I see lots of memes online about how we need to change our thoughts from negative to positive, to have our desired life.

They usually talk about how our thoughts impact our actions, which impacts our lives and how the same repetitive, negative thoughts can often keep us stuck.

What these memes are missing though is that our thoughts reflect our state.

So if our thoughts are fearful or angry or sad, its because we have the energy of these emotions in our bodies, and that to shift them, we need to feel them.

I’ll give you an example. Last year I fell out with some people that were in my close circle

My thoughts during this period were full of angry conversations and fights. 

Every time I’d go on a walk or have time to myself, my brain was consumed by this energy. I could barely get any other thoughts in, except these fantasy conversations and re-running scenarios in my mind.

It felt like a whirlwind was going off in my brain. A vortex, that pulled all of my attention.

I tried repeating mantras, affirmations, shifting my attention to other thoughts and meditation to restore my thoughts to calm, all with barely a dent.

What I learned over this time, by working with my SE (somatic experiencing) practitioner and from doing my own research is that these thoughts were my mind’s way of protecting me from feeling the anger that was active in my body.

I hadn’t realised it before this point, but I didn’t actually know how to be with the sensation of anger, so when it would arise in my body I would check out and go into thinking instead, as actually feeling anger, felt terrifying.

My SE practitioner, taught me how to feel anger, how to be with its flow and to honour when it’s too much for me to be with. She often still guides me in this in our 1 on 1 sessions together, as my capacity to be with anger expands. 

And whilst I’ve used the example of anger in this post, I’ve had the same experience with fear and grief. I often check out when they come up too.

I now know when my thoughts are stuck in a negative loop, that I need to feel what’s underneath. And once that’s complete (which can take a while) my mind to returns to calm, equilibrium.

So if you’re finding that your thoughts are often fearful or negative or angry, a solid guess of mine is that you have some feelings that need to be felt.

Which honestly, will require your time and devotion to heal, but is deeply rewarding in the long term.