Shifting from ANT – Automatic Negative Thoughts

Greetings greetings greetings and welcome to Heal Talk Tuesdays with Liza.
It’s so good to be here with you, isn’t it?
Well, today we’re going to be talking about a few little things. One is negative
thoughts. The other one is I’m going to read a letter that I have received.
And I want to say thank you so much to all of you who message
me, email me, and also make remarks on my posts and stories.
And those of you who subscribe on my YouTube, I
truly appreciate it because that’s how we grow.
And, you know, by showing up every week for
you, it’s my honor. That’s how I look at it.
So after five and a half years of doing this, I think something is clicking in.
And that’s all I wanted to say. Healing comes from
the inside. That’s what heal within is all about.
So allow me to start with a beautiful message that
I got. And where’s the email? Where’s that message?
Okay, it says, “Hi, Liza. I love your stories for they
make me smile.” And that is what happened yesterday.
I’ve watched you in the water. Your laugh can be contagious.
Is that your friend? Okay. Are you always so happy?
Going through some tough times. How do I bring myself out of
negative thoughts and have fun just like you? Many thanks.
Hi. Hi. Hi, Art. And I want to say thank you for
watching my videos, even if it is afterwards.
And so the water, it is a good friend of mine.
She’s got a boyfriend. She’s already taken.
And we were in the ocean and it was in Sacramento celebrating a
friend’s birthday, which just celebrated his birthday two days ago.
You already know who it is. So happy birthday, Mr. Reid. And she
was in the water. I went in the water and it was cold for me.
So she’s pulling me to go in and I started laughing
and I giggled. And that is the one that you have.
And if you haven’t seen my story, watched the story,
turned a volume on so you can hear the giggle.
Giggle is from inside. We we laugh. We are with a joy when we giggle. It’s truly
from the inside out. I don’t think we can be sad and laugh at the same time.
So thank you for that. And I love laughing. I love having fun. And I like trying
things, even if it is for one time because the water, the ocean water was really cold.
So what am I supposed to do? Get upset? Gosh, no. I go in. I dab
into it. I didn’t have a swimming pool. I mean, swimming suit on.
So just enjoying the moment is for me, that’s called life. So how do you come out
of that funk or having some tough times
first of all, we all go through tough times.
It’s how we look at life and how we deal with it that it’s most important.
You know, there’s few things that you can do, which is number one, whatever it
is that you’re going through, just think of it. It’s like the waves in the ocean.
They come and they will go. They come to the shore
and they will receive. Sometimes it comes all the
way to the Sandy parts that you are walking and
just realize, just like water, it’s going to come.
Kind of go back and maybe you can just wash your feet with it.
So I love utilizing metaphors like the water, like the ocean,
either from coming from the top of your head, washing, cleansing
when you’re in the shower or even the ocean when I was in there.
There is a few things that we can do first. I like
to recall things that make me happy and bank it in.
I’m sure there’s parts of your life that you’ve had good times.
Bank those memories in and remember I did a post
on my LinkedIn and it’s about take three minutes
out of your daily life. That’s all you need is
three minutes of just breathe in, breathe out.
And you keep the best parts of your day or hour and dump the
rest. That’s it. Because negative thoughts are just like ants.
What we call automatic negative thoughts that
come and sometimes there are like a loop.
And these ants are those perky spontaneous negative
thoughts that cloud your judgment and affect your mood.
Maybe even trigger you with something more negative and creates
the stress, anxiety and affect your cognitive decision making.
So focusing on your breath, even if it is for three minutes,
what you are doing, what we call in our therapy world,
So you’re transferring your thoughts at that very moment from
the negative into nothing but your own breath at that moment.
So three minutes. It’s a long time. And if you can do
with 30 seconds and then build it up to one minute and
just do one minute in the morning at noon, later in
the afternoon, sitting in the car, sitting in traffic.
You’re in traffic. You’re not going anywhere.
So just concentrate on your breath work.
When you breathe, listen to the sound that comes out from your mouth, even
the sound when you breathe in. And let every other distraction be gone.
When my clients come in here and after the
initial conversation, I start with, let’s do this.
Let’s talk about the three wins of your week and the three challenges.
And we start with the wins because when you start with the wins
of your week, it’s like, but let me talk about the challenges.
Uh-uh, let’s start with the wins and you
have wins. Every single one of us have wins.
Wins of the hour, wins of the day, wins of the week. So three wins of the week.
And then you can talk about the three challenges of your week.
So when you start with something positive, the challenges
are not as strong as what you could start with.
So the wins gives you, wow, I have three wins of the week or today, or the hour.
The hour may not be as significant, but if you at the end of
the day, look at, huh, what is it that I accomplished today?
The three wins, first of all, I got out of bed. Yes.
Two, I’ve functioned and I had breakfast or my
coffee and I was able just to have that. Awesome.
You see celebrating your wins are so much more powerful than the ends, all those
automatic negative thoughts that come and go into a loop and replay because
challenging the negative thoughts is identifying and
questioning the validity of that. Is it really true?
Or is it something that you have been playing
in your mind over and over, over and over?
If the sound of my giggle is contagious, uh-uh, you
know, I was just going to say you can save that.
Because when I get going, I just thought of something
and I get going, even thinking of being in that
water, that freezing water that she was in because
to her that water is awesome and for me it’s not.
I can giggle for that moment when something good happens and I create something
like last week, I created something to care about for my Instagram and I did.
You should have seen me. I walked out and my office
manager, I have one other and I’m like, “Hey!”.
That squeaky noise that I make. She’s like, “Okay, what did you do? Good.”.
It’s, that can be contagious. So practice the positive thoughts
and recognize is that negative thing. Is it really true?
What happened? Is it true today? No, it’s something
from the past that you are going over and over and
then the more you think about that negativity, the
more negative thoughts you are giving energy to that.
We can talk about a lot of things that I’ve had awful things happen to me. Believe
me, let me share with you. In my life I’ve been in three major auto accidents.
I’ve had my sternum crack. I’ve had injuries
to my legs. The bottom of my feet due to one of
the drops that I used to do, I used to be a
survey on camera, but I used to do surveillance.
I used to be a private investigator and I used to be one of
those securities in a department store. This is long time ago.
But that was what I wanted to do. So I used to do that.
Because of that, I’ve had injuries at the bottom of my feet.
So I couldn’t dance. I wanted to do
professional dancing. I couldn’t because the
bottom of my feet I had those cracks. So
I’ve burned. I’ve cracked. I’ve broken bones.
And the why doesn’t matter anymore. My body heals because your body will
heal. The past, it’s not necessary because of time. It’s about your choices.
So your choices of what you can hold on to or what you can let go of is
yours. So if it is tough times, I’ve been through divorce. I’ve had tough
times. I’ve been at times that I didn’t have much to eat and bread, cheese
and my favorite grapes was something that I did for the longest time.
Your play was my launch. And to this day when I eat your play, it’s not
reminding me of my tough times. It’s reminding me, you know, this is delicious.
And if I want to have it, I can. Not because I have to. So practice
this, realizing that the wins, the tough times can become your wins.
Even comedians use tough times in their life to make fun of and make it laughable
because that’s all it stays in our life. So engaging in positive distractions.
Make your wins double your wins. If it was something that gave you the
off the energy, the smile, the giggles, going to do it again and again.
You know, for me, going to the off end, I love it. Just today I did another post on
Instagram. If you follow me on Instagram, please start following me if you aren’t.
I did a post yesterday I went to a the corner coffee place and I ordered coffee.
You know, the presentation of the coffee alone to have with a small mini scone.
It was like, this is called luxury. Sitting outside, I see the palm trees and I’m
sitting out there watching people, having a cup of coffee, the way they presented it.
I’m like, I gotta take a picture of this because this moment is my me time. So many
parents do time out to children because it’s
like, okay, you know, you need some time out.
We forget to do me time, which is time out for ourselves. And if you
do me time, awesome. Please share how you do me time for yourself.
Any one of you and I think each and every one
of you who share sent me messages and everything
as you see I am responding. So are engaging that positive distractions and gratitude.
Same way as I’m sitting there enjoying my cup of coffee. I
don’t need anyone to be with me for me to enjoy my time or
my alone time because I can be creative. I can journal. I
can write the things that I am grateful to or that moment.
Grateful for the presentation. Grateful for sitting in the sun, even though
it was warm. I was in the shade. Grateful for having a cup of coffee.
Frankly that I’m even able to afford it. I am able to drink it. I am able to enjoy it.
And I am able to say thank you to the beautiful
server. And she said you are so welcome.
Not many people say how wonderful it is. And that’s another thing. Appreciating the
people who serve you. It’s not only on that tip, but it’s also letting them know.
That’s small and justier goes a long ways. It does. Not
only for the servers, for the people who do your hair,
for the people who serve you anything in life and you
are being taken care of. I think appreciation is awesome.
So if you want this segment later this afternoon, I want you to
know that I do appreciate you for messaging me, for asking me.
And recognize that setting small little goals and being doing
even this mindfulness for three minutes a day. Pause even in
traffic light. Being grateful that you are driving that you are
healthy, that you are in a car that you had enough to put gas.
And it doesn’t matter what your car looks like from the
outside. If you enjoy and like your car, that’s all it matters.
It’s appreciating the smallest little thing. Because
if I look at it, even my glass, that’s just a glass of
water. Every time I pick it up, I enjoy it because it’s
got small little dots, even the colors make me happy.
So surround yourself with the things that bring you a smile or a
sense of warmth because first it’s you have a choice. Second, that
you are surrounding yourself with the things you like. And third,
forgive yourself for everything that you didn’t know from the past.
Stop wasting the guilt of the shame or any of that may be true to your present.
The past is like a moving watch it and it will be alive. You can pause.
You can delete. You can rewind. Or play it if you want to. Or why
play something that doesn’t give you the energy or the giggles.
The power to change is in your hands. You have the choice. And as
always, I want you to know one thing. You do matter. You matter as much
as anyone else today and right here. And because of that, I thank you
for your message. I thank you for who you are and no matter who it is.
That did you wrong in the past. It’s gone. So I hope
you can bank in more moments and you can watch my story.
Bank in the giggle and when you laugh, everything else is
secondary. I hope today’s message was beneficial to you as much
as it was for the person who sent me this message. Thank you
for being part of heal within and he’ll talk to you’s face.
Next week, I’m going to have an amazing guest. It’s going
to be a surprise. So I look forward to connecting with
you next week. Tune in next week and see you then. Until
next week, count your wins and let go of the challenges.
Breathe three. Take me time for yourself and do three minutes of just breathwork.
God bless you. I made a universal light. Surround you, always. Bye bye.