 What do you do when about 95% of your thinking is negative? That's what we're going to talk about So it's not uncommon for a lot of our thoughts to be in a negative space and what we're going to talk about in this video is a little bit about mindset and how can we go about changing that To something a little bit more helpful because it's definitely not Helpful thing to have your mind constantly just feeding drip feeding negativity all day long But it is possible to do something about it and there is a way to do it But I'm going to read a question here from Ivana and this video is for Ivana So Ivana's question is And again, you know as always just see if you resonate with anything Ivana says in this question My thoughts are a million miles away from positivity And the balance is just so heavily skewed to the negative. I read somewhere that about 60 to 90,000 we have around 60,000 60 to 90,000 thoughts a day. I don't actually know how to know that I've read that myself as well Well for me 95% must be negative Or I just zone out and it feels like I'm not thinking at all Is it even possible to do something about this and if so where do I start? So Ivana, you're certainly not alone in this and it's as we'll talk about Kind of the default setting is for our minds to be unhelpful or to have this kind of drip feed of negativity So unfortunately that does seem to be the default and it's as if we don't do something about it If we don't become more proactive nothing will change but there is a way to be proactive that will help change with this The first step is With this it's an awareness that we have a perceptual problem The way we're seeing the world. I mean if it's 95% negative Isn't that strange? That's almost like you'd imagine if it was random it would be 50 50 have positive half negative But there's definitely a perceptual Sort of bias taken place here that it's so heavily skewed towards the negative And it's like okay, well if they're 60 to 90,000 of these thoughts a day It's so many negative thoughts. Well, how the heck am I going to go about reversing that that sort of Conditioned pattern of thinking that's there Well, you see the good news about it is okay first of all we have to accept that there is a perceptual problem I need to do something to kind of proactively move out of that That state of consciousness But the good news is that really a while there are the there can be so many of these overpowered negative thoughts There's really only two mindsets we can find ourselves in Okay, whatever words you want to use to describe those you can be in a positive or negative one you can be in a fear-based Mindset or you can be in a more Self-expressive or maybe a loving mindset or supportive encouraging mindset. So that kind of makes it a little bit simpler for us It's no longer this gargantuan task of Bringing awareness to all the thoughts and then correcting each thought. I mean, we would be really stuck if that was the case Really the good news is all that this all we really need is to shift out of a mindset of negativity Or a mindset of judgment and condemnation and being self-critical all the time Into an alternative mindset Okay, so it's basically it's a choice that we need to make and we need to get trained in making that choice repetitively and regularly so All we're looking for is just a shift in mindset One of the ways that we start to do that is we start to focus less on the form That we see externally or the form of our life or But by form I mean all the various problems because When we're in that negative mindset, it is so so easy to just stay being fixated on problems all the time And you'll notice. I mean 95% negative when we're in that negative mindset It's almost as if every area of our life Is just surrounded and mired in problems? Okay, so it's money problems relationship problems Problems with my physical appearance Problems with my friends my family You name it. We're the place. I live societal problems Problems in the country where I'm from When we're in that mindset, it's almost as if everything we're perceiving is problematic And we can stay fixated on that So one of the ways we can do it is just less of an attention to the the form That we're seeing externally and more in towards our own will or our own choice for Effectively, well, okay, this is what my mind is showing me. How would I prefer to feel in my life? How would I prefer to feel emotionally? What would I prefer to see even externally but to be less fixated on what the mind is constantly highlighting? Because we're actually not seeing the truth The mind as I said before has this bias in perception towards the negative and that's what it's showing us again and again So to be less fixated on form or content of what we're actually seeing I'm more back into The an appreciation or respect for our own will and determine and how we would like to perceive things This brings us back into that's personal responsibility, but it's also self-empowerment And the other thing is we don't really need to make any big Leaps here in terms of going from feeling really low despair helpless powerlessness Depression into feeling like a million dollars, right? We don't have to go from huge shifts here in this We don't have to do that We're just looking for any little shift at all because if you make any shift away from negativity the positivity You automatically find yourself in a different mindset It's like if you get a like a good piece of news or something Maybe you're just having the worst day ever, right? someone gives you a piece of good news and it's almost as if you've left an old mindset and in this new mindset All those things that were worrying you and seemed Insurmountable before they don't bother you as much It's because you left that mindset and you're in a new mindset. You're in your you're coming out of from a new perceptual vantage point So we just need any small little steps and corrections Will actually help correct the path we're on So you don't need to you know jump up massively and how you're doing in terms of your emotional well-being We're just looking for gradual nudges in Away from the negative towards something more helpful The last point I would say here Ivana on this in terms of this seemingly gargantuan task of shifting away from all this negativity is That we have some kind of a regular practice CBT is all about changing your thoughts But any practice at all that you find useful in terms of making you feel like you're more in touch with your own well-being You're starting to feel a bit more positive Very gradually, but when you find a practice, it's to practice it quite regularly Okay, because as I said before the default for us is to be stuck on that Inner critic whatever you want to call it, which is just constantly Fixated on the negative so unless we kind of proactively train our mind and Restoring it back into a more healthy supportive positive life-affirming mindset The default will be to stay stuck in that mindset for a while So whatever it is even a few minutes of just what I tell people to do is just kind of Get practice in writing or even saying to yourself your own story And that can be good even if you're in a negative place because you're just bringing a self-awareness to what's the story like? What's the narrative running about my life right now? You'd be able to identify where you are essentially by how it makes you feel But to get practice in just nudging it gradually and Regularly towards something that's much more life-affirming and much more supportive of you Anything that makes you feel any kind of improvement in yourself emotionally Can't be on the wrong path So it is a regular practice. I Even tell people, you know, whatever tool you use You're the best arbiter of that. You're the judge of what works best for you Some people who are stuck in negativity for instance. I'm a big believer in meditation Sometimes meditation isn't the right tool you know if you're stuck in negativity and you sit there and You're Meditating actually in your question you mentioned earlier It either feels like I'm negative or I zone out and it feels like I'm not thinking at all That that meditation can just become almost a zoning out experience where you're not actually shifting anything in terms of the proponents proponderances of thought from negative to positive So Meditation could be one of the tools absolutely, but maybe it's just a different type of tool that's going to shift you more sort of a thought-based one Hopefully that's kind of resonating with something emotionally inside because we really want to get the emotional body involved in any Practice like this anything that's kind of shifting you slightly nudging you slightly Towards well-being you're on the right track So if I'm I hope that's useful and Again, there is hope in this you're certainly not alone The default for most of us I think is to be stuck on negativity unless we can be a little bit proactive with it and find something That kind of helps you with that some kind of daily practice and I promise you it'll take a little bit of time, but it's definitely worked while doing and it does work if we're consistent intelligent with it But be patient with yourself too and always supportive of yourself in that Guys I'll leave it there for today, but Thanks for being with me, and I hoped it was something of use for you that you can take away from today's video I'll see you guys in the next video. Take care