Can talking about negative thoughts be harmful?

I’m frequently asked…

Is it harmful to speak about negative thoughts? Does that give them more power?

The short answer would be that if you are speaking or thinking negative thoughts you are definitely giving them power. Speaking them will add power to the negative thoughts that you have. The energy increases even more if you have a conversation with another person, who continues to add fuel to the fire so to speak.

You add even more energy to your negative thinking if you act upon those thoughts. It was once believed that if you punched a punching bag or a pillow to release your anger that it would help to reduce that anger, yet in a 1999 study by Brad Bushman, Roy Baumeister, and Angela Stack published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology they found that the opposite was true and that the person who punched a punching bag was even more aggressive later.

Just like the study above, by adding our voice into the negative thinking we are adding more energy to the negativity. From what I’ve observed over the years thinking all by itself can also be powerful in adding more fuel as we add more to our internal story line and even more importantly we start justifying our negative thinking in our mind. That type of thinking creates a hypnotic trance within ourselves, making it even more real and causing us to build up the energy.

There are times though that speaking your negative thoughts is not only appropriate but can be helpful. Those times are when a person is seeking support and help and shares their negative thoughts with a person who works with them to refocus their energy and do the healing work necessary to move beyond the negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Having gone to psychotherapy in my younger years, I found that the psychologist that just listened and asked questions, caused me to feel more justified and my negative attitude got worse, yet the therapist that actually taught me tools to clear my negative thinking, such as hypnosis, helped me switch to more positive thinking over time. So, it’s important to be selective as to whom you are working with and that they are providing you with tools and techniques to actually grow and change your life.

When we are willing to recognize the negative thoughts, as negative thoughts, rather than justifying them, we have taken the first step toward change and begin then to reduce the amount of energy being put toward that negativity.

For example, you are preparing to pay your bills and immediately start thinking about whether you have enough money in your account to pay them. As you begin paying them you start grumbling and complaining about all of the bills, how much they are and whether you have enough money to pay them. You’ve now added extra energy to the process and by the time you are done paying the bills your energy is down even though you had more than enough money to pay the bills. Over time you end up without enough money to pay the bills, because you energy is being focused on the lack of money. By simply paying the bills, in a vibration of knowing that you have enough money to pay them, you always do, sometimes without having any clue as to how you ended up having the money you needed to pay them. Celebrating the things you have that you purchased with those funds also raises that energetic vibration.

These same principles can be applied to any negative thinking. For example when I was beat up and stabbed, I initially was angry and moved my energy into the victim mentality. What happened then was I became even more of a victim and attracted another abusive relationship. Once I recognized the pattern and the negative thinking that I was expanding every day and started looking for things to be grateful for, such as the beauty in nature, the fact that I was alive, the awesome, loving and supportive friends I had in my life, my life changed.

Life is a journey and we can chose what we focus on… So, what do you prefer to focus your attention on? Share you comments and thoughts below.