How to Stop Negative Thoughts

(And Why Your Mind Keeps Going Back There)

If you’ve been searching for how to stop negative thoughts, you’re not alone. Most people don’t struggle because they’re doing something wrong, they struggle because their mind keeps pulling them back into familiar thinking patterns, even when those thoughts are painful, exhausting, or clearly unhelpful.

Negative thoughts aren’t a personal failure or a lack of willpower. This is especially true during major life transitions, when identity shifts and familiar roles fall away, such as the empty nest phase, which I explore more deeply in Why You Feel Lost After Your Kids Leave. Negative thoughts are often the mind’s default setting, shaped by past experiences, emotional learning, and a subconscious need for familiarity and safety. That’s why simply trying to “think positive” rarely works, and why so many people feel stuck in the same mental loops despite knowing better.

Let’s talk about it honestly.

Why Changing Your Thoughts Isn’t as Simple as “Thinking Positive”

There’s a lot of advice out there that suggests if you just think positively enough, everything will shift.

But that approach often leaves people feeling frustrated, broken, or ashamed when it doesn’t work.

The truth is, thoughts don’t exist in isolation. They’re connected to:

• Your nervous system

• Your emotional history

• Your subconscious patterns

• Past experiences and trauma

• What your body has learned feels safe

Trying to change thoughts without understanding this is like trying to steer a car while ignoring the engine.

The Role of the Subconscious Mind

Here’s something that’s important to understand.

Your subconscious mind does not care if you’re happy, fulfilled, or expanding.

It cares about one thing only: familiarity.

The subconscious is designed to keep you doing what you’ve always done, because what’s familiar feels safe, even if it’s uncomfortable, limiting, or painful. This is often why people feel trapped in repeating emotional cycles, something I unpack further in Breaking Old Patterns: Recognise Triggers & Rewrite Emotional History.

This is why:

• You know better, but still repeat old patterns

• You gain clarity, then self-sabotage

• You decide to change, then suddenly feel stuck, tired, or distracted

Your subconscious isn’t broken. It’s doing its job.

Change represents uncertainty. And uncertainty feels unsafe to a system that learned to survive by sticking with what it knows.

So yes, your subconscious will try to pull you back into old thinking when it gets the chance.

This is why reminders matter. And why compassion matters even more.

Step One: Awareness Changes Everything

The biggest shift doesn’t start with stopping thoughts.

It starts with noticing them.

Awareness is the moment you realise:
“Ah, this again.”
“I’m looping.”
“I’ve gone down this track before.”

When you can notice a thought without becoming it, you’ve already changed the relationship.

At this point, you don’t need to fix anything.

You simply acknowledge:

• This is a thought

• It’s familiar

• And I don’t have to follow it

That alone is powerful.

Step Two: Acknowledge and Decide

Once you’re aware, the next step is acknowledgment.

Not fighting. Not suppressing. Not judging.

Just acknowledging:
“I can see what’s happening.”
“I know this pattern.”
“I don’t want to keep feeding this.”

Then comes a quiet but important decision.

You decide:
“I’m open to changing the direction of this.”

If you can do these first two steps, awareness and decision, you are already about three-quarters of the way there.

Everything else is choice.

Step Three: Choosing How to Shift

This is where people often get stuck, because they assume there’s one correct technique.

There isn’t.

What works depends on:

• What the thoughts are about

• How emotionally charged they are

• How long they’ve been there

• Whether trauma is involved

Here are some grounded, real-world ways to change the direction of your thoughts.

Change Your Surroundings

This is one of the most underestimated tools.

Thoughts thrive in stillness when the body is stuck.

Changing your environment can interrupt a thought loop immediately.

You might:

• Move to another room

• Go outside

• Stand up

• Change the lighting

• Step away from a screen

This isn’t avoidance. It’s regulation.

Your nervous system often needs a physical cue before the mind can follow.

Redirect Your Mind to a Different Topic

Sometimes, the most helpful thing is not analysing the thought at all.

You can gently redirect your attention to something neutral or absorbing:

• A practical task

• Music

• A podcast

• Reading

• Cooking

• Walking

This isn’t pretending the thought doesn’t exist.
It’s choosing not to rehearse it.

Thoughts weaken when they aren’t fed.

Clear and Release Work (Including Cord Cutting)

When thoughts feel emotionally charged, repetitive, or linked to another person, I often use clearing and release processes.

This may include:

• Visualising energetic cords and releasing them

• Clear-and-delete processes

• Intentionally returning what doesn’t belong to you

This is particularly helpful when the thoughts don’t feel like they’re fully yours.

You’re not cutting love or connection.
You’re releasing attachment, obligation, or emotional entanglement.

This kind of work is best done gently, and often with guidance, especially when trauma is involved.

Breathing, Breathwork, and Meditation

Sometimes the mind isn’t the problem.

The nervous system is.

When the body is dysregulated, the mind will look for reasons why.

Breathing helps signal safety.

Even a few slow breaths can change the internal state enough for thoughts to settle.

Meditation doesn’t need to be long or perfect.
It simply needs to create space.

Journalling to Find the Lesson

Journalling is excellent when there’s something to understand.

It allows you to:

• Get thoughts out of your head

• See patterns on paper

• Identify what’s underneath the loop

Ask questions like:

• What am I actually worried about?

• What does this thought want me to notice?

• What feels unsafe right now?

Often, once the lesson is seen, the thought loosens its grip.

If journalling feels supportive for you, I’ve shared practical prompts and guidance in From Confusion to Clarity: Unlock the Power of Journaling.

Trauma Changes the Equation

This is important.

If there is trauma involved, especially long-standing or developmental trauma, thoughts are not just thoughts.

They’re protective mechanisms. When thoughts are triggered by past experiences, healing doesn’t require reliving trauma to move forward. I write more about this approach in The Gift of Triggers: How to Heal Without Reliving Trauma.

In these cases:

• Forcing change doesn’t work

• Positive thinking doesn’t land

• The body needs safety first

This is where trauma-informed support matters.

You don’t override trauma.
You work with it.

Why Self-Sabotage Isn’t a Personal Failure

When people understand the subconscious, self-sabotage starts to make sense.

If your system learned that:

• Being small kept you safe

• Not asking prevented rejection

• Staying quiet avoided conflict

Then growth will feel threatening. For many women, these patterns are deeply shaped by long-term relational experiences, including emotional abuse, which I explore in depth in Emotional Abuse and Divorce: Why Women Stay and How They Heal.

The subconscious will:

• Distract you

• Create doubt

• Pull you back into old thinking

Not because you’re weak.
But because your system is protecting you.

This is why reminders are essential.

Gentle reminders that:

• You’re safe now

• You’re allowed to choose differently

• The old pattern is familiar, not true

Changing Thoughts Is a Practice, Not a One-Off

Thoughts don’t change once and stay changed forever.

They change through repetition, compassion, and awareness.

Each time you:

• Notice sooner

• Respond differently

• Choose another path

You’re rewiring your system.

Progress isn’t measured by never having the thought again.

It’s measured by:

• How quickly you catch it

• How kindly you respond

• How much power it holds

The Most Important Thing to Remember

Here’s the part that almost no one talks about, but it changes everything.

Noticing your thoughts is already a win.

Most people are completely carried along by their thoughts without ever realising what’s happening. They believe every thought, follow it automatically, and only notice once they’re already overwhelmed, anxious, or stuck.

The moment you catch a negative thought and think, “Oh, here it is again,” something important has already shifted.

That’s step one: awareness.
Step two is acknowledgement, recognising what’s happening without judging yourself for it.

These two steps are not small. They are the foundation of all change. And they deserve to be celebrated, not dismissed.

Without awareness and acknowledgement, nothing changes, no matter how much you want it to. With them, you’ve already interrupted the pattern.

Change doesn’t start when the thought disappears.
It starts when you notice it sooner, respond more kindly, and choose not to be pulled along automatically.

That’s how real change happens, quietly, consistently, and from the inside out.

A Gentle Invitation

You don’t need to stop negative thoughts completely for change to occur. Thoughts will return, patterns will repeat, and that’s part of being human.

What matters is noticing them sooner, acknowledging them without judgement, and choosing how you respond. Each time you catch a thought and don’t automatically follow it, you’re already changing the pattern. That moment of awareness is not a failure, it’s progress. And over time, those small moments add up to real, lasting change.

A Moment for Reflection

Before you move on, take a moment to pause and reflect:

• What’s one negative thought you tend to believe without questioning?

• How would it feel to simply notice it next time, rather than fight it?

• What changes when you see awareness itself as progress?

There’s no need to answer perfectly. Even noticing what comes up begins the shift.

An Invitation to Go Deeper

If you’re finding that negative thoughts are deeply ingrained, emotionally charged, or tied to long-standing patterns, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It often means your system learned these patterns for a reason.

Sometimes what’s needed isn’t more effort or discipline, but deeper understanding and safe, supportive guidance.

If you feel drawn to explore this work further, whether through counselling, root-cause work, or pattern awareness, you’re welcome to reach out or join the conversations inside The Change Makers, where this work is approached with honesty, depth, and care.

Change happens when awareness is met with safety.