Reprogramming Your Negative Thinking, Beliefs & Behaviors (Part 2)

In Part 1 I discussed the first step in the process of reprogramming your negative thinking, beliefs and behaviors - develop awareness. Before you can ever hope to make positive changes in your life, you need to know just what's going on with your thinking and how you're contributing to the situations you're struggling with. In this article I'm going to discuss the second step - deny, dispute and repudiate. Before we get started I'd just like to take a moment to let you know why I think this second step so important. In case you haven't realized it yet, negative thinking, beliefs and behaviors are poisonous to your ability to live a happy and successful life. I know you may be thinking "duh," but I really want you to become much more conscious of just what's truly going on "behind the scenes." You really are the producer, director, and actor in this production we call life. In the end it's up to you to take control and start directing the content of your mind, and this 3 step process I'm sharing with you is a powerful way for you to begin. So... Let's start by defining what I mean by deny, dispute, and repudiate. To deny means to refuse to accept as true or valid. To dispute means to engage in argument (in this case with yourself). And to repudiate means to disown as untrue, unauthorized, or unworthy of acceptance. Think of these as 3 potential defenses against your negative patterns of thinking, belief and behavior. Okay, so how do you put these "defenses" to use in your own life? If you continue to work on raising your level of awareness, as I described in Part 2, you'll eventually get to the place where you can consistently catch yourself indulging in negative thinking, beliefs and behaviors. This is the point where the 3 defenses come into play. You simply begin to deny, dispute, and repudiate the disempowering thought you're entertaining and most likely dwelling on. For example, let's suppose that one of the things you'd like to manifest in your life is a new job that you actually enjoy. As you begin to watch your thinking and raise your awareness, you notice that you continually say things to yourself like: - "Who am I kidding, I'm never going to be able to get out of this current job." - "What a pipedream." - "I might as well face the facts that I'm stuck in this crumby job for the rest of my life." - "I'm not smart enough (or good enough, or deserving enough, etc.) to get a more enjoyable job." - "It doesn't matter what I do, I never get what I want anyway." Since your thinking has a "cause and effect" relationship to what shows up in our life, you're never going to get a new job with this type of thought process! All you're likely to get are feelings of frustration, resentment, and unhappiness. This type of thinking is a great example of focusing on what you don't want. And if you continue entertaining these types of negative thoughts, your mind will actually go to work to make the very thing you don't want happen! It's a bizarre sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, when you're stuck in this type of thinking pattern it's time to deny, dispute and repudiate. You might instead consider saying to yourself something like: - "That's not true." - "Maybe that's been true in the past, but this time it's going to be different." - "I refuse to accept that thought anymore." - "Next!" You can also play around with breaking the pattern by visualizing in your mind one of the following: - Seeing yourself as a child going into a kitchen cabinet and pulling out household chemicals. Think of the chemicals as your thoughts. What would you say to the child? - Picturing a Stop Sign or Stop Light Okay, let's recap... The second step in the process of reprogramming your negative thinking, beliefs and behaviors is to learn to consistently deny, dispute and repudiate any negative thoughts you catch yourself entertaining. This does take some practice, so be patient and remember, at this stage you're simply trying to interrupt the negative thinking pattern that you've become aware of. In Part 3 I'll discuss what to do once you've begun to deny, dispute and repudiate your negative thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.