It is that time of year when we often find ourselves rushing about, heading here and there, running around doing errands and then finding ourselves exhausted both physically and emotionally. In these times, it can be easy to focus on the negatives that happen throughout the day instead of the positives. We can experience nine good things during our days and one bad thing, like heavy traffic, and focus on that one bad thing and then milk that one thing for the rest of the day.

How do you change your negative thoughts to positive? One way is to be grateful for those nine good things that happened for you during the day and brush off that one bad thing. Another is to challenge that negative thought with some serious reality testing. Was the traffic really that bad or was it typical for the holiday season? When we try to challenge our negative thoughts by fact-testing them, often we find things are not as bad as we may have made them out to be. Another way to challenge your negative thoughts is to move away from being judgemental. When we judge others, we come not from a place of love but from a place in our hearts, minds and souls that need healing.

Challenging negative thoughts takes practice, as with everything else, but the more you do it the more you may find yourself finding the good in situations. With some cognitive behavioral therapy, we can help change our negative thinking to positive. Challenge your negative thoughts and try to think of an alternative way of thinking. What is the lesson you learned from a particular experience or situation? How did you grow from that experience? What did you learn to do differently should something similar crop up in the future? These are the positive aspects of what happened to you. If you can try to focus on those things, it may be easier to move away from negative thinking.

It can be easy to focus on the negative when the holiday season starts taking a toll on us emotionally and physically. The more you try to see the positive in your experiences, the less you will be plagued with negative thinking. Yes, traffic may be heavy but you still will get from Point A to Point B. Enjoy the journey and you are halfway there.

If you find yourself bogged down by negative thinking and are having difficulty finding your way out of it, reach out to a therapist or counselor. It is perfectly okay to admit you need help changing the way you think so you can enjoy the holiday season or any time of year. It takes more courage to reach out for help than it does to stay stuck where you are unhappy.