What is the negativity I experience?

Before we begin to detach ourselves from a negative thought or feeling, it can help if we explore and learn more about it.

What is it? Where in your body does it live, or where does it develop from? What does it feel like? We can even go as far as describing it. Is it friendly, is it evil? Is it soft, jagged, does it resemble a creature? And so on.

One of the key reasons why it is so hard to break free from a negative thought or behaviour is because we become totally identified with it. It becomes us, and we become it. Perhaps we have lived with it for so long, we have merged and become one. We may have even forgotten what it feels like to be ‘me’.

The beginning of the dis-identification process can be helped when we observe the negativity as something separate from ourselves. We learn that the negativity doesn’t define who we are, nor does it represent us and it cannot substitute our values.