Counteracting Negative Thoughts – 3 Powerful Tools to Experience a More Joyful & Loving Life

Accepting and loving people for who they are instead of complaining about people who do not ‘fit in’ to the way that you want them to be is a powerful change in mindset that we can choose to make for the benefit of all. We can choose to not let other people bother us, and experience more joy as a result.
It’s not that easy, it takes a lot of practice; daily, gradual changes to our mindset to be ‘automatically’ more accepting and loving towards others, and there may be some people that really test our new resolve :)
But if you can do it… if you are able to achieve this higher consciousness; this new mindset where those that previously ‘rubbed you up the wrong way’ had absolutely no effect on “your” mood, day, or life, your life would be a lot more joyous.
So the first thing to realize is that it’s ‘us’ that can provide the solution, that the change can happen within ‘us’; WE have the power to decide what we get irritated over.
If you find yourself feeling bothered by someone else’s actions/words/presence, and you find yourself complaining or criticizing either internally or to others, then you can benefit from a ‘mindset adjustment’.
Negative people are not the type of people anyone wants to be around. If you are bothered by someone else, and complaining or criticizing, that makes you the negative person – the type of person that resonates a ‘lack of self esteem’, even though you might feel like you are ‘better than them’, and you might think you have the world fooled :).
Your ego protects you from seeing the truth, that those that complain about others, are generally the ones that have a lot of complaints internally about themselves, they are seeing outwardly what they feel inwardly. We can all “see-through” others but rarely can we see it in ourselves.
If you are irritated by anyone else, then you can benefit from a shift in mindset to start enjoying a more joyful life.
It all starts with you.
1st Step
So… the first step, is realizing and admitting that we have the power to change our thoughts, seeing the benefits of changing, and then taking action: intentionally ‘practicing’ the change.
2nd Step
The next step, is working through each negative reaction and turning it around, or using another tool to gradually change your mindset so that you have an automatic ‘positive’ life when dealing with negative situations or people.
3 Powerful Tools to Counteract Negative Thoughts and Experience a More Joyful & Loving Life
There are many tools available to be able to do this, and in this post, I’m going to list three very effective ones, hoping that at least one of them resonates with you and gives you the starting point to start making the adjustment to have a happier life, to not let other negative people affect you, to not seek the bad in others, and to become a happy person to be around.
You cannot “undo” years of negative thinking in a moment; your subconscious is on auto-pilot and you need to create new habits of thinking in order to make the change permanent and unconscious so that when you feel a negative thought pattern towards something or someone, your inner mind will automatically adjust for you without you having to consciously do it each time.
When you first start, you need to make the adjustments manually & intentionally to gradually form new habits and ‘rewire’ your brain into the optimal mindset where negative people / situations / thoughts fall off like ‘water off a duck’s back’.
Tool #1 Counteract with Positive Thoughts
For every negative, think of 10 positives that counter-act the negative.
That might mean listing:
- 10 things you are grateful for in the situation
- 10 things that is positive about the other person
- 10 things that you can focus on in it’s stead
- 10 things that the person does well or you are grateful for
- 10 things their mother or friends would love about them
- 10 lessons you have learnt as a result of knowing this person
- 10 ways you have grown as a result of interacting with this person
Just try and think of as many positives or gratitude’s you can use to counteract the negative feelings within you.
Seeking the good in other people will help train your own mind to seek good in the world.
What you think about, you bring about. If you are thinking ill thoughts of someone else, you are bringing ill thoughts into your own consciousness – into your own world.
It affects your life and does nothing to change the other person, all it does it makes you feel worse and bring negative experiences and feelings into your own life.
Tool #2 Question your own Beliefs
What makes you so right and them so wrong?
Most of our beliefs we hold so dear were innocently and naively received from others during our childhood and adjusted along the way through to adulthood, through our experiences, fears and random idle conversations that we’ve had throughout life… what makes us so sure that we had a rational mind at the time we decided to ‘take on’ that particular belief in the first place that causes us to have an automatic negative reaction to that person?
The best way to escape from this mental prison, in any case (no matter if you believe your thinking is justified or not), is to find the good.
Finding the good will serve us better in life than having an automatic negative reaction.
Tool #3 Love them and wish them Well
Huh?
Here is the most important reason why:
Everything you think about that person, is coming into your own being, you are bringing both the positive and negative thoughts and feelings directly into your being.
What you are putting out to the world, you are feeling within yourself – you are taking in everything you put out.
If you are annoyed or irritated, then that carries into your own life; that negativity is what you are putting out; you are ‘automatically’ bringing about more of the same.
Like attracts like.
If you feel good, that person cannot affect you, good counteracts the bad/evil.
When you think happy and positive and loving thoughts, you are “feeling” happy and positive and loving, and therefore bringing those feelings into your life, mindset, and soul.
What you think and feel is what you ARE
Love them and wish for them happiness, peace, blessings, etc. and all the things you wish for yourself, because as you ‘think’ it, you ‘feel’ it, and what you think and feel is what you ‘are’, as per Joseph Murphy’s advice in this quote:
Not only that but when you are around someone you dislike, the feeling resonates with you, and if that feeling is ‘picked up’ by your target, if you are feeling ill-will towards them, they will feel it, and therefore if they are also not aware of how to control their own thoughts/automatic negative reactions, could react in kind, and cause further problems for you.
Even when they are not doing anything to you or feeling any negative thoughts about you, or doing anything that you would consider ‘wrong’, you can still feel bad vibrations from them caused by the thoughts in your own head. Which you have the power to change.