3 Steps to Transform Your Thinking
Have you ever noticed that your brain can get stuck in repeating the same thoughts over and over, and that often many of those thoughts are negative?
When I was chronically ill, my brain was stuck in patterns of repeating negative thoughts that I felt like I couldn’t break out of. I had lots of anxious, fearful thoughts and depressed thoughts that made me feel even worse, but I didn’t know how to stop the looping mental patterns. Then I learned to change my thinking and rewire my brain. It has made a huge difference for me, and it can for you too!
Why do our brains tend to default to negative thoughts?
The ancient survival-focused part of our brain is always scanning the environment, seeking to identify and memorize threats to be able to avoid them in the future. Ancient humans lived in very different conditions than we do today. The threats they faced were mostly immediate and short-term (e.g., being chased by a lion). The survival brain was very helpful - it would take over all the body’s systems to respond to the threat. And it would use strong emotion to imprint the threat into long-term memory so that the threat could be avoided as much as possible in the future.
Now, in our modern world, where our survival brains are perceiving threats 24/7, our survival mechanisms can be constantly triggered. Our overworked survival brains are trying to deal with all these potential threats- to identify them and use strong emotion to try to imprint them into our long-term memory. Unfortunately, most threats in our modern world aren’t immediate, short-term threats we can quickly resolve by fighting, fleeing, or freezing. This can leave us feeling stressed and worried non-stop.
Our survival brain can get stuck in a loop, where we have negative fearful thoughts, which make us feel bad, which makes our survival brain even more worried, producing more negative, fearful thoughts. This is a big contributor to the anxiety epidemic of the modern Western world.
Negative thoughts patterns can impact our physical as well as our mental health.
Researcher Candace Pert was one of the first to show that all our thoughts have chemical signatures in our bodies. When we think angry, unkind, sad, or cranky thoughts, our brain produces chemical neurotransmitters that match those thoughts. When we think happy, kind, and hopeful thoughts, our brain produces chemicals that match those thoughts. This chemical cocktail has a profound impact on both our physical and emotional state.
How can we break out of negative thinking patterns?
We can change our thinking patterns by using the modern parts of our brain to become aware of the old patterns, analyze whether they are helpful, and choose whether to continue them or substitute other, more helpful, thoughts. A whole branch of psychology has grown up around this, called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Dr. Daniel Amen, of the Amen Clinics, has written several books and many articles that describe ways to work with negative thinking patterns, which he calls ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). He describes the nine most common types of ANTs:
“Always” thinking: thinking in words like always, never, no one, every one, every time, everything.
Focusing on the negative: only seeing the bad in a situation.
Fortune telling: predicting the worst possible outcome to a situation.
Mind reading: believing that you know what another person is thinking, even though they haven’t told you.
Thinking with your feelings: believing negative feelings without ever questioning them.
Guilt beatings: thinking in words like “should, must, ought or have to.”
Labeling: attaching a negative label to yourself or to someone else.
Personalization: innocuous events are taken to have personal meaning.
Blame: blaming someone else for your own problems.
Annie Hopper, who developed the brain retraining program that helped me and many others heal from chronic illness (the Dynamic Neural Retraining System), calls these kind of thinking patterns Pathways of the Past (POPs), which I like. In her program, like in Dr. Amen’s, you learn to work with these negative looping thought patterns of the survival brain in a three-step process.
The 3 steps to transform your thinking are:
Learn to watch your thoughts and become aware when you are thinking automatic negative thoughts. Annie Hopper calls this becoming the “curious observer.”
Identify which type of POP (Pathway of the Past) it is. Most will be some variety of the nine listed above, with practice you can learn to identify others. We all tend to have certain POPs that our brain defaults to most often. Learning to “catch your POPs” can become a fun game you can do on your own and with friends and family.
Talk back to the POPs - use the higher-order thinking of your modern prefrontal cortex to analyze and talk back to the automatic negative thoughts.
Here’s a simple example of how to do these steps:
Scenario: I am getting ready to go to a party that I’ve been looking forward to. I become aware of feeling a little anxious.
Step 1: I become the curious observer and notice I am having thoughts such as: “I don’t know anybody at this party very well. I am not going to have a good time. I never have a good time at parties, I don’t know why I thought this would be different. Maybe I shouldn’t go.”
Step 2: Look through the list of POPs and identify which type(s) this is. Which ones can you identify? There definitely is Always Thinking (“I never have a good time at parties”), and Negative Fortune-Telling (“I am not going to have a good time”). And probably some “Thinking with My Feelings” thrown in there too - giving too much weight to my slightly nervous feelings.
Step 3: Use my higher brain to talk back to these automatic negative thoughts of the survival brain. Dr. Amen calls this “killing the ants.” Annie Hopper calls it coming up with ‘Popposites.” In this scenario I can remind myself that I have been looking forward to the party. And, contrary to what my survival brain is now saying, I usually do enjoy parties once I get settled in. I can set goals such as focusing on interacting with one person at a time- asking questions and getting to know them. I can come up with a short phrase to repeat when my survival brain starts getting overactive again, such as: “I am keeping an open mind. I am open to new experiences.”
That’s it! A simple process, that can make a huge difference in all aspects of your well-being.
One final note - this process is a different from “positive thinking” where you try to ignore what the survival brain is saying and override it with techniques such as affirmations (repeating positive statements over and over to try to imprint them in your brain). Our survival brain often reacts to that strategy by ramping up the negative thoughts to try to get its message heard. In the 3-step approach I’m describing you are activating the modern, higher parts of the brain to work cooperatively with the survival brain.
What are some of your most common POPs? Can you come up with some Popposites? Send me a quick email and let me know :)
I’d love to hear from you! Please email your comments, questions, and suggestions to liz@happybrainlife.com
Have a beautiful day!
Liz
Here are a couple articles by Dr. Amen about working with automatic negative thoughts:
https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/number-one-habit-develop-order-feel-positive/
https://ahha.org/selfhelp-articles/ant-therapy/
