Let go of negative thoughts with the Gratitude Flow technique.

For most of us, peace of mind is a precious feeling. This is the feeling of being in harmony with the universe, that everything is in its place, that everything is in order. Without this sense of calm, everything becomes gloomy and crisis; your energy is only focused on saving the day. Enjoying life becomes a luxury that you cannot afford.

Negative thoughts can take many forms: anxiety, self-criticism, judgment and belittling of the people around you. But in whatever form it paralyzes or injures you. We like to think that we are reacting to everything that happens in life as it is, but the truth is that we are reacting to the world that exists in our minds. Our inner world shapes how we see reality. For example, if you are constantly worried, the whole world starts to seem like a dangerous place. John Milton in Paradise Lost: “Mind is a place in itself. He can create heaven from hell or hell from heaven.” said how.

Negative thoughts can literally destroy everything positive around you. While it may be tempting to believe that we can improve our lives by replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, unfortunately, this does not work as well as we think.

Positive thoughts are not as powerful as negative ones. Negative thoughts draw their strength from an unexpected place, from the teachings of the modern world. The assumptions of the modern world inspire you from childhood that life is an endless struggle for survival, filled with unforeseen threats to your existence (earthquakes, megastorms, terrorism, car accidents, viruses, etc.). At the end of this fight, no matter what you do, you will lose and die, and this fight is meaningless. No human can live comfortably in such an environment of chaos. We need a sense of control over our lives. As strange as it sounds, anxiety creates this sense of control. We believe deep down in our hearts that if we anticipate everything that can happen, it won’t happen. It’s as if negative thoughts are a protective shield against an out-of-control universe.

All negativity destroys your inner peace. To drive away these thoughts, you need to find something much more powerful than positive thoughts, something that transforms your view of the universe from a survival perspective to a point where you feel supported and connected to something bigger than you. themselves. You may believe that this other universe exists, but to truly be free, you must be able to feel it. The best way to feel this is to be grateful.

The Gratitude Flow Technique

Dr. Stutz compares life with negative thoughts to walking with a dark cloud overhead. When we all have negative thoughts, we don’t see things in our lives to be thankful for. He says that this dark cloud above us, that is, negative thoughts, can be driven away with the help of a method he uses with the Gratitude Flow imagery technique he developed. Whenever we cannot see and feel the positive things in our lives, we can generate a flood of gratitude by sitting quietly with our eyes closed for 30 seconds, remembering the existence of what we are grateful for and for which we are grateful, and allowing the positive feeling spread through the dark clouds into our inner world. It could be your spouse, your cat, your family, your job, your sport, your therapist, a talent you are grateful for… All of these we call into our streams from their hiding places, because they evoke positive emotions in us, in order to dispel negative thoughts. Thus, when negativity threatens to destroy, gratitude and appreciation restore inner peace to our current flow. Because your heart feels something that your brain refuses to accept.

We can dispel negative thoughts only with the help of positive emotions. This feeling comes from the “source”. Even if sometimes you don’t see it, this resource exists and keeps you alive. And when you can see, there are endless possibilities. When you understand everything that the source has given you and create a flow of gratitude, you understand that you are not alone, worries and false beliefs disappear. You gain a positive perspective, an invaluable ability to perceive life positively, no matter what happens in the moment.

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