How to break a negative thought loop

How to break a negative thought loopHow to break a negative thought loopSometimes a small thing disturbs me. Somebody might say something that rubs me the wrong way. I might get a minor injury that prfests me from working out. Something at work might go wrong.Do you know that feeling? Before you know it, youre questioning everything about yur life, career, health, or relationship.You do everything to resist the situation. You try to fix it. You feel compelled to address the disturbance. But heres the thing, you dont control the disturbance.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraThat frustrates you even more. Now, youre getting sucked in by negative thoughts. At this point, something that started as a small annoyance became a big life problem.You feel like quitting your job or relationship. You feel like everything works against you. And that nothing is worth it.Thats a negative thought loop. Ive experienced that very often. And I bet you have too. Why do we experience this?Its about control. We think life should be a certain way. In other words, we want everything to happen the way we want. And if it doesnt, we flip out. Negative thought loops often start when something comes to an end. Have you noticed that?Filling the voidLook,everythingin life comes to an end. Your job, business, career, relationships, friendships, and so forth. And every time something comes to an end in our life, its like a little death. Something dies and leaves a void inside us.This event by itself is neither good or bad.Its the nature of life. We can turn endings into bad things by trying to replace the thing that left our life. For example, when a relationship ends, a lot of people try to fill the void by taking on more work.Ive done that as well. All the time and energy you spent on the relationship becomes free when it ends. And because you dont want to feel alone, you try to fill the void by working more. You want to set higher goals and do a better job.But thats only you escaping reality. The truth is that endings suck. But its also a natural part of life. We should not resist change. Some things, we cant replace in life.If you lose your job, you cant simply replace working by spending more time with your spouse. And yet, thats exactly what many of us do. We either lose our job or fail at work and we think, Now I can at least spend more time with my family.Youre trying to fill the void.But that takes too much energy.And when some minor thing disturbs you, it causes your foundation to shake. Why? Because your foundation was weak all this time.Everything has its placeYou cant fill a relationship void with work or exercise. You cant fill a health void with alcohol or drugs. You cant fill a work void with spirituality.You need to catch yourself when youre trying to escape reality. And thats one of the hardest things in life. Too often, people live their entire life in denial. We cant let that happen. We need to look inward.I can tell you from personal experience thats very hard. I always struggle when something in my life ends. My first response is always to find a replacement. But Ive learned that everything has its place.You cant replace your friends with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You cant replace exercise with working more. You need to allocate the right amount of time and energy to all aspects of life.Thousands of years of evolution has shown us that human beings havesimilar needs. We need safety, support, relationships, joy, perspective, and something useful to do with our time. Thats true for every person.When you recognize that simple fact about life, it forces you to take a helicopter view. You need to elevate your perspective on your life. When youre stuck in a negative thought cycle, you have zero perspective. Youre consumed by your thoughts.You need to force yourself to look at life in general. Not just your current situation. Look at lifes nature- its about motion.Letting goMichael A. Singer, an entrepreneur who once ran a large software company, and the author ofThe Untethered Soul, summarized the concept of letting go wellIts pretty black-and-white. You either let go or you dont.He speaks from experience. Singer was prosecuted by the Department of Justice for securities fraud. During that time, he risked losing it all.Eventually, all charges against him were dropped and his name was cleared, but he let go of it way before that. In fact, he wrote The Untethered Soulwhilehe was being prosecuted.If a person whos facing the risk of losing it all can let go, you and I also can. People often come up with all kinds of excuses. They say its easier said than done and that letting go is not easy.No one said its easy. We all have our own challenges and obstacles. Sometimes people try to convince others that they arereallyhaving a hard time. Honestly, no one cares. You let go foryourself.So if youre stuck inside a negative thought loop, know that you only have two optionsYou continue and let it destroy youYou let go and move onThe choice is yours. And yes, its that simple. Decide between those two options and see for yourself.This article originally appeared on Darius Foroux.