CBT Therapy to Clear Your Mind of Negative Thoughts

Most of us have negative thoughts, but sometimes negative thoughts can start filling your mind to the point you feel overwhelmed and distressed. Constant negative thinking can lead to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

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“It’s not going to work”, “I’m not good enough”, “They don’t like me.”

Most of us have had negative thoughts like these at some point in our life. But sometimes negative thoughts can start filling our minds, and we feel overwhelmed and distressed. As you can imagine, constant negative thinking can lead to problems like worry, rumination, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. It can also have an impact on physical health and our ability to function well in environments such as home, work and social settings.

“I want to clear my mind from negative thoughts – what can I do?”

The three CBT Therapy approaches described below may be able to help.

1. CBT to Change Negative Thoughts

With this CBT-based approach, you change the negative thought into a more realistic one using these three steps:

Step 1 – Pause and look for unhelpful thinking styles in your negative thoughts.

Step 2 – See if you can gently challenge or undermine the negative thought.

Step 3 – Come up with more realistic alternative thoughts.

See some examples below.

Step 1. Pause and look for unhelpful thinking styles in your negative thoughts

We often use unhelpful thinking patterns without realising it.

Step 2. See if you can gently challenge or undermine the negative thought

For the previous examples, you could ask yourself questions like:

Negative Thought

Fortune-telling

“It’s not going to work”

Challenge Thought

What objective evidence do I have that it will or won’t work? Is the situation now the same as it was previously? Can I predict the future so accurately?

Negative Thought

Mind-reading

“They don’t like me”

Challenge Thought

Again, what objective evidence do I have that they do or don’t like me? Do I have the ability to know what another person is thinking? Is there another possible explanation for their behaviour?

Negative Thought

Over-generalising

“They always treat me that way”

Challenge Thought

If I thought of all possible outcomes, what would a score of 100/100 look like, and given that, what rating would I give this situation?

Negative Thought

Catastrophising

“It’s a total disaster!”

Challenge Thought

Is it realistic to say that they would treat me this way 10,000 times out of 10,000? Or is it fairer to say “nearly always”

Negative Thought

Labelling

“I’m a failure”

Challenge Thought

How would I specifically define “failure”?

Often the alternative thought is a bit wordier compared to the “headline” of our negative thinking. But it’s more realistic, and thinking this thought is more likely to result in us feeling less distressed and could allow us to engage in more productive behaviours.

For example, instead of thinking, “I’m useless”, by going through the process above, you could think something like, “Well, it’s not so much that I’m useless, but rather, I didn’t meet all of the criteria that I set for that task – but on reflection, those criteria were quite high (I wouldn’t expect others to meet the same criteria), and besides, there are other areas in my life in which I am performing well enough.”

2. CBT to challenge and replace negative thoughts with more positive ones

This second CBT Therapy approach is based on the rationale that if your mind is thinking of something else, it’s hard to also think of that negative thought. Here are some ideas:

Keep a list of mental exercises to try

For example:

– Count backwards from 100 in multiples of three

– For each letter of the alphabet, think of an animal that starts with that letter

– Recite a poem

– Think of a pleasant place you have been to or would love to go to, and imagine being there e.g., walking through a rainforest, being at an enjoyable social event, lying on the beach. Try imagine what the experience would be like using your senses i.e., sight, touch, taste, sound, or smell.

Do something activating, whether it is social, challenging, or fun

For example:

– Call someone you know

– Meet someone for a coffee

– Do a sudoku

– Watch a movie

– Exercise.

Deliberately think of positive things in your life

One way that could help is to write down things you are grateful for e.g., that a specific person behaved in a particular way to you; for something you saw; for an opportunity you had, etc. on separate small pieces of paper and put them into a jar. When negative thoughts come up, take out a piece of paper or two and read them.

3. CBT to change the relationship with your negative thoughts

To learn about the third CBT-based approach, imagine you are sitting somewhere, and a person comes up to you and says, “You’re a loser.” Hopefully, you will question the validity of that statement. However, if the thought “You’re a loser” is your thought to yourself, it’s easier to believe it without question.

A reason we don’t want to have negative thoughts like “You’re a loser” is because we tend to assume they are true. We get “hooked” by the idea, we then don’t want the thought, and we try to get rid of it.

You may have heard of the following thought experiment: for the next 30 seconds, whatever you do, don’t think of pink elephants. It’s virtually impossible not to! This highlights the first problem that this approach addresses: when we try to control thoughts (e.g., make them go away, or deliberately not think about them) it can often seem to make them even more of a problem.

The second problem is that at times our minds can tend to think negatively, and this could be for several reasons. For example, when we were growing up, if our caregivers tended to be negative or critical, then we may have internalised that way of thinking. Another reason could be that we had some painful experiences at times in our lives and our minds either came to certain negative conclusions about ourselves, others, or the world.

So, we can end up with a double whammy: our minds can have a negative bias and attempts to make the negative thoughts go away seem to make them stronger. A way that can help to address this is to think of your mind as an over-active and contrary secretary, frequently bringing you all sorts of negative information. In the same way that you can’t make your mind go away, you can’t make this secretary go away. But what you can do is choose whether to respond to each piece of information, without getting hooked. You can thank the secretary (your mind) and decide whether to act on the information or not.

So, this approach to “How can I clear my mind of negative thoughts?” is something like: don’t try to clear your mind! Thoughts are just thoughts; emotions are only emotions; let them come and let them go. Choose whether to take actions that are focused on controlling negativity or actions that are taking you in valued directions.

CBT Therapy can help identify, challenge and change negative patterns of behaviour and thinking. You could think of the approaches above as tools to keep in your toolbox to be pulled out and tried when required. Perhaps the most crucial step is to be willing to practice stepping back and using these tools, which may help you experience a rich and meaningful life more fully.