


The mind is a tool and uncontrollable emotional thoughts (almost always negative) are often separate from the true self. The non stop mind chatter is commonly referred to as the ’emotional thinking machine’ or ‘primal mind’. It’s way of working is through your feelings and impressions. You may find yourself getting caught up in unnecessary thought about extreme and unlikely situations sometimes? Then feeling silly afterwards. That’s the true logical thinking self recognising the avoidable thought pattern. Subsequently, you have a choice to either, feed the thought and let it snowball or ignore it and move on. Try watching your thoughts closely and observe the negative patterns, everyone has them, some just choose to ignore them more than others.



Thinking negatively stops us relaxing with the uncertain. This can lead to ‘mindreading’. “They haven’t wrote back to me on Facebook; they don’t like me!” or “They only said that to make me feel better, they don’t really think that!”

That’s not logical thinking, it’s emotional presumptions made by the ‘primal mind’. Avoiding the assigning of meaning to something before you have any real evidence is a key part of overcoming negative thinking. These are ambiguous situations where any presumed conclusion will be inaccurate.

Exploring the possibilities isn’t a problem when you can be more comfortably neutral, you’ll be doing more of: “I don’t know why they havn’t text me back yet…” You’ll also be able to consider all possible reasons you can think of, not just the negative ones. Every presumable answer is as plausible as the other, so try to avoid this unnecessary thinking. Which leads us too…


The guy in the car in front has cut you up. Now the ‘primal brain’ thinking emotionally will wish instant revenge of some sort. Even if it’s just to express your venting anger. Lets put this into perspective, there may be occasions where you’ve accidentally cut someone up in the past, everyone makes mistakes. Consider that may be he didn’t check his mirrors or that he misinterpreted the space between you..etc…etc. Then consider this quote, it’s one of my favourites:


You’re anger is not felt by them, but, it may well ruin the rest of your day. Now consider you are walking up some stairs and someone cuts you up. Are you going to swear at them and ‘sit on their arse’? Perhaps attempt to ram them off the staircase and stick your middle finger up at them? I’d imagine that’s quite unlikely. So, overall, how has this issue affected you’re overall journey, you might now arrive at your destination 10-15 seconds later than you would of have? Is it worth it?

All thoughts and perceptions are filtered through your unique belief system, and it’s this filter that causes negative thoughts. Consider other perspectives and your filter won’t be so tight with accepting only what you think is the right way of doing things. From there, it is still your choice whether you pursue the negative thought or not, always.


Who we spend our time with, the material we choose to watch and read is a powerful influence on our cultural references. If for example you watch TV soaps/dramas daily, just watch closely how often positive interactions occur versus unnecessary negative ones and consider the impact that may have when you’re involved in a similar situation.




~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Thanks for reading.