What really, really helped me in life wasn’t positive thinking.

The concept is pretty cool (happy and optimistic thoughts feel better and more expansive, obviously), but I have never been able to turn it into a consistent thing.

And neither has anybody I ever met.

Because we can’t, as far as I know.

Thinking, especially the non-stop mental commentary about everything (which means: us in relationship to others, but mostly to ourselves), just happens.

It’s like software that is specially created just to have (random) output about everything and nothing all the time.

If positive thinking was a real thing, a practical, doable thing, it would mean you’d have to formulate and produce all your thoughts deliberately… before you think them.

How would that even work?

Would you sit down in the morning and create a minute-by-minute schedule for everything you’re going to think that day?

Would you make a detailed list of the 60 to 70.000 thoughts you have each day, in the exact order they’re supposed to appear?

Of course not.

Positive thinking makes a lot of sense, in theory, but we simply can’t do it in a way that is easy and sustainable and, well, humanly possible.

But there’s something we CAN do that will eventually have the same result.

And it’s actually the opposite of positive thinking, sort of:

It’s quitting the habit of negative thinking.

It’s intercepting your shitty trains of thought before they start to fuck you up.

It’s becoming aware of the diminishing monologues in your head, and then let them pass.

It’s not engaging in passive-aggressive mental masturbation sessions anymore, it’s not putting fuel on the smoldering little stories of lack and misery that your mind tends to come up with.

It’s becoming VERY clear about the thoughts that arise within you, and then just show them the way out.

Without force.

You can’t truly stop them (because every thought you think is already there), but you’ll find that the whole playing field starts to change.

And the not-helpful ones will just stop arising as much.

A negative thought is just like a sponsored message you don’t really care about.

You don’t have to do anything with it.

You don’t have to fight with it.

You don’t have to hate it.

You most definitely don’t have to make it into something personal.

And the less caught up you are in these tight loops of doubt and fear and worry and anger, the better and more powerful you feel.

The quicker you catch the thoughts you’re not interested in, the less momentum they will build, and they won’t stick as much and as long as they used to do.

Over time, and I’ve seen it not just in my life but in the lives of many others too, the tone and the energy and even the pace of your thinking starts to change.

You get more peaceful, less wound up.

You give up on being right all the time, on complaining and moaning and blaming and bickering, because you start to realize that’s just a waste of your precious time.

I used to think and believe hateful, angry and other devastating thoughts ALL the time, and now they are fairly rare.

It’s like I trained my mind to kick back and relax.

This means that quitting the habit of basking in your negative thought streams will eventually give you the result you wanted in the first place.

You’ll think less and less and less, in general, and your thoughts become more and more caring, and uplifting, and hopeful, and empathic, and creative.

More positive, WAY more positive.

And whenever negative thoughts try to fight their way back into your awareness, you just gently brush them off.

Just like that.

So start today, start now.

Stop indulging in the shitty thoughts and ideas and projections that have got nothing to do with you in the first place.

Play with it, stay curious, and see what happens.

Whenever hurtful or diminishing or judgmental thoughts come up, just stop.

Stop following them.

Stop dealing with them.

Stop making them personal (because they aren’t).

Stop making them more than the tiny waft of energy they are.

Stop.

Wait.

Watch.

Repeat.

And realize the enormous freedom, the incredible change that comes from not engaging.

You have a choice, you really do.

Stop turning imagination into pain and sorrow.

Stop.

It might be the most positive thing you’ve ever done.

—

(Photo by @thomasbennie, for Unsplash)