Being in the business of workplace conflict resolution and helping disconnected teams reconnect in new ways, I often encounter people who feel stuck in negative thinking. Blaming others for their circumstances is their dominant thinking pattern, usually followed by gathering as much evidence to support their victim thoughts, then sharing those pieces of evidence with others. Can you see how one’s negativity can grow to support their thoughts?
In my last Leadership Tips post, I gave ideas and examples to create your ideal career, first in your mind, then in reality. In this tip, I am going to share a technique that I use when negative thinking about a person or circumstance is taking over my thoughts.
Although I like to think that I am in control of thinking my thoughts, sometimes I notice that my thoughts are thinking me. I just don’t want to spend my days being consumed with negativity and feeling angry. When this happens, I do a Focus Wheel activity[1], where the negative thought gets written into a small circle in the middle of a blank piece of paper, then in a large circle around the smaller circle, twelve positive thoughts get written to shift my thinking (my vibration) about the negative thought.
Turn those negative thoughts into positive ones!
This is where the hard work is. You need to find thoughts that are true about the same situation; thoughts you feel good about, or that you feel a sense of relief in because they soothe you, or just make you feel better. If you stay in a more comforting thought for at least seventeen seconds, then allow another thought to follow it, and so on, for all twelve thoughts, you give impetus to a newly stated belief.
To start, draw your circle in the middle of your page, just big enough to contain a statement about the circumstance that has produced the negative emotion within you. Now that you know what you don’t want, you can clearly identify what you do want, and how you want to feel. Write twelve statements around the smaller circle in the areas where a clock would have numbers. For example, write a positive statement at the top where the number 12 would be, then to the right where the number 1 would be and so on going around the circle until you have completed the 12 thoughts. The process becomes easier as you move around the circle because the Law of Attraction is so powerful. When a thought is held for 17 seconds, another like it will join, and as those two thoughts come together, there’s combustion that occurs to make your thoughts even more powerful.
The result can be felt instantly. For me, I align with the 12 positive thoughts about the same circumstance, and the negativity ceases or is at least much less dominant in my thinking than the 12 positive thoughts. If or when negativity creeps in again about the same circumstance, I re-read my focus wheel of thoughts and presto! My negativity is replaced because I am aligning myself with the positive aspects of the circumstance, rather than the negative ones.
Try a focus wheel the next time you are feeling negative about something important, and you want to find a way to feel positive emotion instead, or after something just happened that is not to your liking and you want to change your point of attraction (or perception of it), or if you want to feel relief.
The cost of workplace stress and conflict touches each member of a team, even though some might be more bothered than others. Our mental health is crucial to our success and needs to be protected. Try a focus wheel to practice turning your negative thoughts into a better feeling, which will attract something better.
Wishing you peace and productivity, and if you can’t find your way, contact me for some help.
Penny
P.S. Speaking of help, my new book Sandbox Strategies for the New Workplace: Conflict Resolution from the Inside Out is available for pre-order, and has many fun ideas and tools to build your greatest castle (aka…life). CLICK HERE to order your copy today!
[1] Hicks, Ester and Gerry, Ask and It Is Given, Process #17, The Focus Wheel, p.257