Tag: empowerment

How to Reframe Your Thoughts with Gratitude

What We Think Matters

The quality and content of our thoughts impacts us on many levels. The way we think has an impact on our mental, emotional, and physical health. It can be easy to develop habits of negative thinking and self-talk. Like any habit we can change how we think and develop new thought patterns. Take a minute to reflect on these questions:

  • Do your thought patterns tend to be more positive or negative?
  • When thinking negatively how does it impact your day? How does it impact your actions and reactions?
  • Think of three things you are grateful for. How does it make you feel to practice gratitude? How does it change your perspective in this moment?

Positive thoughts and thoughts of gratitude can have many benefits to us. According the the Mayo Clinic these are just some of the benefits positive thoughts can have (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2022):

  1. Longer life span
  2. Lower rates of depression
  3. Decreased stress, distress, and pain
  4. Better overall well-being and quality of life
  5. Better coping skills and increased resilience

Paying Attention To Your Thoughts

It takes practice to pay attention to and change our thought patterns. Some of the ways we think are so ingrained in us that they come to mind subconsciously. These are called automatic thoughts and for a lot of us they tend to be negative (Hoshaw, 2020). The first step to changing these thoughts is to notice them. There are a couple of ways to do this including:

  • Write down all your thoughts in a journal throughout the day.
  • Simply pause and paying attention to your thoughts throughout the day.

Once you notice your thoughts you can then make efforts to change how you think.

Reframing Thoughts With Gratitude

You can change your thoughts by intentionally correcting negative thought patterns with positive thoughts. One way to do this is to reframe our thoughts with gratitude. Replacing our negative thoughts with grateful thoughts allows us to be present in the good things around us.

In the image below is an example of how you can do this.

This takes practice! You can practice by journaling your negative thought patterns and then writing a replacement thought of gratitude. Even simply confronting negative thoughts in our mind with grateful thoughts can make a huge impact to our thought life.

The more attention we put into having thoughts of gratitude, the easier it becomes to think grateful or positive thoughts naturally. To practice this now you can write out in your journal five negative thoughts you’ve had today and five reframed thoughts of gratitude.

References

Hoshaw, C. (2020). “Are You Kind to Yourself? Tracking Your Thoughts Might Surprise You” https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/are-you-kind-to-yourself-tracking-your-thoughts-might-surprise-you

Mayo Clinic Staff (2022). “Stress Management” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

Importance of Identifying Our Emotions

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your emotions?

Have you ever felt like sharing your feelings is hard?

Me too!! It can be so hard to express ourselves when we are overwhelmed by our emotions! There are many reasons why this is true. One reason could be that we have not identified our emotions within ourselves. This may sound like a very basic idea, but naming and identifying our emotions helps us to know how to manage them.

Naming our emotions empowers us!! When we name them are are able to understand our needs, process how we are feeling, and identify what led to us having these feelings. This can be huge to knowing ourselves and being able to communicate our needs with others. Below is a list of emotions from Berkeley Wellness Institute:

Which one of these emotions speaks to you most today?

Reference

https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/list-of-emotions.html

Journal Prompt: Empowerment

It’s great to think and reflect on what makes us feel empowered. When we do this regularly our brain will more likely bring these things to mind when we are feeling down or going through a hard time.

Journal Prompt

What does empowerment mean to you?

What makes you feel empowered?

How does feeling empowered change your day or week?

Journal Prompt: Strength

One of my favorite types of journal prompts are ones that involve telling my story. Today’s promote is all about retelling a story when you felt strong. There are many circumstances in life that can make us feel less then or not strong enough. But today we are going to remember a time when we felt as strong as we actually are.

Journal Prompt

Think of a time when you felt strong. Strength can be in whatever way you define it. Write out what happened and what made you feel strong.

How did you look at yourself differently after this experience?

How do you still carry this same strength in your life today?

Daily Resilience: Affirmations

Affirmations & Resilience

Think about a time when someone said something kind or affirming to you. Or a time when you received a compliment that meant a lot to you.

How did you feel in these circumstances?

How did it impact your day or week?

Did you do anything differently after that experience?

Positive words can have a big impact, but unfortunately negative words can often weigh on us and impact us a lot more. I’ve heard people say it takes ten positive words to make up for one negative.

Take a moment to consider this concept in regards to your thought life. How often do you think negative words about yourself in comparison to positive words?

Negative thoughts or self-talk can be a barrier to meeting our goals, building resilience, thriving, and feeling mentally healthy. One of the ways we can work to change patterns of negative thoughts is by practicing affirmations. This isn’t a magic fix, but when we stick with it can make a big difference.

Practicing affirmations can also be a great way to build resilience! Capturing our thoughts and focusing them in a positive direction helps us to regulate internal stress and feel the effects of relaxation and joy. What is an area that you find yourself thinking negatively about? How can you transform that thought into an affirmation? An example might be if you think negatively about body and your looks. Then you might practice an affirmation like this:

My body is able, strong, and resilient. My body is beautiful and worthy of being taken care of. My body is unique and special. My body was created for a purpose and will accomplish all that it is meant to.

What a difference it would make if we transformed all of our negative thoughts into empowering ones!!