You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy, episode 26. This week is the
one where I'm going to talk all about learning to reframe your negative thoughts.
Let's dive in.
Hey there, you are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy. This is a podcast
for overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type A, stressed out,
anxious people who just want to calm down and feel better. I'm your host,
Certified Life Coach Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there and welcome back. So I've been thinking about sharing an important coaching
tool with everyone that I've talked about in the past on previous episodes,
but I don't think I've ever done a deep dive on it. And that is the power of
reframing your thoughts. And this is a really important tool for overthinkers because
as overthinkers, we obviously have a tendency to overthink everything and especially
what can go wrong. Now, anticipating multiple scenarios can be a very useful skill
in preparedness, but more often than not, it's kind of just a time suck and a
brain -drainer, and it's just exhausting. Well, we can't prevent our thoughts and no
one is asking you to ignore them. Learning to manage our thoughts, taming the ones
that don't serve us, those unproductive thoughts, those are the ones that we really
need to learn to wrangle. Because these Disruptive, negative, ruminating thoughts,
those are the ones that keep us up at night. They're the ones that keep us from
socializing. They're the ones that keep us from going after what we want. And
learning to reframe your thoughts to get out of that negative loop is so important.
Now, I will admit, this is one of the hardest skills I've had to learn, probably
right up there with meditation. It was both hard when I was learning this as a
client with a coach and as a coach as I teach clients. I see the struggle.
It's not that it's difficult or intellectually challenging. It just takes practice and
it takes patience and most of all, it takes self -compassion, which I've come to
learn seems to be the hardest thing for people to give themselves. So, let's talk
about the why it's so important to learn the art of reframing our thoughts. It's
important because a negative thought loop is time -consuming, and as I said earlier,
it's emotionally draining, but it also hurts our bodies, physiologically speaking,
because when we're in a negative thought loop that is worrying, ruminating, panicking,
feeling paralyzed, we end up releasing a lot of cortisol into our bodies and that
cortisol floods our body with inflammation. And inflammation can lead to all kinds of
problems from literally not feeling well to not being well to actually preventing us
from thinking clearly because yes, the brain swells from inflammation too. So ideally
this podcast is all about self -care, less stress, more joy, and feeling better.
And learning to reframe your negative thoughts is part of that wellness program too.
Sitting in fear, indecision, paralysis, rejection, all the feelings that are created
by negative thought loops, stop us from taking positive actions and getting positive
results. Okay, so I've answered the why. So then the next question is how?
How do I reframe my thoughts? Because people will say to me, once those negative
thoughts take hold, I can't find any other thoughts. I just can't pretend to be
happy or have happy thoughts when things aren't going well and I get it. So let me
clarify. It's not about going a hundred miles an hour in one direction with all
those negative thoughts spinning around in your head and Expecting you to just put
your car in reverse and drive at the same speed backwards It's about slowing down
The automobile it's about slowing down your brain or the thoughts and Coming to a
full and complete stop Then then reevaluating the direction and the speed you need
to be going. So by taking things slowly and examining our thoughts,
not ignoring them, but getting in touch with them and feeling them, yes,
the negative ones, then we test them. We ask the question,
are they true? Can they be proven as true? Thought Thoughtwork and reframing has
been done for decades by both psychologists and coaches and there are many ways to
approach Thoughtwork and learning to reframe their thoughts Now I use a version
taught to me by my coaches and I've talked about it before but basically We're
looking at all things That is all things that create your thoughts as Circumstances
and those circumstances are simply neutral. So let me give you an example. I had a
client who was in the interviewing process and sent a follow -up email to her
prospective employer and they did not respond. So her thoughts were,
well, I sent them an email and they didn't respond. They must have changed their
minds about me. They must have found somebody else. They must not like me.
I must not be good enough for this job. My last email must have been too pushy. I
must not have good energy. I'm not capable of finding a good job. I will never
find a good job. People like me never get a break. I don't know how to conduct a
good interview. I'm not good on email. I don't want to follow up with them again.
I don't want to bother them. I don't want to confirm their rejection of me." So
those are the thoughts that this client had about just not hearing back from their
perspective employer. And I asked her, "Well, what feelings were conjured up when you
have all of these negative thoughts?" And you can see how they sort of built onto
each other, right? Right to the point where they start out as just something simple,
I just sent them an email, they didn't respond. But the last thought was, I don't
want them to confirm their rejection of me. Like, in other words, she talked herself
out of even following up once again. So the feelings she said were rejected,
dejected, despair, embarrassed. And I asked her, okay, what action do you take from
those feelings of rejection and dejection and despair and embarrassment? And And she
said, well, I'm not gonna follow up again. And probably I'll show up to my next
interview with less confidence and I'll never learn anything from this and I'll
always wonder why I didn't get the job. And I said, okay, so what would your
result be if those are your actions, feelings and thoughts? And she said, well, I
won't get the job and I'll continue to feel insecure in the interview process. So
see how the negative thought loops just create or perpetuate negative feelings,
negative actions, and then a negative result. The exact result she didn't want, which
is to not get the job and then not feel secure in future interview processes. So
we ran this model again with the same circumstance, which is, of course, neutral,
the job interview follow -up. But I asked her to challenge herself on what different
thoughts she could think. So she started out by saying, well, I sent them an email
and they didn't respond. Okay. Well, that's true. That really happened. She really
did send them an email. They didn't respond. So she can have that thought because
it's true. And I said, well, what else could have happened to that email? And so
here's her thoughts. Well, they might be very busy. They might not have seen it.
It might have gone to a spam folder. I might be a good it for the job. I did my
best on the interview. I did write a great follow -up letter. And if they don't
think I'm right for the job, I will find another job. This is not the only job.
Someone will be lucky to have me. I do have good work ethic. I'm eager to learn.
Whether or not I get this job does not determine my value. I will learn something
from not getting this job. That last thought was like a key one. "I will learn
something from not getting this job." So I asked, "What feelings in your body does
that conjure up?" The thought, "I will learn something from not getting this job."
And she said, "I feel curious and I feel empowered." And so I said,
"Okay, so what action do you take from that place?" And she I'm going to follow up
on the job again and I'm going to detach from the outcome and I'm going to ask
for feedback one way or the other." And I said, "What's the likely result you get?"
And she said, "I either get the job or I learn something that I can do better for
the next one." So it turned out that in this case, her follow -up letter did go to
spam. Her prospective employer never saw it and didn't think she was particularly
interested in the job, all because of a computer error, all because it went to a
spam folder. And had she not followed up, she would never have known that.
And had she not followed up, she might not have gotten the job, which she did. So
sometimes stepping away from the fear, right? And that original fear was, well,
I don't want to bother them or I don't want to confirm that I didn't get the job.
All that does is perpetuate the negative thought loops and sitting in the energy
that maybe something else happened or maybe you didn't get the job. But being kind
of fearless and being detached from the outcome, good things happen because the worst
thing that could have happened was she didn't get the job, but maybe she gets the
feedback as to why and maybe she can take that on to the next interview. So this
is a great reframe. And one of the biggest problems we do in negative thinking and
not learning to reframe is the following. We assume, we assume we know the answer
before we know the answer. This is so dangerous because it can end up blocking us
from getting what we want by making that assumption. The other thing we do is we
catastrophize, that is, we imagine the worst outcome. Once again,
perpetuating that spiral into that negative thought loop, which paralyzes us and
prevents us from taking further action. The other thing we do is we personalize it.
That is, we take it to mean it's all about us. But usually it isn't. When we do
this, we give away our power to others and usually when people don't want to hire
us or befriend us or date us, it's usually about them. It's about their bias,
their fears, their limitations, their triggers. And it's not for you to investigate
that. It's not for you to figure out what's their problem. It's for you to trust
in yourself that you have something great to offer, because when you believe it,
others believe it too. So take the personalization out of it. Maybe it's not about
you. Maybe they didn't have the resources to hire you. Maybe they didn't have the
courage to date you. Maybe they were jealous or intimidated or threatened to befriend
you. You don't know what's going on for them. So by not personalizing it and just
recognizing that everybody has their lens in which they see the world and their
challenges and being compassionate for them, you get to free yourself up from always
thinking it's about you. So just to recap, don't assume, don't catastrophize and
don't personalize. So this is why we have to spend time with our thoughts.
It's why we use tools like the model, where we look and examine our thoughts,
we write them down, and we challenge them. And when we reframe those thoughts to
other possibilities, either more neutral or ideally more positive, we take our power
back. We change the feelings in our body with new and more constructive thoughts.
And from that place, we take new actions. And this is how we get a different
result. Now we can apply this tool to everything in our lives. The most important
lesson in using this tool or any thought tool is to remember that your thoughts
create your feelings and your thoughts create your results. So you can't be afraid
of your thoughts. You have to be willing to see them, feel them, examine them,
challenge them. And the art of reframing is one of the most powerful tools you can
do to turning around something in your life that you would like to change. Well,
this is kind of the essence of life coaching, learning to manage your thoughts and
feelings to feel better and get a better outcome in your life and like with
everything we talk about on this podcast this is a lifelong skill that takes
practice and patience but it will definitely help you manage your overthinking brain
and bring you much more calm and peace and joy into your life.
Alright guys that's what I have for you this week I Look forward to talking to you
next week. I hope you all have a good one and bye for now. If you wanna learn
more tips about managing your stress and how to manage your overthinking brain, just
go to my website and sign up for my weekly newsletter at jackiedecrinis.com. That's
J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S .com.
You can also follow me on Instagram at Jackie de Crinis. Thank you for listening to
this episode of Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you like what was offered in today's
episode, I would love you to leave a review and subscribe or follow wherever you
get your podcasts.
