#20 NEGATIVE THOUGHTS - Stress & Pain Relief (Jason Newland)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Stress and Pain Relief podcast. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Today I'm going to aim it from a different angle.

I'm going to focus on how you're thinking about the physical discomfort that you may be experiencing because of stress, tension, anxiety or chronic pain. I'm not going to focus on any part of your body at all. All we're going to focus on is the thoughts that you're having about that physical discomfort that you were experiencing before you pressed the play button on this podcast.

And this might seem a bit strange because I guess in some ways we get used to the negativity. Some would say well it's not negativity, it's reality because that is how I'm feeling and therefore I am noticing it and complaining about it because it's horrible and I can relate to that completely. I mean there's no one in the world, I don't believe there's anyone in the world that enjoys feeling sorry for themselves more than me.

I love it but it's not helpful and it's painful but dwelling in negativity and just feeling enjoying being the victim. I've spent a lot of my life doing that and you know I used to do it drinking alcohol and I used to just dwell in feeling sorry for myself. You know the world is out to get me and no one else knows what it's like to feel like this and all that stuff.

But it's not useful because actually when you do break that cycle, even if it's a smaller version, I've kind of exaggerated it to quite an extreme, but even if it's on a smaller level which is natural for most people especially who have physical issues, discomfort, whether as I said chronic pain or stress that affects us in more than just a physical way. I know some people say well physical stress is different from physical pain rather or you know chronic pain, it's different from stress.

Physical pain affects the body and some people might say well stress affects us emotionally, it's much bigger.

Well chronic pain affects people emotionally as well. Chronic pain can actually be all-encompassing if the person allows it to be. It can almost dominate a person's life as can stress and anxiety and panic disorder and all those things.

So there's a huge similarity, they're almost twins in a way in a sense of the effect that they can have on your life. I know chronic pain in a big way could be classes completely different. It's pain, that's like physical pain.

Stress isn't always presented in that way. It could be a tightness of the muscles, it could be much more related to how you feel emotionally which is how why someone might say well it's nothing like chronic pain. Well stress can cause physical pain, stress can cause chronic pain.

In fact when you reduce your stress you reduce the chronic pain sensations. So chronic pain is worsened by stress and because chronic pain isn't actually required anymore because it's not acute pain, it's a pain condition that is not needed. You don't need it.

Acute pain is needed to basically warn you against using that part of your body during the healing process or to let you know there's an injury, to let you know you need medical attention. So you break a bone, the acute pain is there to let you know that you've got a broken bone. You need to first of all not stand or not use that part of your body but also to get help and to get fixed so that it can heal.

And then that pain reduces somewhat but it still continues for a while, maybe a few weeks and it reduces gradually over that time because it's there to protect you, to stop you from using that part of your body during the healing process. So it's just there to protect you. Pain is only there to protect you and me.

And stress is the same. It's there to protect us, it's there to warn us, it's there to let us know, to be to like, wait a minute, you need to calm down, you need to take it easy. And sometimes if we ignore the stress levels and the physical feelings we have and the emotional feelings we experience due to stress, stress can just shut your body down.

It could almost bring your whole life to a standstill. With extreme panic disorder, physical illness, stress can cause extreme illnesses, physical illnesses that then need medical attention. And so there's a lot of, for me, it's the same, the same family.

And I've dealt with both. And there's so much of a connection between the two. You don't have chronic pain without stress.

You can have stress without chronic pain. But there is still a physical discomfort with stress. You know, there's always going to be a physical discomfort, even if you're not aware of it.

Once you focus on your body, you start to realise maybe, I didn't realise my lower back was so tight. I didn't realise that I was actually having physical discomfort in the back of your neck, or in your jaw, or you know, all sorts of things that can be a cause of stress. You know, like grinding your teeth at night, things like that, which damages the jaw and the teeth, of course.

Just so many different things. So that's what this podcast is about. So I'm going to be focusing not on the physical side of things, but on the things that we say to ourselves, the thoughts rather.

Now, it could be a thought as such as, this hurts. You know, it could be a basic thing like that. So while you're focusing on that part of your body, we're not going to be focusing on it to change it physically, but we're just going to be focused on it, observing, observing what comes into your mind whilst we focus and be aware of the stress or the chronic pain.

And as each thought comes into your mind, unless it's unrelated to how you're feeling, we're going to just squash it. Literally, with your finger and thumb on one of your hands, whatever your dominant hand is, you could use the other hand, it makes no difference. Or you could, if you wanted, you could just, if you're sitting in a chair, you could just squash it with your hand on the top of your leg, like that, however you want to do it.

This is your recording. This is your time. If you want to do, you could just squash it with your foot on the floor.

So there's lots of different ways of doing this. So I think I'm going to go with the, like the squash that with the hand on, on my knee, on the top, you know, the top of my leg, because that's where my hands are resting anyway. And so it means you'll hear it.

Let's just get back a little bit. That's it. So you'll hear that.

So all it is, is a case of just noticing, noticing the thoughts that are coming through. And in reality, we're going to include any negative thoughts, anything that's not useful, anything that's been negative. Even if it's got nothing to do with the physical sensations or emotional, anything like that, even if it's got nothing to do with how you're physically feeling.

It might be negativity towards, maybe there's a background sound. I wish that stupid neighbor would stop, you know, mowing his lawns, whatever it could be. Or he should get off his space hopper and just shut up or just squash it, squash it.

And when you do that physical movement of moving your hand onto your leg, the top of your leg, and just point out that first of all, we're not doing it hard. It doesn't hurt. It's just, it's gentle, but it makes a little bit of a slap, you know, that's it doesn't hurt.

But if you do have any physical issues with your legs or with your hands, then do something different. You know, the one place that you shouldn't have any physical discomfort is here. That'd just be pointless.

Otherwise, you know, when you get rid of help you to reduce the pain in your in one part of your body, but we're going to create it in another. Or we're going to, you know, this is about almost letting go of everything and being kind to yourself during the process. Being gentle and no forcing there's no you can't force yourself to feel relaxed.

Just like you can't force yourself to feel hungry. You can't force yourself to fall in with someone. You can't force yourself to like a movie.

You know, you either like it or you don't like it. You're either hungry or you're not hungry. You know, this is about being gentle, you can't force comfort, you can gently suggest feelings of relaxation.

You can do things that then lead to feeling more relaxed, which is what I'm here for. That's what I do. That's why hopefully can help with that process.

Of course, you can do that on your own. You don't need me for that. Once you've learned a technique, you know, you can do this stuff on your own if you want to and practice it and use that as a technique and gradually over time, your mind starts to train, starts to get trained into knowing that when a negative thought pops up, the mind just kicks it out.

This doesn't even give it a time of day, just as you shouldn't. And I said shouldn't, you know, try not to get involved in shoulds and shouldn'ts. But for your own health, mentally and physically, we should really act to benefit ourselves.

Should, and I want to use the word should. In fact, I'm going to change the word should to must. Must push away those negative thoughts.

The thing is, the only person who can tell you to do that is you. When it comes to musts and, you know, things like that, you need to decide for yourself and to choose for yourself that that is how you want to live your life, that you want to get rid of that type of thinking to eliminate as much negativity from your mind and your body as you can, knowing that you can't do it all at the same time, you can't do it all at once.

You can, you can reduce the negativity and the stress levels during a period of time, like listening to a recording, and it can almost vanish completely.

But the day to day process is something that you can take control of. Now, there are benefits of listening to recordings every day, because you start to notice changes. And you start to notice, it's in a sense like a jigsaw puzzle that you've put together.

And every day you're looking at it and you start to realize that actually, you've put it together by the pieces fitting. And you can do a jigsaw where pieces fit, but the picture is not right. Because a lot of the pieces are exactly the same size, same shape.

So you can end up with a bit of the sea in the sky. It might be a similar color, even, and it's exactly the same shape. So sometimes what can happen is, as time goes by, the more you listen to these relaxation sessions, you start to notice that that picture is different to what you thought it was.

And it's not, it doesn't fit together. And it needs changing. And when you change those pieces back to how they should be properly, so that the sea is in the sea and the sky is in the sky.

And those two pieces that were exactly the same size, same shape, slightly different shades. So easy mistake to make. And you realize, ah, and it feels different.

It can be subtle, just as subtle as a difference between putting on a pair of shoes that are a different size. Tiny difference in size wise. But one can feel really comfortable, one can feel really uncomfortable.

Or the other one might feel mildly uncomfortable, like it doesn't feel right. Your feet fit in there, but it's just, oh, what's going on? It doesn't feel right. Because it's just too small, or maybe it's just too big.

So it's these small changes that we can make, that really do make the difference. It can make a huge difference. I mean, I had during the lockdown, dentists and couldn't get a dentist appointment, my filling came out.

And so every time I ate, the hole was just getting full of food. I know, gross. I had two days of this.

And I ended up getting an ulcer on the end of my tongue, because my tongue kept going in there trying to dig it out. I could get it out like with brush, toothbrush and stuff. And then, you know, but I didn't want to keep cleaning my teeth every time I, because I had a toffee, I tried to avoid toffees, but it was so annoying.

So I went online, ordered some toothpick things from Amazon, came here the next day. The slightest thing, just the slightest change like that, honestly transformed my day. Because in two seconds, I could just sort out my tooth, instead of spending hours with my tongue, trying to get inside and trying to, you know, do that.

The stress relief was amazing. And I didn't even realise it was stressing me out. But it was annoying.

It was focusing my mind on something that I didn't want to focus on. I don't want to focus on a tooth. The tooth wasn't hurting me.

It was just a filling came out. And but it was annoying. So a slight change.

If you've got a blister on your foot, you put a plaster or bandaid or ever over that blister, and perhaps put another pair of socks on as well. You can walk again, without any pain. It's these tiny little adjustments.

And that's kind of I like the idea of doing that in a mental way, you know, you know, a mindful way, a way of doing that with our thoughts, because it really can make a huge difference to your life. Okay, so what we're going to do is, I'm just going to close my eyes, maybe you would like to do that too. You've got whichever hand you want to use to stamp out that negative thought.

So you have a negative thought in your mind. Just push down gently, but nice little snap on your thigh. Like the way I'm sitting, it's just basically above my knee.

That's where I am. And I'm doing it with my right hand. But of course, you can do your left hand.

Or you can just adjust and do a different physical action, whatever you want to do. And it's, I guess, in a way, it's kind of meditative, in a sense, if you're just sitting there, focusing on the thoughts. So straight away, I've got negative thoughts coming up, but it's about the recording.

So I'm now, I'm not going to tell you what they are, but I'm going to describe a few. This is, this is called in some psychological terms, squashing ants. Now, it's quite a horrible term, actually, because we shouldn't squash ants, because they haven't done us any harm.

But it is really a case of getting rid of them as they arise. Don't let them settle down. So when a thought comes in, you don't let it settle down, sit down, you offer a cup of tea, squashed, done.

Bye. So any negativity. And also, if you, if you're worried that you might squash a positive thought by mistake, mistaking it for negativity, doesn't matter.

Because positivity always comes back. We can't harm positivity, all we can do is grow it. Positivity cannot be, you can't get rid of positivity.

Positivity can be overcrowded, and almost moved into the distance by negativity. But positivity is always there, somewhere. It's just sometimes it gets almost hidden.

Which is why we need to get rid of those negative thoughts. And even if the negative thoughts have got nothing to do with, let's say, the physical part of your body, which had the discomfort, the negative thoughts might have nothing to do with that. But you squash it.

Anyway, because they seem to negative thoughts seem to have a link of energy, the more you have, or the more you allow into your mind, the more energy they seem to be given. And their users, the drainers, they will just drain you, the negative thoughts drain you. And they don't care.

Because the reason they don't care is because they're not there to harm you. The reason we have negative thoughts is because that's what our brain and our mind thinks we want. Because that's the way that we've been thinking.

So the more you consciously think of negative stuff, the more negative stuff will just come randomly. So we have already programmed our mind, or have had our minds programmed by family, friends, society, newspapers, whatever, all those things that influence us over our lives, growing up and all that stuff. We've been programmed to potentially to to think negatively, or positively dependent.

It never seems to be a 50 50 is definitely we all most people, I would say, have the ability to think positively. Because that would be more the natural state of our minds. The calm, relaxed, feeling quite positive within ourselves.

Without outside interference. One of one there, squash that one. Letting the the nice thoughts or the positive thoughts, let them in.

Because they might already be there. But once you start getting rid of the negative thoughts, you almost can then see the positive ones. And what you can do if you choose, it's up to you, there is a button.

Now, you're using whatever hand you're using, whether it's your right or left hand, that's the one to get rid of individual thoughts. Now, if you want to just empty your mind completely of everything, and then start from scratch almost, so that the next thought to enter your mind will be the only thought in your mind. That way, you can just get rid of the negative thoughts without being overcrowded, you know, and then the positive thought will come, you can just allow that in, welcome it, give it a hug.

So you can just deal with what's happening now, without needing to focus on anything from the past. Now, you can empty that room, just by doing exactly the same as what you've been doing with, for example, your right hand, like with me, except you're using the other hand on the other knee, or the other thigh. And when you press that, and you do it three times, you just, you know, like that three times, and not yet, but if you want to, and you just want to get rid of all of those thoughts altogether, you can.

Now, this is something that you could do anyway, I guess, just to clear your mind. And by doing that, the energy, the connection between how we're thinking and how we're physically feeling, that's cut, that cord of energy is completely severed, which means the energy is actually drained out of that body part. So it doesn't have the energy to really feel anything much at all.

Because you have to have an energy feed, almost like a battery in a way, it's almost like a separate battery, when it comes to a part of your body, feeling different from the rest of your body. In order for that to happen, you need a special, like a different battery pack, separate, with different wires and cables, you know, imagine that in your mind, it's a separate thing.

And it's connected to the negativity, the negative thoughts of your mind.

Now, once you cut those wires, which you do that when you, with your other hand, it cuts those wires. So there's that connection is no longer there. It can't be fed.

So the negativities can't feed into that part of your body, and your part of your body that used to have those feelings can't can't feed off of them. You can't, there's no connection. And we all know what happens when you disconnect the electric from something, with batteries run out, doesn't matter how well something works.

When the batteries run out, that's it stopped. There is no power, the thing can't do what it used to do. It doesn't operate anymore.

So whatever energy that was being pumped into those particular feelings that you were experiencing in that part of your body can't, it can't operate anymore. Because the power is now gone. The connection is broken.

So that's something that you can enjoy as well. But when you go with the other hand, you know, the hand that we're not using for individual negativities, it just cuts that lead, those cords, those cables cuts it and empties your mind of all thoughts instantly. And then more thoughts just start to come like normal.

And then you can start distinguishing between. Now, if you get fed up with going through each an individual thought, for example, you know, a negative thought about, yeah, that's just the tone of it. So you could go, you know, if your hand and just get rid of it, squash it, and then deal with the next thought.

And if there's a positive one, just allow that in. Or you can just with the other hand and just empty your mind, knowing that the positivity may not seem like it's there. But basically, what you've got coming in is bits you got.

If you think of the thoughts as being bricks entering your house, and you're getting rid of negativity bricks, and you're allowing the positivity bricks in. But then you say, well, I'm going to go and not allow any of them in just empty, empty all those positive and negative bricks out. And you might think, well, what about the positivity? Don't I need the positivity? And then you realize that actually, you're standing in a house that's been built with positivity bricks.

The whole of the house, the whole of your mind is being built with positivity, the structure, the sides, the walls, the ceilings, and we're talking about infinite space as large as the universe. In fact, it's larger, your mind is as large as you can imagine. In fact, it's larger than you can imagine.

It's endless. There's no end to our mind. There's no end to the power of your imagination.

It is the most powerful thing that you have in your life is your imagination. So when you realize that your imagination is built from those bricks made of positivity, the whole of your mind is automatically positive, because negativity couldn't build something as beautiful as your mind and your imagination. Your body is built with positivity, because negativity could not build a body, could not build a brain that operated as well as yours does.

We are basically made of positive energy. When you realize that, when you really absorb that single idea, and you absorb it within you, and you realize that all this energy that surrounds you, all this healing energy that you know we all have inside us, that healing energy, which literally physically heals us, it's positive. It's positivity, kindness.

So when you realize that, even the negative thoughts, although sometimes feeling like bullies, they can feel like the worst, horriblest bully. They don't mean it in that way. They think they're helping you.

The negative thoughts think that they are helping you. They're like having a parent who says something awful, but they don't mean it to be awful. You know, they'll say something to you and they mean it well-intentioned, but the actual emotional effect could be almost traumatic sometimes if you allow it to be.

But they don't mean it that way. Sounds like they're being cruel maybe, and I'm not focusing on parents necessarily, but just humans. Other people sometimes say things, and we, I'm sure, probably say things to other people, and we mean it so nicely, but it comes across perhaps as horrible, like really, and we don't mean it.

They don't mean it. We're trying to help each other, but we just don't necessarily relate to what they need, or we're not experiencing the world the way they are. So when you realize the negative thoughts are not there to hurt you, they're actually, and it's funny when you think about it, they're there to actually help you.

They just don't know how. So the intention is to help you, even if what they're saying is awful, even if what you're thinking is awful. And also, you know, it's really, yeah, it's worth remembering that.

Even though they might come across as really harsh, they think that they're helping. You know, the whole cruel to be kind thing that some people, that I've always thought of it as quite a dumb idea really, being cruel to be kind. It's, be kind to be kind, that would make more sense to me.

But when you see things in a different way, you start to realize that those so-called negative thoughts, because now it sort of changes it a bit. Well, should we call them negative thoughts? Should we call positive thoughts positive? Thoughts? Or should we just call them all thoughts? That's really a decision for other people to make for themselves, I guess. But for the sake of a recording, you know, when you're focusing on squashing any kind of negative thoughts, and just getting rid of them, or getting rid of all, all at the same time, all thoughts from your mind.

Cutting that cable, turning that battery off, disconnecting it, so that those feelings in that physical feelings in that part of the body that used to were there before is disconnected. And then you can just allow positivity into your mind. And the good thing about this is the more you do it, firstly, the easier it becomes.

Well, it's not difficult to start with, really, it's quite easy. It's just, it just might be surprising how much, how many thoughts we have, that maybe are not that useful. The more, because basically this is training your mind.

You train your mind this way, to the point where the part of your mind that thinks that you want this, because you've been perhaps focusing on the negative in the past. So your mind assumed that what you think about is what you want more of, because that's how the mind works. When you start thinking about more positive things, your mind will then know that that's what you want more of.

So you basically get more of what you think about. So if negativity comes into your mind, you just squash it, instead of thinking about it. You don't give it the time of day, just squash it.

Or if there's too many, or you feel a bit overwhelmed with them, just tap on your other leg three times, it's gone, emptied. And then it comes a time when all you got to do is just think, empty, and the mind empties. Or you just, you feel an emotional, negative emotion entering, or you just want it gone, and it goes.

Because ultimately, you are the most powerful super human, superhero, whatever you want to call it, that's ever existed. In your mind, in your imagination, you can do absolutely anything. You're indestructible, you're faster than anything, you can do anything, and you can change the way that you feel using those powers.

And it feels nice, just get in touch with that feeling, knowing that actually, you really do have the power to change how you feel. And you always have done, you always will do. And this is within you, wherever you go, all the time, available to you.

So if there's a thought you don't like, you can just blast it away, gone. Or you can just stamp it out. Or if you just want to go to sleep, or just want to relax deeply, and you don't want to be bothered with individually getting rid of thoughts, tap three times, empty your brain, empty your mind.

Or you can just say empty. Or you can imagine the bottom of the floor just opening up, and all those thoughts just dropping out. Or you can just turn all those thoughts into ice cubes, pop the top off the roof, let the sun shine in brightly, melting those ice cubes really quickly.

And this is something that you can do as many times as you choose. I mean, you may decide the benefits of listening to this recording daily for maybe 30 days, could be the solution for you to make those changes that you want. Because within listening, whilst listening, you have the flexibility to make changes there and then, here and now.

So that brings me to the end of this recording. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.