How To Shift & Change A Negative Thought
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Video: How To Change A Negative Thought








We all have them! Negative thoughts can seem to ruin your life. I know that they really drive people crazy, particularly in the world of manifestation. That’s because we’ve all been told that we manifest from our thoughts.

Today, I wanted to share with you guys a little bit of knowledge. I’ll give you some tools to help you reframe and get out of the negative thought spiral. Because I know it can be so easy to go down there. It can be so easy to believe what your brain is telling you. You really have the choice to turn any thought around. And I’m going to share with you how to do that. If you want to learn, then be sure to keep watching.

Negative thoughts are just a fact of life. It just doesn’t matter how much work you do on yourself. Nor does it matter how good you become at manifesting. And it doesn’t matter how spiritual a person you think you are. Sooner or later, you are going to encounter a negative thought.

Those negative thoughts aren’t really that important, but they can really switch your mood around and make you feel out of control. Or maybe even make you feel like there’s something wrong with you. We tend to have all kinds of judgments about our negative thoughts. If you’re like me, we just think that we shouldn’t have them, which is something I need to talk about in this video as well.

So let’s dive into it. Let’s get into the world of negative thinking and why it’s not as big of a deal as you think it is. But I’m also going to give you some tools to help you flip up and switch your thinking around your negative thoughts. But first– story time.

A Personal Story About Emotions

When I was a little girl, I was a very sensitive little kid. I would cry a lot. And I remember one of the big messages I received from my parents was that I was too sensitive.

So what did that mean for me as a kid?

That meant for me that my emotions were bad or that I shouldn’t have them. It meant that if I have them, I probably shouldn’t express them. Because no one is interested in listening to me talk about them.

That was a very toxic way to grow up because I didn’t learn how to speak my mind. I didn’t learn how to talk about my emotions. I just learned that these were things that I shouldn’t be experiencing, which isn’t really a healthy way to grow up. I’m not blaming you, Mom and Dad.

It’s just that a lot of us grew up with this idea. Honestly, I still don’t even think that our parents understand how to deal with this stuff. I don’t think people have really understood how to deal with this stuff until pretty recently.

Emotions Drive Our Behaviors



Yet emotions are what drive us in life. We base all of our decisions, as logical as we think we are, we base most of our life decisions off of our emotions.

It seems crazy to me that we never learn this stuff in school. Unless you have a parent or someone close to you in your family that teaches you how to think about your emotions, express your emotions, manage your emotions. However, most of us didn’t get any emotional training. We just had to learn what was given to us. But like the example that I gave you, it just wasn’t always the healthiest.

I just want you to understand that if you have weird feelings about your negative emotions, you’re not alone. If you feel like they’re out of control, or if they’re shameful, if you’re judging yourself or even having them, these are all totally normal things. Negative emotions are, in fact, a part of the deal of being a human.

Everyone Deals With “Negativity

That’s the second thing I wanted to mention. We can’t get out of this life without having some negativity or, as the Abraham Hicks world would call it, contrast. If we were just light and happy and shiny all the time, there would be no point in incarnating in this human form. We came into this human space from a spiritual perspective to experience limitation and to experience hardships. If we wanted to just have connection and feel happy all the time, we would remain part of the universe in spiritual form. We would never come here in the first place.

We’re here to experience happiness and joy in human form. That’s also going contrast sometimes with the negative stuff: the sadness, all kinds of things. Just understand that you can’t get out of life without having negative emotions. I think people have this perfectionist fantasy like if something bad is happening to me or I’m experiencing a bad emotion, then I must be doing something wrong. I must be being punished or something.

But that is not the case at all.

Don’t Take It Personally

Please stop taking it so personally. We will all have these moments, and they are here for us for a reason. They’re here to give us contrast. They highlight the good stuff on the good side of the wheel. Just understand that. Don’t feel guilty about having them. Feeling guilt and shame about just experiencing these things, is not going to help you to get out of it. It’s just going to make the whole thing worse. So please don’t judge yourself like that.

Forget Perfection With Negative Emotions



The last thing I wanted to say about negative emotions (before we dive into how to manage them) is just to really understand that there is no perfection state. I know we all fall into this line of thinking like, “Once I graduate, once I get the job, once I get married, once I have the kids, once I retire, once I do this, once I do that, then nothing’s going to bother me anymore, and I’m going to feel great all the time, and I’m never going to feel another negative emotion ever again.”

And that is completely untrue! Unfortunately, negative emotions are here. Our problems are here. We are here to have the whole range of human emotion, not just the good part. Don’t fantasize yourself into thinking that someday this isn’t going to happen to you. Or that someday you’ll be beyond this. Because you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. You might be pushing away the happiness that you think you deserve. You’re not letting yourself be happy until all the negativity goes away. And that’s never going to happen.

Take a deep breath and just accept that this is what life is. We’ve all got something. But knowing that, you can now move forward with power and not feel punished by these things.

Now that we understand the purpose of negative emotions and how normal they are, let’s go into the next part of the video. This is understanding where they’re coming from and how we can start to take control over them.

Change Negative Thoughts



To start off, I want to give you guys the warning that: you might understand the stuff intellectually. But when it’s happening to you in real time, it might take you a moment to snap out of it. It might take you hours, days, or even weeks. But you can flip these things around. You can give yourself a new perspective. Now take this tool and this knowledge and give yourself a new perspective.

Giving yourself a new perspective is the best tool we have for transformation. It’s the best way that we can step into our happiest life. If we stay where we are or we keep believing the soundtrack of negativity that our brain feeds us, then nothing in our life is going to change. But if you’re serious about creating a new, happier life for yourself, then you really need to take this stuff to heart.

Let’s just explain now where negative feelings come from. Because this is another thing that we get stuck on. We think it’s the outside world is the thing that’s causing our problems. Then we want to fix our problems by controlling the outside world, or trying to control other people or situations, or make everything go the way we want it to. It’s a really exhausting way to go through life, and it doesn’t work. The only thing you have control over is you.

The tool I want to give you today is all about that. It’s about exerting your control over yourself instead of going into the perfectionist, controlling person that a lot of people can turn into. That’s because they’re trying so hard to hold on to their own happiness.

Where Do Negative Thoughts Come From?



With that being said, let’s understand where negative emotions come from. This is where all emotions come from, by the way. It’s not just negative ones. But really they all come from us. They are generated by us. Nothing in the outside world makes us feel a certain way. I know that you grew up, your parents told you: ‘Don’t hurt somebody else’s feelings.” Or ‘That person hurt your feelings.” We’re given this story that other people can hurt us in this way. But the only person that can really hurt you is you. And when I walk through this, hopefully, you’ll be able to understand what that really means.

What happens in the real world, if something happens outside of you and then you have a thought about it. We all process everything. Then we turn it into a thought or a story. Then we have a feeling about that thought. And then that’s the negative feeling.

This all happens so fast, we don’t even notice it. We go from external events to story to feeling instantly. That’s one thing you need to know if you are trying to get a handle on. If you’re trying to manage your emotions, just understand they may have seemingly come out of nowhere. But really, if you slow things down, question what your brain is telling you. You can see that there is a process. There’s a process that happened. This thing that happened outside of you might not be something that you wanted. It might not be something that you anticipated.


Your Negative Thoughts Are Resonating



However, that thing really has nothing to do with you. If someone comes up and calls you fat, that has nothing to do with you. That literally has nothing to do with you. I’m going with this one because this is the one big insult women love to hurl at each other, especially when we’re younger, calling somebody fat is, like, the worst thing, right? If someone comes up to you and calls you fat, and you’re, like, “Oh my god, I must look awful. I shouldn’t have worn these jeans today.” Or “The sweater’s shrunk in the wash.” Or whatever. The story isn’t in your mind. Then you’re like “Oh my god, why am I here? Like, I should go home. I need to go change, and I feel terrible, and I want to cry.” And all this stuff. So you’re waiting.

Now this person said this word, which isn’t a nice word, of course. And now you’re feeling bad and crying, maybe. But what’s really happening is that you’ve created a story about this. On some level, you are agreeing with what this person told you.

It’s Your Negative Thoughts That Hurt You



I like to flip this and to show you how it is your story and your agreement and your thoughts that are hurting you. For example: say I’m walking down the street with my dark hair, and someone came up to me, the same situation, some random person came up to me and was like, “Really ugly purple hair you have.” What would I think?

I would be like, ‘Huh, that’s funny. I don’t have purple hair,’ and I would carry on with my day and not even worry for one little second about it. That’s because I know I don’t have purple hair. It literally doesn’t matter someone tells me my purple hair is ugly because I know I don’t have purple hair. Someone could come up and tell me my red shoes are ugly, and I’m not wearing red shoes. So who cares? It doesn’t matter.

But when someone tells you you’re fat, and a part of your brain thinks you’re fat, then you get upset. You start crying. Then, you know some part of you is agreeing with that. That is where the real pain comes from. It’s not from that person saying the words. In reality, it’s from you judging yourself. The pain is coming from inside you. The call is coming from inside the house. And I know, again, it’s hard to wrap your head around this at first. But I hope these examples can help to illustrate what is really happening. Let’s just talk about that again.

The Internal Story Creates Your Feelings

It is external events, internal story, feeling.

The cool thing that happens here is that you understand that the only thing that you don’t have control of is the external event. But you have control over the thoughts and the words and the story. That means you also have control over the feelings.


Change A Negative Thought: Example

Say you are at work. You’ve had the same job for three years. Then one day your whole team gets laid off. You know, the company is not doing well. They didn’t anticipate something happening, and they had to lay off your whole team.

You can take that in and be like, “Well, I should have worked harder. Obviously I’m a terrible worker. Or I never should have worked here. I’ve just wasted my life.” You can have all of those feelings, and all the stories that’s gonna make you feel like crap. And you are going to feel disempowered. You are going to feel like there was nothing you can do. You’re going to feel like you’re not a good employee, etc.

You’re The One In Control

But you are the one creating this story. Now you could take the same story. Say someone else on your team may have taken the same story and is like: “Wow, cool. I haven’t felt excited to come to work in three months. The team was really tense all the time because we knew the company was ending, and and now I can take my severance pay and go live in Costa Rica for two months. Then I can come back and start my own business.” They have a completely different attitude for the exact same situation that you do.

That’s another key – how you know if two people can see the same situation in two different lights. This is how we all look at everything. We all have a different perspective. And we all have a different point of view, meaning that there is no one subjective reality. All the meaning that we’ve projected on the situation has come from us, meaning we can take responsibility for it and change it.

Now, you can see the difference. I hope that those very different examples can help you understand. It can be hard, I know, I get it. I’ve been the one being called names, I’ve been the one being laid off and feeling like shit. Like I’ve had it happen, like I’ve been the one being dumped, like all the things. You take it personally, and in the moment, it can be hard.


Change A Negative Thought: Slow Down To See Your Story



But trust me! If you can start to slow down and if you can start to understand what your brain is telling you, then also understand that what your brain is telling you isn’t always in your best interest. In fact, a lot of the time, what your brain tells you is completely not in your best interest. So his is just an opportunity for you guys to remember your power.

So, my point – one of the points I have for having this YouTube channel is to remind you guys that you are a conscious creator. You are consciously creating the life that you want to live in. So, when the narrative isn’t what you want it to be, why don’t you consciously create it and exercise your conscious creation power and change it into a narrative that feels good, feels empowering, and lets you feel happy moving forward? It’s not gonna change the event. You’re still gonna have someone person said something rude to you on the street, or you’re still gonna be laid off or so whatever. That stuff’s still gonna have happened. We can’t control that stuff, but you can control what it means for you. You can control how it makes you feel, and that is one of the most empowering things in the world.

Change A Negative Thought: Decide On How You Want To Feel



Just to recap, just slow down and listen to your brain. Listen to the story that has been seemingly put there but was actually written by you. Then understand what that is. That can give you the perspective you need to begin to choose something else.

This stuff may not happen overnight. In fact, it takes practice. It takes a lot of shifting sometimes over some of these big situations. But you really have the power to shift anything. You really have the power to change and take control of the narrative of every aspect of your life.

Final Notes



With all that being said, I really hope that you guys enjoy this video. I hope it has given you some perspective on negative emotions, which is a big topic for me, obviously. But if you liked it, if you got something out of it, do me a favor and give it a like. If you know someone that could use this message, pass this along to them. And if you want to learn more about me, come on over to the site. I have a free magical AF audio training for you guys to download over there if you sign up for updates. I’d love to have you as part of my newsletter group as well. Come join me over there and hang out.



Jenn Stevens The Aligned Life


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