Many years ago, before I knew how to let go, I thought positive thinking involved trying to control my thoughts. One technique that I used to try control my thoughts was to have a response to a negative thought that would inevitably pop up like, “ Delete that thought.”, or “Cancel that thought, that reality is not acceptable.” Overtime I began to realize that it was impossible to control my thoughts. Fortunately around the same time I realized this I became acquainted with The Sedona Method. The Sedona Method, also known as releasing, is so helpful when considering how to deal with how the mind produces thoughts and what do about negative thoughts.
Instead of trying to control the mind with devices like the phrases I mention above, it is much more effective to go to the root of where the negative thoughts come from and address that. When we do that, we find that our thoughts become automatically and organically more positive. The same is true for our feelings. When we go to the root of where the negative feelings come from and address that we find that they are effortlessly more positive too.
The mind produces negative thoughts and if we are completely honest we will admit that there is no way to control the mind. “The average person has about 48.6 thoughts per minute, according to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California. That adds up to a total of 70,000 thoughts per day.” (See this link: https://www.reference.com/world-view/many-thoughts-per-minute-cb7fcf22ebbf8466 ) There is absolutely no way to control 48.6 thoughts coming in per minute.
Instead of trying to engage in mind control we can practice a process of letting go, another name for releasing, and clear out debris in the mind that contributes to the mind manufacturing negative thoughts. Many people talk about how useful it is to let go but not many people don’t explain how to let go. In my work as a therapist and coach I spend all day showing folks how to let go. It’s actually quite natural to let go. We let go all day long. We let go when the mind drops one subject and moves on to the next. The mind does this all day long. If something is bothering us though, if there is a so called negative, it can sometimes be virtually impossible to get the mind to drop the negative thought. I’ve written about how welcoming, noticing, allowing the negative thought to be here in a very specific and intentional way can support letting go of a negative thought in these blogs. Welcoming, when done properly, is paradoxically one of the most powerful ways to let go of a negative thought. And there are quite a few other ways to let go of thoughts we don’t want renting space in our minds. Once we know how to successfully let go we no longer have to fear a so called negative thought. The thoughts release with more and more ease as we play around with the letting go processes. I tell people to approach The Sedona Method and releasing with child like curiosity and with a sense of play. We tend to get very serous and bogged down when we engage in any process that we think will help us feel better, and that’s understandable. However letting go can actually be fun once we know how to do it properly.