How we think helps influence how we feel and react to different circumstances. Having kind, positive thoughts and developing a compassionate mindset is essential to forming greater kindness. 

A compassionate mind is an expansive, open state where we can thrive. It is surprisingly easy to achieve when we feel safe, happy, and at peace. In this state, our hearts can open, and healing energy of loving-kindness can gently flow to and from us as easy as we breathe but when a wave of worry and negative self-talk disturbs our peaceful mind it is more difficult to do but with conscious intention, we can change self-criticism into kindness and compassion for ourselves. If we practice and commit it helps rewire our thinking patterns to become more positive and constructive and helps build emotional resilience. 

Our brain is the first thing that is developed for survival, our ‘threat system’ evolved to alert us to danger so we can take the action we need against it. In modern-day society, many of these dangers are not actually life-threatening but are based on our own distorted perceptions, negative thoughts, and beliefs. Developing a compassionate mind helps us to work against our natural bias and engage our brain’s ‘higher’ capacity to reason and think things through, it helps us feel kindness and empathy for ourselves instead of constantly putting ourselves down. 

Automatic Thinking 

Most thoughts we have are generated automatically, they are based on the mindset that we have developed over time. These thoughts are based on our responses we develop out of habit.  Our automatic thinking can be both positive and negative, through recognizing negative automatic thoughts psychologists have found several typical thinking patterns or habits. Try to identify your negative reactions, take a step back and put it into perspective then replace it with positivity. 

Try This: Changing Your Mind 

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, one of the ways they use to work with negative automatic thinking is to keep a thought diary where you write the thought into and then change your mind by coming up with a new, more helpful thought with a more balanced perspective. When there is a negative situation in your life, look at what you are saying to yourself when your brain is focused on being upset or angry. If you feel that the situation at hand is unfair and that you never get what you want or you ‘deserve better’, take a step back and put things into a larger perspective.

Try asking yourself what is the worse thing that can happen in this situation?

What do you think your opinion on it would be in sixth months’ time? When you have thought that through add in a new, positive thought like ‘It’s natural to feel upset for a while, in time I won’t feel so strongly.

It doesn’t mean I will never get what I want.’