[00:00:00] Have you ever found yourself caught in a negative thought spiral? Your mind is spinning and you’re into your own head thinking about everything that’s not going. Right. It’s so easy to get sucked into these toxic thought patterns. And what’s worse is that eventually impacts how we show up and live our lives. These thought loops affect our ability to find joy experience beauty, to connect with those around us, into live meaningful lives. Eventually these thought patterns begin to affect our physical health as well.

What can we do about it? Well, in today’s episode, we’re diving in to how to break the cycle and what to do instead so that we can live meaningful lives. Lives of joy. Lives that light us up and impact the world for good.

If that feels really far from where you are today, because you keep finding yourself stuck in these same negative thought loops, don’t worry. It’s a common problem. It’s some very practical steps you can take to start breaking free today. So what do you say? Let’s dive into the show!

Now, before we dive in, I just want to quickly remind you that the milspouse mastermind community is a free Facebook group for military spouses who are looking to get unstuck and craft lives with purpose. You will be able to be in a community of people who are honestly talking about the struggles we face and what to do about it.

[00:02:27] If you just want to stay stuck, this is not for you. But if you are looking for practical tools and strategies to help you embrace the life you have today and craft a life with purpose, the milspouse mastermind community is for you. Just go to milspousemastermind.com/community to jump inside. I would love to see you there.

[00:02:47] All right, let’s talk about these negative thought loops that we find ourselves in. And the reason I said at the beginning of the show that you’ve probably experienced this at one point or another in your life, is that so many of the thoughts in our brain are actually negative thoughts, that naturally come into our brain.

[00:03:10] I read somewhere that roughly 70% of most people’s thoughts are negative. But here’s the problem. We become what we think and what we dwell on. We make decisions based on what we believe to be true. Our beliefs are formed by the thoughts that we think on repeat in our head. But what we think and believe are not always reflective of reality.

[00:03:43] You can have a thought that is not based on truth, but is simply based on someone else’s opinion of you. Somebody says something and it may be that they said that just because they were in a bad head space, but now you’ve accepted that thought and that thought is playing on repeat in your head. And the more that you think it, the more that it becomes solidified as a belief.

And if we go back to all of these self-limiting beliefs that we have, they can generally be traced to a thought that we had somewhere along the way. So when we talk about learning to develop a healthy mindset, what we’re really talking about is learning to be able to assess our thoughts and to separate ourselves from our feelings, our thoughts.

[00:04:44] Because we have to be able to step back and gain a little perspective so we can see, is this a true thought? Is this a true belief, or is this just a negative thought loop that I have gotten stuck in? So how do we do that? Well, let’s look at the process as a whole, and then we’ll unpack that in a little greater detail.

[00:05:09] So what happens is that we experience a circumstance and the circumstance itself is new. It’s not really positive or negative, at least most circumstances, it’s just something that happens to us. We can’t control what happens to us. And a lot of times we can’t control our immediate reaction, the feeling that we have in response to that circumstance. Then based on that feeling, we then have a thought about the event and our thoughts actually determine our actions.

And when we get stuck in negative thought patterns, they become beliefs. And our beliefs also dictate our actions over time. Those actions become habits, which dictate how we show up and live our lives.

[00:06:03] So a false belief can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe I am bad at X. Therefore I act in accordance with that belief about myself. If I don’t believe that I have something to offer the world, then I’m not going to live a life with purpose. When I don’t realize that I have value, I conform to a shadow of who I’m meant to be.

[00:06:35] What we believe about ourselves, determines what we do, what actions we take and ultimately who we become. More than that, when we look at the science behind this, every thought actually changes our brain makeup. What we need to understand is that every toxic thought in our brain ultimately comes down to a wrong belief about our identity and ultimately what we believe about our creator.

[00:07:13] If we believe that we have nothing to offer, that is based on a false belief. If we believe that we are not worthy or not loved, that is based on a faulty belief. Because the truth of the matter is that we have a creator God who loves each of us just as we are. He finds value in us. He has made us worthy, and equips us to do every good work. He has given us all we need to fight and overcome these negative beliefs and thought patterns in our brains.

So, what can we do? Now before we get into what we’re going to talk about today, I just want to remind you that there are parts of our brain that may not be wired the way that we want them to be. And sometimes we need a little extra help, or we’re stuck and we can’t get out of these negative thought loops by ourself. We may need some medication because our brain is wired a little differently. None of that is bad.

[00:08:23] I want you to always be willing to seek help and get the help and support you need. But we’re just going to talk about how we get stuck in these negative thought loops and how we can break free of these cycles. And the one thing that I will tell you is going to be the most beneficial to you is creating time for reflection.

[00:08:52] Because what we still often do is just avoid the problem. We know something is wrong. And so we use tools and tactics that allow us to numb out and not actually deal with the problem.That help us avoid feeling, because feelings are not always positive. And as we deal with some of these beliefs and thought patterns, we can have negative emotions arise.

[00:09:20] We can have trauma that comes to the surface. And so this process of dealing with these thought patterns is not always going to be the most fun process. And so it’s easier for us to numb out sometimes then to actually take the time to reflect on what’s really going on, and thread the needle and work through this. But when you find yourself stuck in a negative thought loop and you start to notice, Hey, I’m stuck in this pattern. This belie is not serving me.

[00:09:56] The first thing I want you to do is to tell yourself that change is possible. You don’t have to stay here. The second step is to become aware of those thoughts. If we never notice, we’re not going to be able to deal with them and productively move through the process. So we have to become aware of what we’re actually thinking, what our self-limiting beliefs are, what kinds of negative thought loops we’ve started, and what we are actually afraid of.

[00:10:34] Then we have to be able to assess. Is this a negative thought spiral? Where is this thought coming from? Is it based on a belief? And is that belief true?

So we experience the event. We experience a feeling that arises, we experience a thought in our head and then we have to choose what we do with that thought.

[00:11:06] We can change our actions. We don’t have to act based on the feeling. We can have a different thought and choose a different response. We cannot control what happens. We can control what we do with what we have. We can choose to change our belief. We can choose to act in accordance with a different belief.

[00:11:30] We can choose to act according to our values and choose a better response. Now the only way we can act according to our values is if we actually know our values. And so many people never take the time to figure out what their core values are. So if you have not already done so, we have a free values worksheet for you that will help you figure out what your core values are. What’s important to you.

[00:11:58] So that when you are in this place of, what do I do? How do I want to act? You’re making sure that you align your actions with what your values are. That worksheet is available if you go to milspousemastermind.com/values. I just want to let you know that that free resource is available to you if you were questioning, what do you mean by “Act according to your values?” I don’t know what my values are.

[00:12:21] This process starts by telling ourselves that change is possible. We want to become aware of our thoughts, assess our thoughts, and then make a better choice. Now that is part of the process.

[00:12:49] The other process is what we do instead. So we understand that we don’t want this belief. It’s not a true belief. It’s not serving us and we need to replace it with a new belief. This is not a process of, oh, I’m going to avoid negative thoughts and try to think happy thoughts, because just telling yourself not to think about something never, ever works.

[00:13:12] I mean, try telling yourself not to think about your favorite flavor of ice cream. Don’t think about how creamy it is, or what it does in your mouth, how it makes you feel. The more than I tell you not to think about something, the more tyou will think about it. So it’s not just don’t think about it. It’s not just, oh, think happy thoughts.

[00:13:33] It’s actually dealing with the thought and then replacing it with a better, more productive truth. We have to choose to fill our minds with truth. It’s not just happy thoughts or nice affirmations. It’s much deeper than that.

So I’m going to go through six things that we can choose to fill our minds with. These are true beliefs and actions that we can do that help boost our mental health and help us escape the negative thought spiral.

So number one is to believe who you are, to believe the truth about who you are, that you are loved, that you have been chosen, that you have something valuable to offer, and that you have a creator that is going to equip you for every good work, who is going to help you discover who you were meant to be, and who is going to use you for good.

[00:14:39] Number two is to choose to be grateful. Gratitude rewires our brain. It opens the door to more relationships. It improves our physical health, our mental health, our empathy, our self-esteem, our sleep. There are all sorts of studies that show what the practice of gratitude can do for us. So we can choose to be grateful.

[00:15:05] I’ll link below in the show notes. The episode that I went through, my five-minute gratitude practice and how it transformed my life, the third step is to actively choose joy, to choose, to experience beauty, to choose, to see the best in others, to choose, to be present in the moment and embrace what we have. Right. Cynicism destroys our ability to fully engage with others and find joy. We have to choose to pursue the path of joy

[00:15:29]. The fourth thing we can do is to choose to stop living in fear. Fear is one of those things that we don’t really see unless we’re looking for it because it tends to mask itself. And it really takes some active looking to say, what’s going on?

[00:16:02] Why am I acting this way? It’s because I’m afraid of something. Yes. Bad things happen all the time. But 90% of what we worry about doesn’t actually happen. So we can choose to focus on what we’re afraid of, what might go wrong, or we can choose to trust God and just be present and embrace the moment we can choose to not let fear rule the day.

[00:16:35] Number five is that we can choose to pursue purpose. Fulfillment comes from contributing to something outside of ourselves. And our brains are actually hard wired to thrive when we’re serving others. It lights up a region of our brain. That’s part of our brain’s reward system. We were literally designed to focus on others, to serve others, into find fulfillment in that.

[00:17:04] And so we can choose to make that a part of our life. And then number six, we can choose to connect in community with other people. We were not designed to do life alone. We are better together and together we thrive and together we can have a greater impact and together impact the world for good. So we are not just focused on the negative thoughts.

[00:17:29] We are replacing these negative thoughts with reminding ourselves of the truth of who we are. We are choosing to be grateful. We are choosing to experience joy and beauty. We are choosing to not let fear rule the day. We are choosing to pursue purpose. And we are choosing to connect in community. I know that I went through a whole lot of information in a very short amount of time, but this is just kind of a big overview of mindset.

[00:18:03] And I don’t know about where you are today, but I know that so many of us face these negative thought loops. And if you will take the time to reflect on what is going on in your head. You will probably find some negative thought loops that you are stuck in, but the good news is you don’t have to stay there.

[00:18:22] You can choose these steps to begin breaking free into, start to fill your mind with the truth, with joy, with gratitude, with love, and with connection with. Now, one of the best things you can do, if you are trying to figure this out on your own is to choose to connect in community. And that’s why we have the milspouse mastermind Facebook community.

[00:18:48] It’s a community of military spouses who are seeking to get unstuck into craft lives with purposes to embrace what we have stay in. The most of every opportunity that we have, if you are not already a part of that, just go to milspousemastermind.com/community. We would love to see you inside, come introduce yourself.

[00:19:08] And, let’s just build each other up on this journey to finding purpose and making the most of the life we have today. I hope you have an amazing week living filled, fueled, and full of joy.