Changing our thoughts is not as simple as looking in the mirror and repeating a positive affirmation over and over again. We try to go from “everything in my life is awful, my body is disgusting, and I am worthless” to “I am gorgeous and my life is abundant”. It’s too big of a jump, and our brains can’t digest the switch. You wouldn’t be having all these negative thoughts and emotions if you already believed that positive of a thought. This is where many stop trying to change their thoughts. Going straight from a super negative thought to an extremely positive thought does not usually work because thought changing is a skill that needs to be practiced.If you’ve been practicing making that shift for years, then yes you may be able to do that. But if you have no practice with this skill, it may seem dumb and not useful.
Finding in the in between of polar opposites is a skill that we are all consistently practicing. Much like black and white thinking has taught us to find a shade of gray, when changing our thoughts we have to find a middle ground. This is where thought neutralization comes into play. Neutral lies somewhere in between positive and negative.
A thought can be a little bit positive, or maybe even a little bit less negative. If your original thought is a -10 and your new thought is a -8, that’s still a neutral thought. There is no mathematical equation to measure this with. It is a step between where you are and where you would like to be in your thinking.
If your thought is “My body is disgusting,” you are not ready to believe a positive thought like, “My stomach is beautiful and my body is gorgeous.” It’s too far. You don’t believe it. But you can believe something very neutral and more factual like, “This is a human body. I have a human stomach. Many stomachs in the world look like this.” Those are neutral thoughts. They are not horribly negative, they’re not amazingly positive. They’re often factual or often relate to other people having the same thought. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to think about other people, like lots of people have a stomach that looks like this.
Finding what works for you is a personally creative process. There’s a bunch of different techniques that you can use. Generally, you’re trying to acknowledge that your negative thought could be wrong, that there could be a positive outcome, or bring yourself back to just the circumstances (ie: this is just a stomach), as opposed to all of your negative catastrophizing.
The one important thing is the thought needs to be something you believe. Believing something does not mean thinking a thought and waiting to see if your brain has any objections. Your brain will most often have objections, especially when you first start to practice changing your thoughts. The way to know if you believe a thought is to check in with your body where your emotions can be felt. If you think a horrible thought which feels terrible and then you feel, well, terrible. Then shift your thoughts and notice if your body feels any different. Does it feel a little lighter? Can you inhale a little easier? Do you feel a tiny bit of relief? Again, you may be going from 100 on the anxiety scale to 90, but it’s the practice of doing it that matters. We’re not necessarily even going for feeling extremely calm, but any little bit will help.
This may feel very uncomfortable at first. Your brain has a habit of thinking a thought over and over again. When you think of something new, it’s like your brain has to take a new path. While we build new paths in our brain, the old paths do not disappear immediately. The more we take the new path, the more overgrown and eventually forgotten the old path gets.
Your brain likes to be efficient. It wants to save energy, and it wants to be right. So it would just rather think this old thought, even though it feels terrible. Your brain doesn’t care that it feels terrible to you. It’s not interested. It’s your job to think that new thought over and over again every time your brain goes haywire, or even preemptively (as much as you can). You have to create that new pattern.
You’ve practiced believing negative thoughts all this time. Why not practice a neutral thought?
