 In this video, I'm going to break down two different methods for how to manage negative thoughts and emotions from the wonderful Anna Akana. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. And if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And check this out. Got more merch in the mail. So this is a depiction of Wyatt meditating and it says, stay in the meowment. You get it? All right. Anyways, I just watched Anna Akana's new video and it's great. It's talking about negative thoughts and emotions and full disclaimer, Anna Akana is not. I repeat, she is not a licensed professional but she has a lot of great tips about mental health and how to improve yours. So yeah, in this video she's talking about dealing with negative thoughts and emotions and the strategy that works for her is actually one that doesn't work for me but she talks about a different one that involves mindfulness which I'm going to talk to you about as well. Because every feeling you have is actually trying to help you. It's trying to let you know something. I mean that's what you feel is. It's this physical cue that shouldn't be just ignored or blindly accepted but understood. So in that clip right there, she's talking about recognizing that every emotion that you're feeling is trying to help you and this is a great way to start looking at your emotions. Even if it's like anger or stress or anxiety or whatever it is, look at it as a way to help you. So something I try to talk about a lot on my channel is evolutionary psychology, right? So for example, anxiety is a way that we involve to keep us safe, to keep us protected. People who had anxiety were more likely to survive way back in the stone caveman days. For example, I always use this example, two cavemen are walking past a cave and one of them doesn't have too much anxiety. He's like, you know what? Let's go inside that cave. The other one with anxiety is like, you know what? There might be something dangerous in that cave. Let's not go in there. But the guy without anxiety goes in that cave, gets his face eaten off by a lion. Boom. Survival of the face. So natural selection took out the first caveman, the other one survived, passes his jeans on to the rest of us. All right. So many people who do have anxiety, they're going to live longer because they're much more cautious. They're safer, right? But I talked about this in my video I think about R. Kelly the other day. But anyways, like for me, like feeling of like guilt is a call to action to do something, right? If I feel guilty or, you know, whatever. And sometimes it's just like, you know, I feel bad for somebody or like empathy, you know? Like when we see somebody who's struggling, we feel bad about it. Like that is our body trying to tell us, our body and our mind trying to tell us, like go and do something about it. Like don't just talk about it, do something about it, right? So one of the rules of thumb that I use to this day is that I refuse to complain about anything unless I'm willing to do something about it, right? That's part of the million reasons why I say we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. Because I used to just sit around and complain about different things, you know, this upsets me, this upsets me, this makes me feel bad, that and that and that. But now I do something about it. So something that I realized was there wasn't enough YouTube channels or even stuff on the internet where people were talking about the solution. Like there was a website that I used to follow. I don't even read it anymore because it was such a bummer. But it was so many mental health stories and it was just like all of the stories were just like a bummer. And don't get me wrong. Dealing with mental illness or mental health issues in general can be a bummer. But I would get to the end of the article and I'm like, what's the solution? What's the solution, right? Or I saw different channels that were on YouTube and they weren't giving people solutions. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna make sure that I have a solution in every single video. An actionable step. So that was my call to action, okay? I didn't just sit around whining about it or complaining about it. I did something about it. Now, bear with me because I know it's gonna sound a little cheesy. But if you're someone who deals with a lot of anxiety or insecurity or emotional pain of any kind, I urge you to have an open mind and try it. So when you feel a negative emotion, let's say insecurity. I want you to first think of what that emotion would look like, a physical representation of it. So for me, my insecurity would look like a jagged crystal formation. And once that image is really clear, I want you to mentally take that physicalized emotion from your body and hold it in front of you and ask it. Why are you here? That clip right there, what we're talking about is reframing your negative thoughts and emotions. So this is a strategy that I was saying that it doesn't work for me, okay? This is something called visualization, all right? This is something that I've tried. Visualization can be a form of meditation. A lot of you have said that you tried the Headspace app. One of the Headspace courses that I took or modules, well, I'm not sure what they call it in Headspace. It was like a year or two ago, but it was like, I think seven or 30 days, but it involved visualization and that like my brain just cannot do that. So for you, it might actually work because what Anna's talking about is she like visualizes it as something that you can take, like it's an object, right? It's something that can be outside of yourself. And that makes it a little bit easier to deal with, okay? Something that I do though is I have a conversation with that part of me, okay? Like this was first introduced to me like when I got clean from drugs and alcohol. People said, you know, my disease is talking to me. I'm like, that sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life, right? But it made sense like if I was separating myself from my mental illness, from my addiction, I could have a conversation with it. You know what I mean? Like, hey, let's go get high. And I'm just like, nah, let's not do that, right? I do the same thing with symptoms of depression and anxiety and all of that. Like something I keep trying to beat into all of your heads is just because this thought comes in your head does not mean it's true. Okay, this is especially true for people who deal with symptoms of anxiety or depression, like the things that you're fearing, right? Like you have to sit down and have a conversation with it and say, okay, is this a rational or irrational fear, right? Or if you're dealing with negative self-talk, you sit there and you, you have a conversation, right? Like this is part of a loving kindness exercise as well. When that voice in your head pops up and starts saying, like you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not pretty enough, or you're not handsome enough, or whatever. And this is like, hey, all right, thanks for being worried about me, but I'm going to go do this. You know what I mean? Like this helps me really cope with this. So you can try either one of those methods, either visualizing or just having a conversation with that part of yourself. But just remember to separate yourself. This is something that we call non-identification, okay? You are not your mental illness, all right? Let me repeat it for the people in the back. You are not your mental illness, okay? Then there's also the view that you need to sit with your emotions, right? The idea of acceptance of negative feelings in order to let them pass through you. But I've found that when I do this, I just get stuck in the bad feeling and just ruminate because I'm allowing that emotion to take over my life. It's going to be a terrible day. It's going to be a terrible meal. Right there, Anna Akana, that's where I don't agree with you. But different things work for different people. So what Anna Akana was actually talking about right there is a little thing that I keep trying to teach you all, which is called mindfulness, right? So she's talking about how sitting and embracing your emotions doesn't work because she starts to latch onto it and ruminate on it, all right? So let me make it very clear that is going to happen. That's going to happen. It's already happening. But the thing is we have to train our mind to do otherwise, all right? So in a previous video, I talked to you about the anchor, okay? So you can use your breath as an anchor. You can use touch, smell, whatever it is, listening as an anchor, okay? So every time you get that first thought, you notice it and then you bring it back to that anchor. There's another technique, and I was going to save this for a video I did about mindfulness, which is called noting, okay? Noting, note your experience. This is something that my son and I, we do to practice mindfulness while we're in the car. And all you do, all you do is just label what sense, okay? What sense you're experiencing right then, right? Let's do it real quick for 30 seconds, feeling, thinking, seeing, seeing, seeing, thinking, hearing, hearing, thinking, all right? That's it, you're just noting your experience. And what you're doing is you start to notice that thought. So when you notice that thought, you start to notice the ruminating, right? And then you can start to have more control over it. But the other thing that she's talking about is letting this emotion pass through you, this is something that's very beneficial. This took a lot of training for me, but let me tell you like, this is one of the reasons why my life is so amazing today. My emotions no, and no longer consume me, all right? There was a meditation practice I used, which was called like infinity. And it was about letting this emotion, like noticing what it feels like in the body and just letting it expand as much as it wants to, right? Because usually we're trying to shove that emotion down or we're trying to get rid of it, right? But what happens when you just let it run its course? Like one of my first meditation teacher said emotion, the main word in that is motion, they're going to pass. But here's actually a poem that is based on mindfulness from a little author named Rumi, okay? It's called The Guest House and I absolutely love it. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door, laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. All right? I love that. I love that. One of my other meditation teachers introduced me to that poem. So basically what that poem for me is talking about is inviting your emotions in as a guest and just let them chill. Let them stay, like think about it, they're a guest, all right? They're not packing up and they're not moving into your house. They're just a guest. Greed them, no matter what they are. See, our issue is that our brain is in one of two modes, attraction and aversion, right? We only want the good feelings. Only give me the good feelings. Don't give me any of the bad feelings, right? But what would happen if we invited these negative emotions? Like something that I often talk to people about is they're like, oh my God, I've been crying. I can't stop crying. I'm like, good, crying, crying all out. It is cleansing. You have permission to cry. It's okay. If you're angry, if you're mad, welcome that in, all right? But especially with anger, it doesn't mean that we have to react and take some action on that anger. But quit trying to push these things away. They are merely a guest, all right? Greed them, let them come in, let them run their course and then they're gonna leave, all right? Like I look back, like how many times, how many times did you have some emotion in your life whether it was anger, sadness, fear, whatever it was? How many times in your life did you have it and you thought it was never gonna go away, right? Like think about your first like, your first breakup and you're in like middle school or high school, right? Like oh my God, I'm gonna be heartbroken forever, right? And you're probably doing fine now, okay? So remember, use that as a way to remind yourself that these emotions do not last forever. They're just guests, all right? But anyways, those are a few methods that we can learn from Ana Akana about dealing with negative thoughts as well as negative emotions. If you have any tips on how to deal with negative emotions whether it's journaling or exercise or whatever it is, let me know down in the comments below, okay? Anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. 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