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

IN Book Notes
Counteracting Negative Thoughts
  • Updated:7 years ago
  • Reading Time:9Minutes
  • Post Words:2203Words
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

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.

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Your ‘actions’ create the ‘reactions’ of people around you. The world is your mirror. Ken Keyes

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.

What the other person says or does cannot really annoy or irritate you except you permit him to disturb you. The only way he can annoy you is through your own thought.. – Joseph Murphy
And it’s a lot easier to change ourselves than to try to change someone else.

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.

You cannot be hurt when you know that you are master of your thoughts, reactions, and emotions. Emotions follow thoughts, and you have the power to reject all thoughts, which may disturb or upset you.Joseph Murphy

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 spend 20 or 30 years of your life building up negative conditions as a result of negative thoughts, and then expect to see them all melt away as the result of 15 or 20 minutes of right thinking. – Charles F. Haanel
No matter which tool resonates with you, it will not be an overnight ‘fix’, you will need to work at it.

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

Much of our beliefs have been received from others, the result of opinions, suggestions or statements; accepted with little or no examination or consideration. The idea seemed plausible, the conscious received it, passed it on to the subconscious. – Charles F. Haanel
How do you know that the thoughts you are having towards them are even rational?

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.

Expand your love, your consciousness, and your loving compassion by experiencing everything that everyone does or says as though you had done or said it. – Ken Keyes
If you can seek the good in the other, and try to understand/empathize or even realize that the other person could just as easily be you if you had been brought up the same way, or had the same life experiences/opportunities as them, to try and want the best for the other person, just as much as you want the best for yourself, because as you think those thoughts, you are bringing in good thoughts into your own life.

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:

We can love people without liking them. Love means that you wish for the other health, happiness, peace, joy, and all the blessings of life. There is only one prerequisite, and that is sincerity. What you wish for the other, you are actually wishing for yourself. The reason is that you are thinking it and you are feeling it. As you think and feel, so are you. Could anything be simpler than that?Joseph Murphy

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.

Useful Quotes about Counteracting Negative Thoughts

Think good, and good follows. Think evil, and evil follows. You are what you think all day long.Joseph Murphy
Resolve now that you will never again let your ego and rational mind try to convince you that the outside world is doing it to you – that others are the cause of your suffering.Ken Keyes
When thoughts are conveyed to your subconscious mind, impressions are made in the brain cells. As soon as your subconscious accepts any idea, it proceeds to put it into effect immediately. It works by association of ideas and uses every bit of knowledge that you have gathered in your lifetime to bring about its purpose. It draws on the infinite power, energy, and wisdom within you. It lines up all the laws of nature to get its way.Joseph Murphy

If you see only the incomplete, the imperfect, the relative, the limited, these conditions will manifest in your life; but if you train your mind to see and realize the spiritual ego, the “I” which is forever perfect and complete, then harmonious; wholesome, and healthful conditions only will be manifested.Charles F. Haanel

You must choose happiness. Happiness is a habit. It is a good habit to ponder often on. When you open your eyes in the morning, say to yourself, I choose happiness today. I choose success today. I choose right action today. I choose love and good will for all today. I choose peace today. Pour life, love, and interest into this affirmation, and you have chosen happiness.Joseph Murphy

Forgive yourself and everyone else before you go to sleep, and healing will take place much more rapidly. Forgiveness of others is essential to mental peace and radiant health. You must forgive everyone who has ever hurt you if you want perfect health and happiness.Joseph Murphy
Resentment, hatred, ill will, and hostility are behind a host of maladies. Forgive yourself and everybody else by pouring out love, life, joy, and good will to all those who have hurt you. Continue until such time as you meet them in your mind and you are at peace with them.Joseph Murphy
Become emotionally mature and permit other people to differ from you. They have a perfect right to disagree with you, and you have the same freedom to disagree with them. You can disagree without being disagreeable. Joseph Murphy
Penny (PennyButler.com)
Penny (PennyButler.com)

Truth-seeker, ever-questioning, ever-learning, ever-researching, ever delving further and deeper, ever trying to 'figure it out'. This site is a legacy of sorts, a place to collect thoughts, notes, book summaries, & random points of interests.