Challenging Negative Thought Spirals and Cultivating Emotional Wellness - Episode 156

Can you imagine short-circuiting those negative thought spirals that often stem from past trauma or anxiety? That's exactly what we're tackling in this enlightening episode of Todd Talks. I'm sharing powerful techniques and personal experiences about how I helped a friend overcome a massive migraine through a simple blessing, demonstrating the profound impact of faith and spirituality. We'll also explore an effective strategy involving writing, destruction, breathwork, and gratitude to challenge the harmful loops in your mind. This is not just a discussion, it's an open invitation for you to share your experiences and start a conversation about mental health.

Ever wondered how to regain control over your emotions for a happier and more purposeful life? Buckle up, because we're diving into the deep end of emotional wellness. We'll confront the lies our brain tells us and the dangers of over-medication while shedding light on techniques to foster emotional growth. I'll share insights on managing your emotions and living the life you design, not one dictated by your circumstances. Tune in, share your stories, and let's navigate this journey to emotional wellness together.

Transcript

Todd: 0:14

Welcome to Todd Talks, where I help you design your best life Not the life that I design for you, but the life that you desire. Well, in the words of Matthew McConaughey alright, alright, alright. Let's have a little fireside chat today, shall we? I've been thinking the last few days about what I wanted to talk about this week, and there were a couple experiences that happened last week that I was involved in that I think are real beneficial to talk about. They weren't actually my experiences, but I was involved because I was there. I had a hand in coaching and helping a couple of people through some trauma that popped up that they thought they had taken care of.

Todd: 1:16

In reality, you may have had trauma in the past that something - today, tomorrow may trigger it and you end up having an entire day of sadness, frustration, feeling like your mind won't stop rehearsing all the negative things that you thought you would overcome, because one of the facts of life is that, even though we grow, we change, we improve. There will be times when old traumas re-attack. So one of the experiences that happened was stress finally took its toll and Tiffany ended up with a massive, just massive migraine. Haven't had one in forever. One of the things that is so difficult about these trauma-induced or stress-induced events is if you don't let someone know that they're going on and you try to just deal with it yourself, it can last so much longer than it needs to. So that was Tiffany's event. Another friend of ours had something that someone said pop up and it caused just a spiral. I'm sure you've probably heard of similar instances, or you had it happen to you where somebody says something and it just starts a spiral of either stress or a spiral of thoughts that you can't seem to get rid of. So that's the challenge, that's the danger what do you do when old trauma, old things that you thought that you would overcome, start that negative spiral in your mind?

Todd: 3:42

When I was instructing students, I called it the death spiral, because they would spend so much time worried about something that they did two minutes ago that it compounded more and more problems and caused more and more issues, because they're stuck in that spiral in their mind. That's the thing. It's in your mind. So what can you do? Well, if you're religious, you can. . . One of the things that Tiffany and I believe in are blessings and prayer. So when I finally realized what was going on, I was able to give her a blessing and it stopped. I mean, it literally stopped within 15 minutes. She was fine, no headache, nothing. An amazingly spiritual experience. For others,

Todd: 4:56

there are other things that you can do if you're on your own. One of the things I suggest that worked for a friend is whenever you've got that death spiral in your mind, whenever you've got that negative loop that's just rehashing all the old hurt, it's been two to five minutes, no more. Max, really, I would say max two minutes. But you can give yourself a five minute pity party, right. Set a timer, take out a sheet of paper and just start writing Every negative thought that comes into your head.

Todd: 5:42

Write it all out, every hurtful thing that you're telling yourself. Write it down, because there's something magical that happens when you take pen to paper. It releases that thought from your head, it flows down your arm, into the pen, onto the paper and it gets it out of the cycle. Spend five minutes, write it all down and then there's the power of destruction. Take that paper and go, if you can burn it. If you're not in some place where you can burn it, then shred it, tear it up into tiny little bits, destroy, literally destroy those words destroy those thoughts and you would be surprised at how well this works.

Todd: 6:42

After you destroy those negative words, after you destroy the harmful thoughts that you've been having, you spend five to 15 minutes on a breathing exercise I've gone over it before to calm your mind, and then the best thing to do after that is write a gratitude journal. This is what to do when you get into a negative mind spiral because of something that triggered old trauma, anxiety, maybe even the panic attack. This is something that works. You write it out and there's magic in writing it. You destroy the writing and it gives you power over those negative thoughts. Then you do some breath work to calm your mind. You meditate is what the breath work is doing. It's allowing you to calm your mind and then you write out gratitude. There is magic in being grateful.

Todd: 8:15

When you are grateful for things, your brain is not able to process the negative. There are positive and negative ions, positive and negative charges that they can't be in the same place at the same time. They swap places. Once you get that negative out of your head, swap it for positive and write a gratitude journal. Start talking out loud about what you're grateful for. It will calm and help overcome that panic attack, that anxiety, that trauma, that negative death spiral mind cycle that you get into. It works. I share this because it was something that I saw happen last week. I saw the effect that this has on helping to overcome it.

Todd: 9:22

Part of the problem is, when you get in that panic attack or you get in that negative emotion or you get in that migraine, your brain is deceiving you. Your brain is already telling you lies and you have to short circuit those lies and get it out of that cycle. This is one way to do it. I feel you. I hear your pain. These things happen Sometimes. They come up when we least expect it, usually come up when we least want it. But there are things that can be done. I feel for you. I hear you. Let me know when you know if you've had experiences like this. I'm happy to share and to talk to you about them. I'm happy to help you learn positive ways to deal with them.

Todd: 10:41

You don't need to fear those things that have happened in the past. As John Candy said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I'm not very good, john, if Kennedy, I'm not very good impersonator period. But fear comes from the lies that our brain tells us. And what we went over today is some techniques, is a technique which works really well to short circuit those lies and help you to build and improve on your emotional pillar of wellness. Because without that emotional pillar of wellness being strengthened, you're missing a key ingredient.

Todd: 11:40

So many Americans especially all over the world, but especially Americans medicate themselves into not feeling, whether it's with alcohol, with drugs, with prescriptions. So many people have prescriptions for emotional problems because they sell them to you on commercials on TV, which is absolutely ridiculous. That people are over-medicated. And what do those medications do? They cut out that emotional pillar of wellness so that you're flat. You know we as humans are meant to have high highs and low lows and to live somewhere in between, and the joys and the sadness of life are part of the beauty of life. And when we medicate ourselves into stupors or we don't learn how to properly control our emotions, if we just live off of our emotions without controlling them, that's not good either. So whether you're drugging your emotions, whether you're only living off of your emotions and not controlling them, neither is a situation that you want to be in for a happy, well-rounded and purposeful life. So these are some techniques to help you gain control, and that's the key. You want to have control of your life. You want to be improving and growing in life and I hope that this, what I have taught you today, will be helpful in learning to control and build and improve your emotional pillar of wellness.

Todd: 13:52

So this has been Todd Talks. I hope you got what you want and learned something today. My goal is to help you improve your life every day. If you'd like a coach, I'm here and available for you. You can reach me at tandrewsen. monat@gmail. com. All the links are down below. If you like what you hear, leave a five-star review. It helps to get the podcast out there, get it widely received. The more people that we can help, the happier I am, because I'm trying to help as many people as I can live the life that they design and the life that they desire and, as always, have a blessed day. Thank you.