A Practical Guide: How to Stop Negative Thoughts and Emotions from Ruining Your Life

Do you want to find out how to stop negative thoughts and emotions from taking over your everyday life? Here’s how.

Negative emotions —frustration, sadness, anger, fear, etc. can ruin our life if we don’t know how to manage them. We can make more room for positive emotions when negative emotions are managed in a healthy and sustainable way.

I used to come home from work feeling depleted, irritated and angry when I had to work with a colleague who I just didn’t get along with. I would remember her facial expressions, words and behaviour, and also think about how other colleagues may be judging me. A ton of other thoughts kept emerging in my head, almost all negative, which only created a downward spiral.

You see, every day, we face events that lead to thoughts, which in turn create our emotions. In this post, we are going to learn practical tools that we can use to control negative thoughts and emotions.

This post is all about how to stop negative thoughts and emotions from ruining your life.

The “Events-Thoughts-Emotions” Chain

Can you relate to the experience I mentioned earlier –the negative pattern which created a downward spiral? It’s not always easy to change/stop this vicious cycle, but we have the power to influence it.

Maybe you have tried to forget about the event, push it away or distract yourself from it by zoning out in front of a screen, drinking alcohol or taking drugs, thinking that’s how to stop negative thoughts and emotions. Maybe you are becoming aware that these are neither healthy nor effective ways to manage your negative emotions in the long run. And, that’s probably why you are reading this right now.

Notice the “Events-Thoughts-Emotions” chain. If you can recognise how external events trigger your thoughts, and those thoughts generate emotions, you are already one step closer to managing your emotions.

What Are You Thinking?

Noting Your Thoughts

According to researchers at Queen’s University, we have more than 6,000 thoughts each day. Let’s start from there.

Once a day, take 5 minutes and write down your thoughts. The important thing is not to judge or blame yourself or your thoughts. Be curious. Even if you find it difficult to do it at first, it should get easier every time.

You can become more aware of your thoughts by doing this exercise and reduce the tendency to be caught up in your thoughts, or carried away by them.

What Are You Experiencing?

Noting Your Experiences

This is the next level after the Nothing Your Thoughts exercise above. Once you are comfortable with writing down what you are thinking, move on to describing your thoughts, emotions, observations, and physical sensations. In other words, observe any experience that may arise.

Again, be curious and don’t judge. Try to be an objective observer to your experiences.

You can remove a layer of unnecessary suffering by observing your experiences without judging or analysing. 

This is because we tend to make the entire situation difficult for ourselves when we are being overly reactive to negative experiences. In the process of learning how to stop negative thoughts and emotions from ruining our life, this Noting Your Experience exercise can bring clarity and calmness to situations.

Compassion

Be Kind to Yourself

Most of us tend to be hard on ourselves. Even people who don’t look like they are, they often beat themselves up somewhere deep inside. So, remember to be kind, especially when you’re dealing with negative emotions. This is self-compassion, and it’s something we must practise.

Look at your situation as if it’s your best friend’s situation. What kind of words would you use to talk to that person, would you choose your words carefully? Wouldn’t you cheer them up if they are feeling down? Would you celebrate their wins if they are succeeding?

Treat yourself as if you would treat your best friend. You can show compassion to yourself by forgiving the mistakes, accepting the flaws, treating yourself to something you love, or recognising & celebrating the wins! 

If you enjoy writing, you can journal, write positive affirmations about yourself or write a letter to yourself. All of this needs to be written with kindness. As we practise self-compassion, we begin to see negative emotions as temporary experiences.

Be Kind to Others

Remember to fill up your own cup first, so you can fill the cup of others.

When you are kind to yourself, you can become kind to others. You must fill up your cup before you fill the cup of others.

Let me share a little story about Ella, her self-compassion practice, and how it impacted her marriage.

Not long after Ella got married to Jake, she was promoted, and her work became extremely stressful. She became irritable and short-tempered, and one day, she snapped at Jake over a small misunderstanding. 

Up to this moment, the only way she knew how to stop negative thoughts and emotions, and to navigate situations like this was to either avoid him out of shame or apologise without really understanding her own actions. She realised that something needed to change. 

This was when Ella learned about the importance of self-compassion and decided to take a new approach. She spent time journaling about her feelings, realising she was struggling with work stress and self-doubt. She forgave herself for her actions, understanding it was a sign of her own stress, and treated herself with kindness instead of blame and judgement.

With this clarity, Ella reached out to Jake, not only to apologise but to honestly share what she’d been going through. Jake’s response was positive. He appreciated Ella’s vulnerability, and they ended up having a deep conversation about how to support each other better during tough times. 

Once we learn to be kind to ourselves, we become kind to others as well. It’s a beautiful thing, and it feels good. When our cup is full and overflowing, we can extend compassion to others.
Can you imagine how this will affect the relationships with your long-term partner and people in your life?

Wrap-up

“Emotion is energy… We learn from the physicists that energy can never be destroyed, it can only be transformed. Our feelings, our painful feelings are an energy. And if we could destroy them by avoiding them, or pretending they weren’t there, or numbing ourselves from them, or watching a lot of Netflix, or leaving relationship after relationship, we would all have destroyed our pain by now.” Dr. Julia DiGangi

We may not know how to stop negative thoughts and emotions, but we now know how to observe and note them without judgement. By doing so, we can bring more clarity and calmness into our life.

So, take the first step, just 5 minutes each day. Start the Noting Your Thoughts exercise today. And, whenever you are ready, challenge yourself with the Noting Your Experience exercise for 10 minutes.

Whatever emotions come up, remember to be very kind to yourself. I tell myself gently, “It’s okay, May.” when I catch myself blaming or judging.

If you also like to try mindfulness exercises and learn how to let go of negative thoughts and emotions, there are super simple mindfulness exercises anyone can do. I guide you through 3 easy mindfulness exercises in another post.

Remember, you are worthy of making your own choices. This includes taking control of your thoughts emotions and actions.

This post was all about how to stop negative thoughts and emotions from ruining your life.