“So now faith, hope and love remain” 1 Corinthians 13:13
I am an overthinker. I read a book called Soundtracks where the author makes the case that someone telling an overthinker to “just stop overthinking” is about as good as telling a dog not to chase squirrels. It doesn’t work. Instead, if you have a strong fear of man like me, you just dwell on the fact that you instinctually believe that overthinking is bad, and you aren’t able to overcome lots of thoughts. The gift in an overthinker is the amount of ideas that come to him. The catch is, how to overcome negative thinking, and instead focus on the good ideas or the positive thoughts.
Maybe you aren’t an overthinker. Maybe it’s easier for you to not think deeply. Regardless, overcoming negative thinking needs a crash course as I think the modern dogma tries to add too many things to the “formula”.
We are Holistic Beings
The truth is, we are holistic beings with spiritual, emotional, and mental capacities. The root of a cause in our psyche, such as negative thoughts, needs to be pruned. I use the word pruned because it evokes intentionality rather than simply the word “removed”. It requires care and attention just like when you are trimming the hedges of a garden.
Learning to Look Outside Yourself
I think the #1 thing that a person can do to overcome negative thinking is to try to look outside themselves.
First, look to God.
It’s easy to be like the Israelites, grumbling in the desert, after God just restored them from their captivity, opened the waters to help them across the Red Sea, and then is taking them to the promised land. What a better question would be is “what is God doing?”
Asking “what is God doing?” takes your perspective off of the momentary desire to grumble and helps you “level up” your thinking, to take your thinking off of your worries and despair.
Second, look to others.
It’s easy to get caught up in your little world. But we need to be surrounded by people who love us and care for us. It’s not good for us to isolate ourselves. Even if we are introverts and we recharge by being alone, we don’t want to use isolation as a crutch.
Our attempt to look to others can simply be working harder to listen to others when they speak. Look others in the eyes and empathize with them more.
It can be helping someone less fortunate, or simply letting someone go first. Look around you and find someone that you can befriend.
Difficulties in Overcoming Negative Thinking
It’s easy to say “here’s how to overcome negative thinking” but it’s harder to do in practice because if you are a negative thinker, there might be trauma associated to it. Or, you could be emotionally unaware, which requires learning how to become emotionally and then over time becoming better at regulating your emotions. You might need an emotional, Biblically based coach to help you become better at this.
Ultimately, there are some habits that can help you improve your thinking, which can improve your tendency to have negative thoughts.
Engage In Faith, Hope, and Love Activities
Find a Community of Believers
It’s easy to dog faith communities but there is something to a community that is vulnerable with each other and pursuing shared goals and outcomes. The gospel of Jesus Christ is filled with hope and can reorient your heart to thinking about the reality that we are spiritual beings first. And for those who know the Father, they can have peace in knowing their future is secure.
In the cognitive behavioral therapy world, it is a known thing that finding a reason to be hopeful is a key ingredient in overcoming negative thinking. To me, finding peace in your eternal destiny and being reminded of your hope in Jesus is important.
Read the Bible to Know God
Reading the Bible is one thing. But reading the Bible front to back to get to know God’s story is another thing. If you want to know God you need to know the historical story of God and how He has moved since the beginning of time.
It’s common for a believer to try to read the word in bite sized pieces, to find something to apply to their life, for that specific day. But this is not the way God intended it to be. I like what Jen Wilkin says, we read the word to “make deposits, not withdrawals”. We make a bunch of deposits so that when we really need it, we have a bunch of deposits on which we can make a withdrawal. Make a bunch of deposits into the word of God by reading and learning to love God’s story.
Prayer and Listening to God
The mindfulness community would say “meditation”. Just keep in mind that the modern psychologists are stealing from the historical church, who created the concept. And that concept is to pray and to learn to be at peace in silence and solitude, where you can glean it.
For someone who has grown in this for years, desiring more clear headedness and an empty brain, this is where the “magic happens”. When you are constantly consuming, you can’t possibly have a clear mind, ready to listen.
But the fact is that prayer is obvious. You want to pray to God. But the less obvious part of this is the relationship part where God responds to your prayers. God can do it friend. You don’t just want to learn to talk to God, you want to learn how to listen to God also.
Gratitude Journaling
I call this my “3 most thankful” where I write out three things that I’m thankful for and then I also write God’s response next to each one. This gets you into the habit every morning of turning your attention to gratitude to God.
There is something to say for “gratitude” alone, but I think we need more than just gratitude journaling. We need an identity change, so we can learn to have confidence and clarity in what God is doing. So, not just gratitude for gratitude’s sake. We need more heart change and transformation, to become the person God intends for us to be.
And so, for that, we want to add “God’s response” to our 3 most thankful. We want to learn to hear from God in our thankfulness. This is a key component to not just growing in our positive thinking, but seeing lasting change and becoming the truest version of ourselves.