143. Stop Writing Negative Thoughts, Do This Instead.

We are getting real in this episode, my friend. The thing that I'm going to walk you through here of don't just get it down, get it right. This whole episode is going to push on some long ingrained beliefs that you may be having and challenge you out of the way you have traditionally thought of things when it comes to trying to help yourself and validate your emotions and feel better. Because I'm going to tell you to stop writing down your negative thoughts just to get them out. That's exactly what I'm going to tell you. We are done doing that. It is so unaffective, inefficient, and it fuels all the wrong things. All the wrong things. And I talked about this on my Instagram story really briefly because I have a good time sharing my morning routine on my Instagram story. And I was showing me journaling and I put, stop writing down your negative thoughts just to get them out. And then I got so many messages saying, well, what am I supposed to do with my negative thoughts? Instead, I thought it was healthy to validate your emotions. And how am I supposed to validate my emotions and my feelings if I'm not writing them down? If I don't let myself do that? If I go right into the positive stuff, then it just feels really fake. And I got a lot of messages like that. And I honestly just really appreciated those messages coming in and those questions being asked because they're so valuable. They show us this is what the majority of us believe. We believe that if we have a negative thought, that it's actually an emotion. That's the first belief that our feelings and thoughts are one and the same, which they're not. Your thoughts are not feelings, and your thoughts do not need to be validated. Your emotions need to be validated. So there's that first belief that we come up against, that they're all just intertwined, they're one and the same. No. No, they're not. And that is a recipe for disastrous victim mentality thinking. The second belief that we come up against is if I go into the positive stuff when I'm feeling frustrated or I'm feeling angry or I'm feeling anxious or I'm feeling depressed, if I try to take my mind into the empowered stuff or the positive stuff because it's just going to come across fake, I won't believe it. And honestly, there's some truth in that. Like, factually there is truth in that. You're not going to lie to yourself. Like, your mind comes up with the idea and so it understands when you're lying. So you're right, you're not going to be able to lie to yourself. But that doesn't mean that whatever you write down that would be empowering or strengthening or holding yourself to a higher standard or would be perceived as a lie. So we're kind of just like unpacking these things. And I'm gonna give you a writing exercise and walk you through it of what I want you to do to help process through your negative thoughts, to create more empowering ones, all while knowing I can validate every single way that I feel and live by this higher standard for yourself. My feelings need validation. My thoughts do not. So if I have a negative thought, I don't have to validate that sucker. I actually would love to ice it out. Let's just, let's teach the brain to do something different because I'm tired of this stuff. So if you're having a hard time and I just want you to kind of get this visual in your mind, you're having a hard time, right? There's tears, there's spiraling thoughts of I'm not good enough and things never work out for me and why is it always like this? I can never catch a break. Of course they're doing this again. We're in that spiral. And then someone tells you, you know, that sounds really hard. That sounds really heavy. You should write that out. Like, put it down on a piece of paper and get it out of your mind. You'll feel so much better. Just get it out of your mind. Have you heard that before? I have heard this. Recommended like crazy. So that's the recommendation. And then we say, all right, well, I guess I just have all this, all these negative thoughts. I better just go write them down. Well, what really happens when we write things down? And I mean, this is science backed, this is factual stuff we're talking about here. What happens when we write things down? It makes them real. If you write down your dreams and goals. Have you ever been advised to write down your dreams and goals? Like, if you want something, write it down. Why? Because it makes it real. It brings more reinforcement, accountability, vision. Like you can see it more thoroughly and in detail when you write down that dream or goal. What happens when we write down our fears and complaints? The same thing happens. It becomes real. You give more power to those negative thoughts over you. And what you're doing is telling your mind, you, hey, think about this. You're right to tell me these things. I'm not good enough. Oh, you're right to say that because I'm rewarding the mind for giving me that. You gave me that I'm not good enough. And I'm gonna reward you by writing it down. So now I'm not only thinking it, I'm also seeing it. Like I'm. I'm creating something more out of this. Which you, your mind finds to be a very gratifying process. It's a very gratifying process when the mind gives you an idea and you act on it. When the mind gives you inspiration and you think further into it, like you feel inspired to have a girls night and then you're thinking about the food you're gonna have, the games you're gonna play, the writing you wanna do or who you're gonna invite. Right? You get into the detail that re that lights up the reward center in your mind. So your mind wants to give you more of those ideas because you entertain them. When your mind suggests doing something and you choose to do it, your mind feels rewarded. So it wants to give you more suggestions in hopes that you'll do them because that feels good for it. So the same thing goes with these negative thoughts. That's how it works with the positive. This is also how it works with the negative. When it gives you a negative thought and you write it down, or you take that negative thought and you create a whole story and lifelong vision out of it. You just rewarded the mind. What does the mind want to do? And it's rewarded. It wants to do more of the thing that gave it that reward. So it wants to give you more negative thoughts. It wants to give you more worst case scenarios. It wants to give you more fears and anxiety and stress. Yeah. Not only is it unfair that you do these things and your husband does it, it's also unfair that you're the one that like gained weight to have to to during your pregnancy. You're the one that doesn't get to work out without the kids. You're the one that has to stay home with them. And all of a sudden this lifelong dream of you being a stay at home mom becomes the victim mentality of I can't believe my life is like this. When did this happen? I'm so unhappy. And it's not because you don't want to be a stay at home mom. It's because your mind has been rewarded to give you this whole stinking story about it. So yeah, I really don't care who would possibly say it is important for us to write down our negative thoughts if that Is the whole plan. If it's the whole plan to. You hear someone talking about their negative thoughts and you. And you say, go write that down, I really think it would just help you to, like, get that out. If the plan is to just get it out and not do something with it, then that's a terrible plan. I would never recommend that to somebody. And I would encourage us all to stop recommending that to one another. We need a better plan. And that's what this episode's here to do. It's going to give you a better plan. Because emotions aren't negative. Thoughts can be. And writing down your thoughts is not emotional validation. It's narrative reinforcement. So if you want to write down your negative thoughts in order to better help you process your feelings, recognize that your thoughts and feelings are not the same thing. Emotions are energy in motion. That's like an emotion. It's a vibration. It's an energy. And while it's extremely valuable and gives you so much insight, and I fully encourage you to write about those, I do not encourage you to allow your mind to dump all this negativity out just for the sake of getting it out, because all you would be doing is reinforcing it. You wouldn't be replacing it with anything better. You wouldn't be having a constructive way of holding your mind to a higher standard or even getting to the point of better understanding your feelings. So just remember this. Emotions are not negative. They're completely neutral. And also thoughts are neutral too. Like, we are the ones that decide what's good and what's bad. It's just a thought. And that is something that helps me so much in what, working, like, moving on. If I have a negative thought or if I have, like, this worst case scenario thought come up. I understand the only power that thought has in my life is the power that I give it. How much attention am I willing to give it? Am I going to play out that story? Am I going to entertain that? Am I going to see my life as fitting for that narrative? No, I'm not going to. So let's talk more about this spiral, though, because this spiral is what keeps you stuck. So if we use the traditional recommendation of get your thoughts out style of writing, like, oh, you have negative thoughts, let's just get them out. If we do this and we write down our negative thoughts, like, he doesn't help. He has no regard for me. I have to do everything. How are you feeling then, my friend? Right, we're feeling resentful, we're feeling irritated. And angry and ungrateful. That's how we're feeling. So if you write those things out, what happens next? You feel a little bit better for a second. Have you ever noticed that, like, you go to a friend and you just kind of word vomit all the things that you've been thinking, and you're like, man, I honestly feel, like, better. Thank you for that. I just feel lighter, like I got it out. Okay, well, what actually happened was you feel validated. It's not that you feel better as in, oh, now I feel grateful in my marriage. Now I feel like an equal, valuable counterpart to my spouse. Now I feel empowered, capable, and ready to take a new approach in my marriage or in my home. Now, that's not how you're feeling. You're feeling validated. And we confuse that with feeling better. But just because you're feeling validated does not mean you're feeling better, because what exactly did you validate? That you do everything. You. You validated that your husband doesn't help you, validated that he has no regard for you. And in that moment, sure, you're like, oh, my gosh, I just feel so seen, so heard, like, my friend really gets it. And then what happens when you're around your husband again when the visual trigger's there? And now I'm in my marriage. Oh, now I feel invisible. Now I feel like I'm just replaceable. I feel like I have no worth here, no value here, nothing to contribute. I feel worthless. I feel hopeless. I feel helpless. And what we did with our friend was dump out all the negative thoughts. And if it stops there, I'm not saying it's terrible to, like, let that be a starting point. My point in this episode is it's the worst advice ever to tell someone. You just need to get it out without a constructive plan of get it out in this form and do this with it so you can end with this outcome. Like, we need. We need more steps, guys. So if you have ever just felt like, wow, I felt better around my friend when I got it all out, okay, that's because you felt validated, not because you felt better. And then when I was around my husband again, I just felt, like, even more angry or anxious and depressed and sad and disconnected from him. Yeah, because you didn't think anything new. You didn't create an alt, like, an alternative perspective that brought in gratitude, ownership, empowerment, grace, mercy, God's word. It didn't bring in any of that. It was just like, oh, I'm just gonna reaffirm What I'm already thinking so I can feel validated in my perspective. And of course that feels good for a minute. Feels good to think that we're right. And that's what you did. You helped your mind think that it's right, even if it's hurting you so badly. And that's an important thing to remember about the mind, friends, is your mind doesn't care how you feel. Like it doesn't care if you feel good. It honestly doesn't even care about your health. Like, think, think about the way addictions work. We do things that self sabotage. We do things that destroy our health. And it's the mind that says, you should do that. You should, should do that. You should do that. Oh man, I really want that. Gosh, that would be so good. The mind is doing that. Even though the mind has all the information of how awful that is for us. Like that causes cancer, this leads to divorce, this will like get my children taken away or something. The mind has that information and knows that, and yet it's still advising us illy. It's ill advised. So your mind doesn't care about you feeling like your best self. And it doesn't care about you reaching your biggest goals. That's just not. It cares about two things. Making predictions and being right about them. So if you predict that you're the one that does everything in your marriage and your husband doesn't help, he doesn't notice you, he has no regard for you. If you predict that and reaffirm that your mind wants that to be true, even if it hurts. And that is something for us to sit with. Like, that's kind of the scary part of letting the victim mentality go. I mean, just go unmaintenanced and go without boundary and being reformed. That's truly what it is. How scary our life can be if we choose to just let our mind have free reign and conform to the patterns of this world. Like what, what's the scripture like? Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's literally written in scripture and for good reason. So I just want you to take a second to consider what your marriage is gonna look like if you let negative thoughts in the victim mentality lead the way. What is your health gonna look like? What's your motherhood gonna look like? What's your relationship with your kids look like 15 years from now? If you treat them the same way that you did today, every single day, if you think about them the same way that you did last night. What? And that's how you're gonna think about them every night for the next 10 years? What's the relationship gonna look like? Our kids are smart. They already know what we're thinking. Have you ever like, seen it on their face? They can just like feel what we're thinking. And our, our spouses do the same thing. We do the same thing. You have to. I mean, I mean, you don't have to, obviously. I just really want you to feel encouraged to be accountable to what you're choosing to think. Set a higher standard for what you are willing to entertain in your mind and realize. Like this side, this fear of you being toxically positive and not validating your emotions enough. Like let's just consider why you're feeling so sad, angry, hopeless, helpless, irritated, resentful in the first place. What kind of thoughts have you been having? And how long do you want those thoughts to be the narrative of your life? Because they'll go on forever. Your mind has no responsibility to create an empowered mindset. It has no programming that it has to think positive or has to have ownership. That's not the way it works. You have to make that choice. You have to tell it the standard. You have to hold it to that, hold it to that standard. And I'm just here really wanting you to do it. Because I've lived through both sides of it and I just refuse to go back to the negative side, the victim mentality side, because I just. Guys, I'm a, I'm a God fearing woman, okay? I'm a God fearing woman and I just, I know better of what I'm meant to think in this life and what I'm meant to be responsible for. And negative thoughts just don't help me. They don't help me be a better wife, a better mother, a better God fearing woman, a better leader, a better friend. Negative thoughts do not help me do that. Especially staying in them and like just writing, writing them down just to get them out. They just don't. So let's move into this better way, this better way to process through negative thoughts. Understand the emotions that actually need validation, which are just energy and motion, their vibrations totally healthy. We want them and hold our mind to a higher standard of what is acceptable and what it is that we're willing to entertain. So you need a blank page. Surprise, surprise, you need a blank page. You're going to have this blank page and then draw a line down the middle and on the left column you're going to write lie at the Top, top, left, right. Lie right hand side. Top, right hand side. You're writing the word light. So this writing exercise is called lie versus Light. It'll take you a handful of minutes to do, and it will make such a difference. If there's ever a time that my mind is just looping negative thoughts, I mean, I work. I'm a mom. I'm in. I've been married for ten and a half years. Like, of course there are negative thoughts sometimes. And I'm constantly working on myself. So there's negative self talk sometimes too. Like, do this writing exercise helps much. Lie on the left side, light on the right side. On the left side, you're going to write the negative thought. The negative thought. Remember, your feelings are not thoughts and your thoughts are not feelings. They are different. They do influence one another. They are separate entities, though. I hear when people say, oh, if I don't write down my negative thoughts, then how am I going to validate the feeling? And it's like you can know the feelings there without entertaining the whole story that put it there in the first place and reaffirming that story and building an even deeper narrative around it and then creating more of it. You can just go to the feeling part. So anyway, left side, you get to write your negative thought. Right side, you are looking for the light, which is going to be truth. Truth. The right side, light is truth, guys. Lies are dark. Light is truth. So an example of this left side, I could write, he never helps. That is a lie. It's a lie. He never helps. Right side, I could put, he diligently does what comes to his mind to do that is 100 times more true than he never helps. For real, 100%. Next example. He has no regard for me lie. That goes in the lie column. He has no regard for me lie column. What's in the light column? I am a steady area of his life that he counts on. So what I mean by that, the way that I see it and why this feels so true and so enlightening for me is if someone's in my life and I'm feeling like I'm taking back seat, I've kind of got like something else is taking precedence in their life and has their attention, has captivated them, whatever. And instead of thinking, oh, they just have no regard for me, if I look at it as what's more true, I'm steady in their life. I'm someone that they can count on. And it's clear that he counts on me because he knew it was Safe enough for his attention to go elsewhere. And maybe he lost track of his attention. He lost track of how long it's been this way and. And is unaware of how I'm feeling. All of that feels so truthful. And then what I do is I get familiar with the emotions I'm actually experiencing. I'm feeling forgotten. I'm feeling left out. I'm feeling left behind. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling disconnected. I'm feeling just, like, a deep ache and crave for intimacy, attention, connection. And all of that is more vulnerable and more effective than the anger and the aggression that. That he has no regard for me creates. Because if you stay with the lie, he has no regard for me. You put your guard up. You disconnect yourself. You stop. You try to stop caring. You try to stop trying. All of a sudden, you're trying to distract yourself, escape from this relationship in your own way, because you've built this whole story that he's selfish, has no regard for me. He's selfish, only thinks of himself. Like, yes, we want relationships in our life where we feel like we are constantly the priority. We are just always there. Like, they're just always looking for us. Like, we walk into a room and their eyes are on us the whole time. We want to feel like the only girl in the room, right? I love that about my husband. I have always felt like the only girl in the room Since I've met him. It's like his eyes has never. His eyes have never left me. And so when there's times where I am feeling maybe, like, why isn't he seeing these things? Why isn't he, like, getting this? Why isn't he doing this? The light is his. He only has eyes for me. Like, he may feel distracted by this work project. He, like, this. This project he's working on, this, I don't know, construction thing, this rental property, this stressful endeavor that he's taking on. Like, he's learning about this other thing, and he's feeling really excited about it. All of that might be getting his attention right now. And he only has eyes for me. Both can be true. Both can be true. And none of it needs to be from this place of, like, get him back. I feel hurt, so I'm gonna hurt him. Hurt people. Hurt people. And when you feel hurt, instead of going out and hurting other people, heal yourself. That's the part of this work that I just love so much, is I know I can feel hurt and heal. Like, if I feel hurt, it's not Justification for me to go hurt somebody else. It's reason for me to get deeper into my healing, get to know myself a little bit better. And I look forward to opportunities like that. And I'm grateful that they've been less frequent in my life as I've acquired more skills. And honestly, because they're more spaced out, because they're less frequent, each one, I. I really get like captivated by it because I just know I'm about to unlock and uncover something so beautiful inside of myself. And I just ask myself, can I be a big enough person to just feel hurt right now? And that's, that's where I take myself when I feel hurt. Can I be a big enough person just to feel hurt right now? And this exercise totally helps you do that. So I am, I am a steady area of his life that he counts on. And it makes sense that, you know, when we are in steady areas, sometimes we take things for granted, sometimes we overlook the little details, sometimes we put. We don't realize how much attention we're pulling away from that area. And that's fair. We've all done that. Next lie. Let's go through another example together so you really understand this writing exercise. Next lie. I have to do everything myself. I have to do everything myself. What is the light to that lie? So we're looking for what's more true. We're reshaping the mind so that we can better understand the emotions and create more of the emotions we want to have. What's going to get you further approaching a conversation with your spouse from an emotional state of unappreciation, discontentment, resentment, anger, or approaching a vulnerable conversation with your spouse from a place of appreciation, connection, gratitude, steadfast faith. You're gonna have a much more productive conversation when you get yourself in a better emotional state. First, get yourself in the emotional state that you want someone to meet you in. So if you want someone to meet you in an angry and aggressive emotional state, start your conversation there. If you want someone to meet you in a grateful, appreciative, open minded, light hearted, wholehearted emotional state, you need to get yourself there first. So evaluate these lies. I have to do everything myself is the lie. The light is I create my own to do list. I have agency. I pick like I walked by that thing and chose to pick it up. The friend called, asking if I could do the thing, and I chose to say yes. These are your choices. Life is an accumulation of our choices. And the most beautiful and exciting thing is this far in life isn't showing you what's to come. It's showing you evidence of the choices you've made this far, which is extremely empowering because it's like, okay, if all my choices led to all of this, then when I make these choices moving forward, I know it will lead me closer to all of that over there. The things that I want are on the other side of the choices that I make. We're not waiting on someone else to change. We don't need other things to be planned out, figured out, and other people to do different before we do. That's very exciting. Very exciting. So lastly, in wrapping up this, like this writing exercise that you're doing is understanding these mental standards that you have for yourself. I hold my mind to high mental standards, meaning if my mind, like let's say something inconvenient happens and I have these thoughts that I know are coming from the victim mentality because I'm viewing the circumstance as if it's happening to me. But my baby's up in the middle of the night and if my mind dare tries to think from a state of oh, this is so inconvenient for me. I can't believe he's up. I was trying to wake up at 4:30 and now it's 3:30. This is the worst timing. Like if my mind tries to think from that state, I refuse to entertain it. I refuse to let the narrative go on there. Can I stop all those thoughts from happening? I have not cracked that code personally. The code of never have a negative thought again. I have not cracked that code. The code I have cracked is understanding the mindset that I want to have and immediately taking myself there intentionally and consciously, as quickly as possible. If my baby's crying for me at 3:30 in the morning, could you imagine being all alone in your crib at 1 years old and just wanting somebody? What is the only option you have? Cry. Cry for the somebody. This is the best he can do to his little mental and physical capacity right now, to all of his options. This is the best option for him to take. And I love to view it too, as this is where I prove that I'm steadfast to my kids. I prove to them that I'm reliable and dependable. Because the more times I get to show up for them while they're still under my roof and while they're this young and they're this vulnerable and they're this reliant on me, the more times I show up for them in this state, what's the likelihood that they're going to call me in the middle of the night when they're older and they made a poor choice, they're facing consequences. They need some help. They need some guidance. They just need a helping hand. Like they don't know what to do next. I want my kids to call me. I want them to call me. And I just view these little. Like these times I show up for them in the middle of the night, no matter how old they are, is my. Like, I'm putting a little towel. I'm putting my initials on your dependable board. Like, in your mind, you have a. You have a board of who you can depend on. And every time I show up to you, every time you call on me and I'm there, I get to put my initials on your dependable board. I want there to be three thousands, thousands of initials on the dependable board that when my kids go to reason, okay, who should I call? Who's going to be there for me? Who's going to get it? My mom. My mom. My mom. Because look at all the evidence. So that is the high standard that I hold my mind to. I refuse to entertain lies and build stories out of them. I refuse to lessen the value of my life to entertain a story that my mind came up with. I don't need that, and I don't want it in my life. And I have a feeling that you're listening to this episode because you don't need or want those things in your life either. They're. They're just. They're just hurtful. And a big takeaway I want you to slip into your heart is just because I'm feeling validated doesn't mean I'm feeling better. So look at all of the ways you choose to validate yourself. What do you consume on social media when you're in that bad mood? Whose account do you go to? Just because you're feeling validated, when you go look at that account, does not mean you're feeling better. Better about your health, better about your marriage, better about your position, better about your circumstances. You need to hold your mind to a standard of I'm going to feel better. And if the thoughts you're giving me do not lead to me feeling better, then you need to do better. I will only. And that's in my writing practices. Yeah, they're positive. They're very intentional. Because I'm teaching my mind every single day. This is the type of narrative I'll entertain from you. Give me more of it. And if a thought isn't good enough to go down to my journal. What do I do? I hold out. I delay the gratification on my mind. I literally hold it. I hold it to a higher standard, and it gives me the first idea. And I'm like, try again, try again, try again, try again, try again. Until it gives me what I actually feel excited about, what lights me up. And then I reward my mind by writing it down. I reward my mind with that gratification of seeing its idea written on paper and me taking that idea and building a story out of it and getting into the details and imagining what my life will look like when I do things like that. And I show up as that person. That is what I do for my mind, and it gives me great rewards. So hold your thoughts to truth. Live from life. That writing exercise is so simple. Left sides lie, right side is light. You write down your lies on the left, and you convert them all to light on the right. Okay, you can totally do it. It's practical, doable, and it will take you a handful of minutes and change your entire day, give you a real fresh start that you've been saying that you want. So I'm cheering you on. I'm in your corner. Definitely a unique relationship that you and I have going on here with all these high standards and the language that we use, and I love it. I love it. I'm so glad that we're here, so glad that we're doing this work. Lots of fun things in the works to help you be more successful in this, creating the mindset that you love. And I'm going to keep holding you to these high standards. Okay? Love you dearly. See you soon.