I was so used to this behavior over the years, that I didn’t even notice the damaging internal and external dialogue I effortlessly hosted.”
So the therapist told Vaughn-Hall to start writing these negative thoughts down…and then put them “away.”
She would fold the paper up, put them in a shoebox, and then put the shoebox out of sight.
That alone, Vaugh-Hall says, has been incredibly helpful.
It follows somewhat along the lines of a deeper practice Brian teaches, called mind-mapping, but it’s a great place to start and practice to try.
Read her full article (it’s a quick one), try it, and see how it goes. And I’d love to hear about your experience – you can find me on Instagram and Twitter @mikekonowitz.
My Therapist Suggested I Try This Habit Whenever My Self-Doubts Creep In, And It’s Been Super Useful So Far by Jasmine Vaughn-Hall
