Are You Always Thinking Of Bad Things? Don’t Resist, Try To Embrace

Our internal narrative has a gigantic influence on our lives. The thoughts we have influence our self-esteem, opinions of others and judgements of the environment around us. After all, our thoughts are always present inside of us – no matter what we’re doing or where we are. There’s no escape! According to psychology experts, humans have over 6,000 thoughts per day on average (via NewsWeek). That’s over two million thoughts per year, with the average lasting about 10 seconds. That’s a lot of thoughts! What happens if you’re always thinking of bad things, though? Why does this happen? Is there any way to escape them or break the cycle? Let’s talk about where these thoughts come from and what you can do to break free of the bad things that plague your mind.

A Brief Disclaimer…

This website does not give medical or psychological advice. We write our articles based on our experiences with each topic. Advice given on this site is our opinion only. There is zero shame in seeking out professional counseling if you think it will help you.

Where Do Bad Thoughts Come From?

Before getting into why many of us are always thinking of bad things, let’s discuss where our negative thoughts come from.

The human ego is supposed to be a protective mechanism. The ego scans our environment for threats and sends us alerts via emotions and feelings. A rival tribe or predatory animal could attack at any time; frequent thoughts of bad things like this happening were meant to keep us ready for very real threats.

In present day, humans still have these ego-based instincts. They’re certainly useful in situations where our well-being is legitimately being threatened, but many of the threats this mechanism is supposed to warn us about aren’t present anymore.

Worries about a rival tribe have been replaced with worries about our rival at work. Constant fears of an animal attack have been transformed into a fear of a person insulting us.

While the environmental risks have been removed, the bad thoughts about them have not. While some people seem to fare just fine, other people feel as though they’re always thinking of bad things.

Why Am I Always Thinking Of Bad Things?

If you’re always thinking of bad things, there’s a good chance that you have anxiety.

While I’m not a psychologist, I have plenty of my own experience. With anxiety, these ego-based, instinctual bad thoughts are constant.

While our egos mind is designed to help identify threats, anxiety makes us feel like we’re always under threat.

“What if…?” becomes a routine mindset. What if someone I love gets hurt? Will I ever be terminally ill? What if so-and-so doesn’t like me? What if I get attacked walking home? The list goes on and on…and on. When living with anxiety, the worry is constant.

The cause of why only some people have anxiety is complex and frankly, beyond my scope of expertise. I can say that childhood experiences, genetics and learned conditioning can all play a role.

Regardless of the exact cause, anxiety floods our mind with thoughts about anything that could possibly go wrong in life. More specifically, anxiety makes us feel as though the things we fear most could come true.

If you’re reading this, you probably want to stop these thoughts as quickly as possibly. Regarding this, I have some good and bad news.

The bad news? You’ll have a very hard time stopping these thoughts. It might even be impossible.

The good news is that you don’t need to.

Don’t Try To Stop Thinking Of Bad Things…Embrace Them

For the majority of my life, I was constantly at the whim of my anxious thinking. The what-ifs flipped through my mind like a person changes channels; one minute I’d be worrying about my health, the next I’d be worrying about a school presentation that I needed to give in two weeks.

The way I finally started to feel at peace, despite still having anxious thoughts? I began embracing them.

Embracing our anxiety means that we no longer fight it. We no longer tell ourselves that we shouldn’t think or feel it. We don’t tell ourselves that it’s irrational, even if it is. The first step involves accepting our anxiety exactly as it is.

The topic of inner consciousness vs. subconscious programming is vast, so I’ve condensed it into one sentence for the sake of this article. If you can observe your thoughts and emotions, they aren’t yours.

That’s right! Our anxiety is not “us”. Our bad thoughts do not identify us. If we can observe our anxiety, it can’t be us. It’s impossible.

Rather than phrasing it as “I’m always thinking of bad things“, I recommend this phrasing: “Part of me is always thinking of bad things“. Anxiety exists in us, yes, but it’s not us.

Let’s talk about a few ways we can step into ‘observer mode’ to embrace our bad thoughts and stop feeling terrible about them.

A Few Techniques To Try

Here are three techniques I’ve used to successfully quell my anxiety. All of these techniques are free, simple and can be done anywhere.

Technique #1: “Then What?”

This tip goes hand-in-hand with observing your own thoughts. The next time you think of bad things, try asking yourself “then what?“.

By asking ourselves more, we bring ourselves closer to the root of our actual fear. The goal is to face our fears and feel the emotions that surround them. This process is not unlike exposure therapy (via Psych Central).

Say you’re anxious about a family member getting sick. It’d be terrible, no doubt about it. If they do get sick, though, “then what?”. We’d have no choice but to deal with it – scary and terrible as it may be.

While we’re sad about a family member falling ill, we’re also afraid of living without this person. The anxiety we feel may ultimately be rooted in a fear of being alone.

When we begin to accept the possibility – however slight – of our fear coming true, it’s not uncommon to feel intense emotions in response to facing these scary thoughts. Our anxiety has kept us in a state of fear and worry, but not in a state of actually facing the thing we fear.

Going back to our example of worrying about a family member, it’s understandable that we feel emotions when thinking about our fears becoming real. We must feel these emotions fully, as hard as it may be, to fully accept what we fear.

Over enough time of asking “then what?” in response to your anxiety, you’ll gradually think fewer and fewer bad thoughts. It will require work, but it will work.

Technique #2: Your Anxious Friend

When our emotions aren’t involved in a situation, we tend to see the situation a lot more clearly. Our logical reasoning is not clouded by the feelings we feel, which often includes fear.

Let’s give this some context. Imagine a friend of yours comes to you asking for advice – they’re thinking about breaking up with their partner but feel torn. What should they do? You’ll be able to give a relatively objective answer based on the information you have. You know everything will likely be fine no matter what happens.

Let’s reverse the roles. When we’re in a similar situation that we’re emotionally tied to, it feels terrible! It’s incredibly hard to be objective the same way.

The next time you’re thinking of bad things, imagine instead that a friend is telling you about feeling or thinking them instead. This will help you tremendously in seeing your own thoughts clearly. The perspective of seeing our thoughts this way is quite similar to the observation we discussed in technique #1.

Imagining that our bad thoughts belong to a friend rather than ourselves, it helps further separate our conscious mind from our thoughts.

Technique #3: Just Watch

This one is short and sweet, but something we talk about often on this site. When you see your mind thinking of bad thoughts, simply observe them.

No need to stop them, go any deeper or visualize some way to dissolve them. Just be aware of what’s going through your mind. There’s no point in feeling any negativity – worry, fear, shame – about what comes.

Why? Because by putting zero effort into our bad thoughts i.e. by just watching them, we realize that we aren’t actually thinking them consciously. They’re arising out of those primal parts of our mind that we’ve covered above, many of which are associated with anxiety, too.

This process of observing our thoughts creates a new habit for ourselves – rather than “being” the thought, we start “seeing” the thought.

You’re probably noticing the pattern between these three techniques!

As you continue thinking of bad things, try to get in the habit of observing yourself and let the process take you where it’s going to naturally.

Read Next:

• Are You Cancelling Plans Because Of Anxiety? Here Are 7 Ways To Stop
• Where Do Our Thoughts Come From? A Brief Glimpse Behind The Curtain

In Summary

I think I’ve rambled enough. Please try out these techniques the next time you’re thinking about bad things and see how it goes! You’ll soon find out that it is worth your time. Thanks for reading.