How To Stop Negative Thinking: Tools For Moms Who Overthink

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome to the podcast. Let’s talk about negative thinking, shall we, that is what I have for you today. I’ve been coaching a lot on this and it’s been on my mind and I think there’s always more work to be done and we’ll talk about why. But first I just want to check in with you and see how it’s going. I cannot believe I’m about to have my third baby. What they say is true, it goes faster with each pregnancy, doesn’t mean it’s any less hard.

In fact, I think this was probably my hardest pregnancy, which, was such a learning experience for me. It’s never lost on me how different every pregnancy and baby and person and experience is. So with this one, I am looking forward to the baby being on the other side. Sweet baby Jack. He will be here before I know it, less than a month. I hope you’re doing well. I hope, this season is is going as planned for you and you’re gearing up for the holidays and you’re feeling good. And I thought today’s episode would be helpful because I’ve been hearing so much about negative thoughts lately and I think that just like relationships, the holidays are such a container for our normal issues, but with a magnifying glass. So if you struggle with overthinking, it probably is exacerbated during the holidays. Or if you find yourself having lots of negative thoughts, it’s probably even worse this time of year.

So let’s talk about it. I had a question that specifically came in about this from one of our community members. Just a reminder, you can always email into me at the [email protected] and let me know what you would like to hear. You can also leave a message on the podcast hotline 8 3 3 3, ask nat 8 3 3 3 2 7 5 6 2 8. It’s been so awesome for me to be able to create more tailored content with you and in that way really like answer your questions and feel almost like it’s a two way street, even though I am definitely the one talking mostly here. But otherwise I just love this format and so keep the questions coming. Um, you can always reply to an email as well. If you’re on my email list over at momonpurpose.com/subscribe, send me a DM all the ways I’m here for you my friends. So today’s message was via email. Someone replied to one of our emails and said this:

Hi Natalie. I’m struggling with constantly overthinking everything, especially when it comes to being a good mom. I often find myself stuck in negative thoughts like, I’m not doing enough. Or What if I’m messing up my kids? It’s exhausting and I don’t know how to stop spiraling into these thoughts. Do you have any advice on how to stop this negative thinking and calm my mind?

First, I just want to say I get it. I’ve been there. I still manage my mind around negative thoughts, but I also want to provide some relief for you to know that while it is the default way of operating and you can use all of the tools I’m going to teach you on this podcast and that we have in the membership available to you, it will significantly reduce the impact of negative thinking and overthinking in your life. There’s no way that you can completely remove negative thoughts, nor would you want to. But it’s sort of like kind of, you know, having a little fly in the room and you’re sort of just like swatting the fly away and then it goes away, it’s, it’s not very bothersome, it’s not a big deal versus, on default when you are kind of where this person sounds like they are, it can be a lot harder, a lot more draining, exhausting. And that’s the part that you’re going to get a lot of relief from that I can offer you. So let’s start off with just talking about what is overthinking. I came up with my own definition because I specifically like to think about overthinking with three specific parts. So I have a very short definition for you that I think will be really helpful and then I want to talk with you about each part of it because then you’ll be able to catch yourself in overthinking patterns, which is how you change it.

So overthinking is repeatedly thinking negative thoughts and believing them. Part one is the repetition. Part two is that they’re negative thoughts and part three is believing that they’re true. Because, just think about it for a second. If you didn’t have any of these three parts, you wouldn’t be talking about having a problem with overthinking. So if there wasn’t the repetition, if it was just a random negative thought, it would just not be a problem for you. Most likely if the repetition and the believing that it was true was with respect to positive thoughts, also again would not be a problem. No one comes to me and says, Natalie, oh my gosh, can you help me with my positive thinking? It’s just too overwhelming. Not once ever has someone come to me with that. It’s always negative thoughts. So overthinking isn’t that you’re actually thinking too much, it’s that you are so attached to the negative thoughts that you’re having and believing them that they feel so overwhelming and exhausting in your life. So there has to be that negativity part in those thoughts as well. And part three is that you believe they are true because if you just had some negative thoughts that were repeatedly coming up, but you knew what I’m going to teach you here, which means that you would understand they’re just thoughts, they’re not actually the thoughts that you have to believe, then you would just let go of them and think better feeling thoughts.

So this is really just important to see because I think getting control over negative thinking and overthinking comes from understanding what it even is. So the way that you start the process of stopping negative thinking and overthinking is by understanding what it is. So let me repeat the definition to you. Overthinking is repeatedly thinking negative thoughts and believing them. There’s the repetition, the negative thoughts and believing that they’re true. I love this definition so much write it down. Make a note of it and that way you can become aware of when you are overthinking. Now I want to give you some examples of negative thoughts because you know, I don’t know about you, but I find that I think, okay, well I don’t think that negatively that often. But then when I was coming up with examples of negative thoughts, I realized, oh actually I do have some negative thoughts that turn into overthinking because they’re repeated and I believe them so I want to clean them up.

And the way that you know, if you are experiencing negative thoughts and overthinking is first you’ll be able to identify with some of these examples, but also check in with how you’re feeling. If you feel a lot of negative emotion, it’s ’cause you are thinking negative thoughts. So the first thing you should do if you’re feeling bad is look at your thoughts. And we don’t do this right, we want to change your circumstances, but your circumstances don’t create your feelings the way that you’re thinking. Your mindset creates your feelings. So if you’re feeling a lot of emotions like overwhelm, frustration, anger, busyness, feeling worried, self-doubt, any negative emotion that you wouldn’t want to feel given the circumstances. So for example, if you have a pet that passes away, you’re going to want to feel some sadness. I’m not talking about that here. I’m talking about I’m worried about my kids because they got a bad grade in school or I can’t stop overthinking about, you know, not keeping up with home and work and kids and all the things.

That type of negative thinking repeatedly and believing in those repeated negative thoughts will create the negative emotions like overwhelm, frustration, busyness, worry, those feelings that aren’t helpful. So check in with yourself. Are you mainly feeling negative emotions that given the circumstances of your life you wouldn’t really want to be feeling? And if that’s true, then you want to take a look at your thoughts. That’s the very first thing you should do is take a look at your thoughts. Now I want to give you some examples of what I’m even talking about with respect to negative thinking. Number one, I’m not doing enough for my kids. Number two, what if I’m failing as a mom? Number three, I should be more patient. Number four, she’s a way better mom than me. Number five, I’m constantly behind and I’m never getting enough done. Number six, I’m always making mistakes.

Number seven, I should be able to handle this so much better. Number eight, I’m not good at balancing work and family. Number nine, I can’t do anything right? Number 10, they should appreciate me more. Number 11, my marriage isn’t going that well. Number 12, I should be more present with my kids. Number 13, I need to get more done in order to rest. Number 14, other moms seem to have it all together. What is wrong with me? Number 15, I should have this all figured out by now. Alright, my friends, after reading that list, I don’t know about you, but I feel worse. Isn’t that crazy? The power of the thoughts that we focus on truly and instantly changes the way that we feel. So I’m going to shake it off because I did that for illustrative purposes and I hope it was helpful because I think sometimes we have this idea that negative thinking needs to be like so negative.

But what is the test for? Is it a negative thought? Is just, does it make you feel negatively? And the truth is, most of the time on default we’re thinking these kind of low grade negative thoughts that aren’t helpful at all. Yes, there is a space for feeling negative emotion on purpose when you are going through a loss. When your pet dies , that is the time when you genuinely want to feel sadness, when you genuinely want to feel negative emotion. And I just want to reiterate that because that’s really the difference between toxic positivity and finding silver linings and kind of all of those buzzwords that we hear about. It’s really just taking a step back and asking yourself, okay, given the circumstances, do I want to feel how I’m feeling? And if I have a pet die, I definitely want to feel loss and heartbreak and sadness.

So if you take a step back and you look at the circumstances, do you want to feel how you’re feeling? If the answer is no, which for most of my clients, the answer is no. We’re talking about the ordinary busyness of life. We’re talking about navigating challenges with our kids at school. We’re talking about, conflict in our marriages. We’re talking about kind of the modern motherhood season of life where you want to feel positive emotions, not necessarily always happy and joyful, but maybe confidence and, hope and connection and strength and um, there’s a whole variety of positive emotions that you might want to feel that would serve you much better than overwhelm, frustration, guilt, all of those things. So that’s what we’re really talking about here. Now let’s dive in to why we overthink, overthinking negative thoughts and believing them is a protective mechanism of the human brain that is wired for survival.

I say this all the time, your brain is wired for survival. It’s not wired for happiness. And that was really great when we had to worry about how we were going to get food and how we were going to get water and making sure that the lions and tigers and bears did not get us. That is not useful in modern motherhood. And yet we still have this primitive survival based brain. But the beautiful part of our evolution is that we also have this prefrontal cortex where we can more thoughtfully and intentionally override the primitive brain, not so we ever get rid of it, but so that we live more consciously and intentionally, which means very practically feeling more positive, happier, joyful, all just by managing your mind. So we overthink negative thoughts and believe them because your brain is constantly scanning for danger. It’s looking for the negative.

There’s a negativity bias where your brain wants to make sure it pays attention to what is negative, what could cause you harm to make sure that you stay safe and alive, super useful if you need to watch out for the bears. Not super useful if your brain is now scanning for everything your husband is doing wrong and then focusing on that and then believing that. And then you kind of, generalizing it and catastrophizing it. So now you think there’s this huge problem in your marriage when really he just ate all your snacks. You know what I mean? It’s like that level of, practicality that I want to drive home here. It’s in like the everyday little thoughts that we have about our lives that overall create these emotions that just aren’t that helpful for us. And when you manage your mind, you will feel so much better.

You will shift from negative thinking to positive thinking. It really is that easy. It just takes some intentionality. So just for this podcast episode, I came up with five steps that you can do to stop overthinking. I don’t know about you, but after listening to a good piece of content, like a video or podcast or course, I always want to know, okay, what can I do now to implement that? Because education, just for the purpose of education without using it, I don’t know, it’s, you know, borders on just entertainment. So I really want you to have an impact in your life. I want you to see some results. I want you to do this process for the next couple weeks and say, oh my gosh Natalie, it worked. I am reducing my overthinking. I love this process. So if you want, you can write into me and let me know.

Alright, let’s talk about the five simple steps and go through a couple examples from the question that was submitted. The process starts like this. Number one, ask yourself, what negative emotion am I feeling? And then you want to name that emotion and add in the word feeling. So let’s say you are feeling frustrated, you would name it and say, this is frustration. I’m feeling frustration. That’s really important that you start there because I think for a lot of us we’re more aware of just the feelings that we’re experiencing throughout the day. So it’s a good cue for you to know it’s time for me to take a look at and change my thoughts. Number two, ask yourself, what’s the thought I’m thinking that’s creating this feeling? And then write it down once you have that thought written down. Step number three is to study that thought.

Be the observer of the thought. You are not your thoughts. Just like you know your heart’s purpose is to beat your brain’s. Purpose is to think you are not your heart, you are not your hands, you are not your leg, you are not your brain. So when you write down your thoughts, you want to know that these are just sentences in your head and your job is to observe the thoughts and know that you can think anything you want, even if it’s a true thought. There are hundreds, dare I say, thousands of other true thoughts that you could believe. For example, a really simple one would be in your marriage. If you think the thought my husband doesn’t do enough around here, you will believe that and prove that true. Now, it might be a true thought anyways, but you could just as easily focus on my husband is such a great guy and when you focus on that, you’ll have a completely different experience. Both of those thoughts could be true for you, but it will have a very different impact on your marriage depending on which one you choose to believe. So this is not about choosing thoughts that you don’t believe, but it is about seeing that there isn’t just one right or one best true thought. The way to know if a thought is helpful and useful and one you should keep is to test out how it makes you feel and what actions you take when you believe that thought.

So step number three I think is the, is the step that gets skipped the most. We want to kind of rush over it and it’s just a really important step because you have to make sure you’re in that observer mode in order to change your thoughts. If you think you are your thoughts and you’re just trying to rush to a different thought, it’s not going to work. That negative thought’s going to keep coming back. You truly have to see, oh, this is a thought, this is a sentence in my head, it’s not a fact. Number four, create your next believable thought, write it down. And number five, practice, practice, practice. So if you were trying to speak Spanish and you couldn’t remember how to do it in the moment you would say, yeah, you know what? I need to practice more. I need to set aside some time and practice my Spanish.

This is what I’m talking about with respect to practicing your new thoughts. It’s a new language, so you’ve got to practice writing it down one time is not enough. So let me go through those five simple steps again really quickly. And then I want to walk through two examples with you. So number one is to ask yourself what negative emotion you’re feeling. Name it and make sure you include that word feeling. I’m feeling fill in the blank. Number two is to ask yourself what’s the thought you’re thinking that’s creating that feeling? And then write it down. Number three is to study that thought, pull it apart, be the observer of the thought. Know that you are not that thought and you don’t have to believe it. Number four, create a next believable thought. I call it the NBT. Write it down. And number five, practice your NBT.

Now let’s go through an example. Number one, what is the feeling? Let’s go with overwhelm. I’m feeling overwhelmed. Number two, what’s the thought? Well, this person wrote in with I’m not doing enough. Okay, so the feeling is overwhelm. The thought is I’m not doing enough. Step number three is to question that thought. What does enough even mean and why do you think that you need to do more? Are you attaching your goodness to getting more done? Are you trying to outrun your worth? Meaning if you take a rest or take a break, you think you are a bad mom? Why do you think you should do more? What would you think about yourself if you were doing more? What if you didn’t have to do any of it? Do you have needs that you are ignoring if you’re feeling overwhelmed? Probably yes. And why? Why are you ignoring those needs? What about saying no and just loving yourself? Taking space for yourself and kind of showing up without people pleasing IE, without saying yes to so much that you do it at your own expense. So that’s step number three. That’s where a lot of the coaching tools come in. Again, I do this all inside the Mom On Purpose Membership. It definitely is an art, but honestly, just the more that you practice it, the better you get at it. The point is that you are looking at your thought critically knowing that it’s not you.

Number four is to create a next believable thought. So you don’t want to go to toxic positivity where you’re thinking, I’m doing so much. What I’m doing is enough if you don’t believe it, this is what I wrote down for a next believable thought. In this instance, I’m a human mom with a limited capacity and I know it’s my job to take care of my own needs, including making sure I rest and have energy to show up as the mom I want to be. This means saying no, doing less and delegating and feeling complete and whole and worthy. In so doing this means nothing about me. My productivity means nothing about me. I am good enough just the way I am. I’m an amazing mom. Now that is basically a whole paragraph. And I wanted to, do that here for purposes of illustration just so you could get a sense of what other thoughts are available when you’re thinking a thought like I’m not doing enough.

But you can just create one very simple next believable thought. That is just one thought for you. The key is you want it to be believable to you. And then number five is you write it down and you practice it. You put it on the background of your phone, you say it to yourself in the mirror in the morning, you write it down. Think about this new thought as wanting to learn Spanish. You have to memorize it, you have to feel it in your body. That is how you rewire your brain and it’s worth it my friends, because that is how you stop negative thinking. That is how you stop overthinking those negative thoughts. Let’s do one more quick example with the other thought that the person wrote in to this podcast for. Number one, let’s say the feeling is worry. I’m feeling worried. So immediately by saying I’m feeling worried, it’s putting some space between the feeling and you, when you say I am worried, it feels like the worry is taking over you.

It’s who you are, but you are not worried. You are just feeling worried. That difference is everything. So I’m feeling worried. The thought she wrote in with what if I’m messing up my kids? Now, anytime your brain asks a question, you want to make sure you answer it. Particularly these what if catastrophic thinking sorts of questions. And that gets to number three, which is questioning the thought. What if I am messing up my kids? How is it even possible to mess up kids? Is there a certain way to be where I would be perfect and never make mistakes and never have a negative impact on my kids? Is that what I’m thinking? Am I thinking I’m supposed to be a robot mom and that their mom should never make mistakes and should do it perfectly? Do I think my kids aren’t supposed to have challenges? Do I think that I’m to blame if they do have challenges? Does that even make sense? What does it even mean to mess up? What if kids are supposed to have challenges and I’m supposed to have challenges as well? I know that I’m supposed to be a human mom, so maybe it makes more sense to make space for my humanness and my kids’ humanness and maybe this thought just isn’t serving me. Okay. So that’s kind of the approach that I would take with step number three, where you’re genuinely just questioning the thought, getting curious about it, coming up with other thoughts in the process, and just exploring the other options that will feel a lot better. And then number four is where you write down your next believable thought. And again, I did like a whole paragraph for this one just to kind of illustrate what some of the thoughts could sound like.

There’s no such thing as messing up my kids. I’m a human mom who will make mistakes and even have an impact on my kids’ challenges. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m going to try my best and I’m also going to believe in my kids’ capabilities to navigate their challenges. I know I’m not supposed to be perfect. I choose to believe my best is good enough. I love my kids gently and fiercely and I know that I’m the exact mom that’re supposed to have a human mom. So do you see how that collection of thoughts feels so much better than the worrisome thought? What if I’m messing up my kids and this is the work my friend, the work of stopping negative thinking, the work of stopping, overthinking, the work of creating more positive thoughts so you feel better in your everyday life that is available to you. And it’s through the process of awareness of what you’re thinking and feeling, questioning those thoughts and feelings and creating a better, more supportive way of thinking and feeling and then practicing.

So where you are now is in negative thoughts. Overthinking land and where you want to go is to a much more positive and empowering mindset that creates the feelings that you want to fuel you. I like to say that it is my responsibility to raise my vibration. It is my responsibility to feel good about my life. And so doing this work is my responsibility. And knowing that process is step number one. But then practicing it is how you actually get results. So I invite you to take a look at your negative thoughts, study them with curiosity, question them, change them, and practice those better feeling thoughts. It is life changing work my friends. What you focus on is what you will create in your life. So focus on the good. There is so much good in your life. If you just focus on it, you will feel so, so, so much better. Alright, I will talk with you next week, my friend. Take care.

Thank you for being here and listening Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.