Exit Negative Thought Loops - Day 2

Networks of thought patterns seem to be of key value at any stage of one’s mental capacity for growth. There are ways you can map out central themes that are at the forefront of your neurolinguistic spaces. These themes can stem from underlying repetitive thoughts cycles from the past, from current trends, or even from collective fears that one accumulates by consuming mass media. It can be extremely difficult to escape certain thought patterns that are looping in your mind, but putting them down onto some safe medium can really help clarify them. The first step is actually being able to see these repeating mental loops on a medium that is not just your brain such as on a journal, on a digital note, on the whiteboard, etc. Then, when you can clearly see the patterns for what they are without having them run repetitive unconscious loops in your brain, can you start to think of ways to consciously end these loops.

Often times thought loops that you can find no simple way out of in your head are rooted in a very primal and simple fear/belief, and all that you need to do to exit these loops is to arrive at the core belief that is at the center of an infinitely spiraling loop. Reaching that core belief requires a bit of delayering that you can do by asking yourself some questions about what it really is that you believe will happen if you tried to escape certain thought loops. Better yet, do this exercise with a friend who can be patient with you, and have them continuously ask you this one question,

"What belief makes you think that?"

For example, take a common thought loop such as,

"I am stuck, and I don't know what to do in life".

Now don't just keep playing this loop in your head because it's not going to allow you to get unstuck. The reason that looping it in your head alone won't allow you to find a way to get unstuck is that you don't know what the real belief is that is making you 'believe' that you are stuck in the first place. I can assure you that 'being stuck in life' is not a statement or a fact but it is in fact hiding behind some very simple core fear that makes you believe it to be fact. So try this any time you find yourself in a negative thought loop: first, identify that thought pattern and write it down or verbalize it, for example,

"I'm not good enough for this job".

Then add "I have a belief that" before the statement that you just verbalized,

So now you have,

"I have a belief that I am not good enough for this job".

Now that you rephrased it to no longer be a fact but a belief that you hold, you can unlock the next step. That is, scrutinizing this belief repeatedly just like you play out this belief repeatedly as a loop in your head. Have your friend ask you/ask yourself the same question in response to the first statement; "What belief makes you think that?", and make sure that you respond with, "I have a belief that…". For example, you may respond to the first time you're asked that question in response to the prior statement with,

"I have a belief that I'm not good enough for this job because I'm not qualified enough."

Then ask the same question in response to the previous response, ie,

"What belief makes you think you're not qualified enough?"

To this, you may say for example,

"I have a belief that I'm not qualified enough because there are others more qualified than me."

Now make sure to keep addressing each belief statement in full sentences, and keep doing so until you run out of logical responses and come down to irrational ones. Push yourself to continue this process until you actually arrive at the true belief that lies behind the initial seemingly complex belief that kept you in a mental loop. Know that the underlying belief will be simple and not fancy at all, and it will be that final response that will emotionally relieve you and possibly even make you laugh at how it could have had the power to keep you stuck in a mental loop for however long it had been running in your head for. To give you an example, the underlying belief to the previous initial belief could well have been something as simple as,

"I have a belief that I'm not qualified enough because I have never been told I did a good job by my parents."

It doesn't have to necessarily link to your childhood of course but often these seemingly mature and complex thought loops don't stem from intellect but in fact, stem from very basic fears and traumas that we store inside of us. Identify them early on and free your precious mind of colonizing thought loops that will turn you into prisoners of your own mind.