Glass half full or glass half empty? Most of the time, we’re a healthy mix of mainly positive thoughts with some (reasonable) negative thoughts and anxieties thrown in. However, sometimes those worries take over and we find ourselves stuck in a cycle of negative thinking patterns.
Learning how to spot, challenge and then change these unhelpful thoughts is a great skill to have – and it’s one that we can all learn through hypnotherapy techniques. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to reframe negative thoughts for a happier and healthier mindset.
What are negative thinking patterns?
I’ll start by saying yes, it’s impossible to be positive all the time and that’s not what we’re aiming for here. It’s natural – and needed – to feel worried, anxious, guilty or inadequate sometimes, and there are days where the glass remains stubbornly half empty. However, if the negative thoughts become dominant, they can lead to a vicious cycle of unhelpful thinking.
The constant negative self-talk understandably affects our mood and self-esteem, which in turn leads to more negative thinking. This vicious cycle means that whatever is going on in our lives and around us, even when it’s objectively positive, our thoughts and mood remain low.
Negative thought patterns can develop alongside other mental health struggles such as anxiety and depression. They can be caused by stress, a past trauma or hormones (new motherhood is a common time for negative self-talk). Pressure from work, family and social expectations can all lead to feelings of self-doubt.
Examples of negative thinking patterns
What is negative thinking? Here are some examples.
- Always expecting the worst possible outcome
- Filtering out the positive aspects of any situation while…
- …dwelling on the negative aspects
- Black-and-white thinking – everything is either good or bad
- Catastrophising – exaggerating the importance of a negative event
- Overgeneralising – assuming that one negative event will lead to others
- Blowing things out of proportion
- Blaming yourself for everything, even when you’re really not responsible
- “Personalisation” – you’re the sole cause of a negative event
- Labelling yourself or others. You’re a “failure”. Someone else is a “loser”
As you can imagine it’s an exhausting way to think that all too easily leads to low mood, anxiety and depression. However, you don’t have to stuck in this cycle of unhelpful thinking: you can learn to reframe your negative thoughts.
What is cognitive reframing?
How do you reframe negative thinking? It’s possible to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones by using a technique calling “cognitive reframing”.
This sounds too easy and even rather glib on paper, especially if you’re in a negative thought cycle. It takes work and commitment, but it’s an effective technique to prevent unhelpful thinking from dominating your life. In basic terms, here’s how cognitive reframing works:
- Identify the unhelpful thought – with time, you’ll learn to recognise a negative or irrational thought as soon as you start thinking it
- Challenge the thought – is it accurate, relevant or valid? Is it irrational? What are the facts behind it? What are the alternative explanations?
- Replace the negative thought with a positive thought. This could be a more realistic, proportional or accurate view of the situation or event
Let’s make this three-stage progress clearer by giving it an example context. Imagine you’ve been invited to a job interview, and you weren’t successful at the last interview you attended.
As you prepare for the latest interview, your thoughts are probably along the lines of “I won’t get this job because I never do. They won’t want me and nobody ever will, so I’ll be stuck in my current job forever. It’s my fault – I’m a loser.”
So many negative thoughts there. And do you know what? Going into an interview with this mindset immediately puts you on the back foot. To move ahead, you need to break the vicious cycle and reframe your negative thoughts.
Challenge the negative self-talk with rational thinking. “OK, I didn’t get the job last time, but I got down to the final three and that’s brilliant. It’s likely I wasn’t chosen because another candidate had more experience. The recruiters didn’t reject me – they simply made a positive decision to choose someone else.”
Replace the negative thought with positive thinking. “They must think I can do the job because they want to meet me. I’ve prepared for the interview so I know I can come across well. This is a job I can do.”
How does hypnotherapy change negative thinking patterns?
Solution focused hypnotherapy is an effective way to overcome negative thinking. We work together to identify a positive future goal: a healthy and optimistic approach to job hunting, for example, resulting in a fabulous new career.
Then, using the hypnotherapy trance state, we work on replacing negative thoughts by rerouting the neural pathways – sending your thoughts along a different, more positive route. I recently wrote about a client who wanted to stop biting her nails, and this is a great example of how hypnotherapy helps us identify and “catch” a negative behaviour. As soon as she caught her hand moving towards her mouth, she was able to stop herself – the intellectual side of her brain was able to consciously prevent the unhelpful habit.
Eventually, the new route is firmly embedded and the old neural pathway vanishes due to lack of use. This approach works just as well with unhelpful thoughts as it does with habits.
Hypnotherapy for negativity
With its emphasis on positive future goals, solution focused hypnotherapy is an excellent way to break those negative thinking patterns and move to forwards with a more positive mindset.
