3 Ways You Can Cultivate Calm and Experience a More Positive Life
Part of the Cultivating Calm Series - Elise Daly Parker
Let’s talk about Checking Your Thoughts to Cultivate Calm.
Believe it or not, several studies report our minds are yielded to negative thoughts 80% of the time! That’s an awful lot of negativity. Especially when you consider the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts a day.
When we let our thoughts control us instead of controlling our thoughts, it can be unsettling and upsetting. Pretty much the opposite of calming.
So what do we do? It seems like negative thinking might be almost natural, right?
Well…enter neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. We can get stuck in specific neural pathways – aka brain ruts - so it becomes easy to think the same negative thoughts over and over. These thoughts are subconscious. They have power to influence our actions, but we’re not really aware of them. Unless we become aware of them, which we can do if we’re intentional.
The way to form new neural pathways - in this case replace negative thinking with positive thinking - is to intentionally develop the habit of countering our negative thinking. Then, the positive pathway becomes the path of least resistance.
I find neuroplasticity fascinating. But you might not. So let me make this a little more practical.
The bottom line is you have to work at being conscious of what you’re thinking. If you catch yourself thinking negatively, you have to reframe the thought positively. At first, it’s a lot of work…and you’ll forget. But if you keep at it, eventually, you’ll train your mind and form a new habit of thinking more positively.
This isn’t an unrealistically optimistic approach. It’s a way of actually keeping your thoughts more real and in the moment, rather than allowing worry, fear, or anxiety about the future to set in or speaking lies over yourself.
Simply put, you can change your negative thoughts to positive ones a number of different ways.
Here’s what I mean:
1. Write down your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. I have a friend who carried a yellow legal pad around for over a year as she wrote down her negative thoughts (often lies), called them out of her mind and onto paper, and then came up with positive reframes or scriptures to replace them. You can do the same with a pad, use your phone notes, or download my handy What Are You Thinking worksheet.
Here’s an example. My negative thought might be, “I’m so stressed. There’s nothing I can do about this. I guess I just have to barrel through.” My positive thought is, “I’m feeling stressed. I need to do something to calm down. I am going to go for a walk to clear my head.”
Here’s another one, “This house is always a mess,” can be “The house is a mess right now. I’m going to take just 5 minutes to do a quick pick up and make a plan for a bigger cleanup.”
2. Surround yourself with positive words and phrases. One of the easiest ways to remind ourselves to be thankful, to be positive, to shift our thinking is to have meaningful, positive words hanging on our walls or displayed on our tables, countertops, and desks. This way we’re likely to see them every day, think about them, and respond to them. It can take very little effort to shift our thinking, even subconsciously, when these words are right in front of us day after day.
So, for example, in my home I have signs or pictures with the following quotes:
In my guest bathroom – “Love and always love.”
In my upstairs bathroom – “Live every day with intention.”
On my mirror – “I am enough.” (If you have written on your mirror, I’d love to know what you’ve written!)
On a letter board – “Change your thoughts, change the world.”
On a little ornament hanging over my desk - the “Our Father.”
Even a book cover I keep in view – “Nothing to prove.”
These simple phrases are reminders every day of the way I want to think, the way I want to be. Sometimes they shift my thoughts and I’m not even away of it. That’s the power of words.
3. Make a list of positive affirmations to counter thoughts you’ve identified that you know you want to change. This can be a list in your phone, on your computer wallpaper, or on a doc you’ve printed out. Intentionally look at and repeat these phrases and, if you’re the praying type, pray over them.
Here are some examples of positive affirmations you could use:
I am caring for myself today by going for a walk.
I am the best mom for my kids and I love them well.
I am cultivating a calm home by making sure I take five deep breaths a couple of times a day.
I am fearfully, wonderfully made, and greatly loved.
I will get to all the most important things today and trust things that don’t get done are for another day.
Every day holds many things to be thankful for. Today, I’m thankful for these three things…
I don’t have to earn love from God, my spouse, or my friends. I am loved because I am.
I definitely don’t want my thoughts to be negative 80% of the time. How about you? What positive thought will you be intentional about today?
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