Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

What do we do with our negative thoughts?

You may have heard this expression,

ants,

ANTS, automatic negative thoughts. They happen. They pop up in regular moments, moments when we're

scared, moments where we don't expect it. We can have thoughts around, can I trust this person,

am I healthy? Is there a problem? Am I going to be okay? They arise. It is part of the human experience.

And so, what do we do with them? I think a lot of conventional wisdom or some pretty frankly

outdated bad self-help advice is to fight your negative thoughts. It's almost to give them attention,

which is the opposite of what I recommend, because even resistance, even pushing something

away is a form of attention. What if a negative thought, you know, it arises within you

and you don't fight it, you don't judge it, you don't analyze it, you just let it be.

Non-resistance. In fact, I know that if a thought arises that makes me feel bad, the thought needs to be questioned.

This doesn't mean fought with, argued against. It means be curious about what's coming up.

Because if there is a thought that's making you experience negative emotion, what that means is,

on some other plane, dare I say, your highest self, your highest self doesn't

agree with that thought, which is why it feels bad. What if instead we assumed the opposite

of the negative thought? Give our attention to the opposite. So, for example, if your thought is, you know,

I'll never succeed. The opposite thought is, I always succeed. I am successful. Or if your thought is,

you know, I'm so tired, I always feel so fatigued. Your thought is, I feel good, I feel healthy,

I feel strong. Which feels more true to you as you practice this?

I think the thing that can be sneaky or tricky about negative thoughts is that they feel

...