Spiralling because of negative thoughts is easy, but climbing out of that pit can feel like a Herculean task. No one wants to deal with the stress and anxiety those freefall negative thought sessions bring about, so let’s explore how a unique method known as the ‘Freeze Frame’ technique can help stop you from digging a deeper hole. With guidance, examples, and long-term advice, you’ll be able to put the Freeze Frame technique into practice for astounding results today!
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Negative Thoughts
If you hear something enough times, you’ll begin to believe it’s true. This works with both positive thoughts and negative thoughts. When you’re always criticizing yourself, and being harsh over the slightest things, you’ll normalize that sort of behavior against yourself. Overcoming negative thoughts is a vital topic covered extensively on TheLiven.com, because if it isn’t addressed, you’ll be more accepting of that sort of behavior towards you from other people, leading to you further believing the worst of yourself.
Over time, these negative thoughts become an ingrained pattern in your head, even if they’re completely baseless. It affects your motivation, your self-image, and triggers negative emotions. In time, this leads to behaviors such as avoidance, procrastination, reactivity, and other coping mechanisms which only add fuel to this very unhelpful fire. This is why it’s so vital to understand that having a constant negative internal critic is one of the worst things you could do for yourself, because instead of helping you improve, it just drags you down even further. The Freeze Frame Technique aims to provide you some temporary relief.
Understanding The Freeze Frame Technique
The Freeze Frame technique was created by the HeartMath institute. It’s a simple one-minute technique which helps you bring about a major shift in perception. Instead of just having a positive outlook on things, the Freeze Frame technique creates a definitive, heartfelt shift in how you view a situation, an individual, or yourself.
When you experience a difficult situation, you tend to relive it in your mind. This leads to an increased production of stress hormones. The Freeze Frame technique asks you to pause your ‘stress movie’ for a moment so that you can edit the frame and create a different outcome. Let’s explore how to use the Freeze Frame technique in the next section.
How Do We Use The Freeze Frame Technique?
The Freeze Frame technique can seem complicated at first glance, so here’s a comprehensive guide:
- Identify a problem or issue you’re facing. At the same time, identify your attitudes and feelings about the problem.
- Relax in your chair. Take slow, deep breaths, and imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart area. As you continue breathing, imagine you’re easing up on yourself. Ease up, and create space within yourself as you continue breathing through your heart. Take your time.
- Try to create a genuine heart feeling for someone or something you hold dear. Feel your heart expand and open. This will allow you to see your issue from a more balanced perspective.
- In that heart-centered space, ask yourself what would be an effective attitude, action, or solution that would help in this issue you’re facing.
- Quietly observe any thoughts, feelings, or perceptions that surface. Be gentle and patient with yourself.
- When you’re ready, write down any new perspectives or insights you gained. Now, it’s time to commit to sustaining beneficial attitude shifts and acting on new insights.
The first few times you try to use the Freeze Frame technique, you’ll want to consult the step-by-step guide. If you want a quicker, easier to remember guide, try this:
- Acknowledge
- Heart-focused breathing
- Activate a positive or renewing feelings
- Ask
- Observe and act
When To Apply The Freeze Frame Technique
Still confused about when and how to apply the Freeze Frame technique? Let’s look over a few of the most common scenarios:
Negative Self-Talk
If you find that you’re criticizing yourself over the most minor issues, it’s time to employ the Freeze Frame technique. Recognize that you’re being overly harsh on yourself, and silence that inner critic. You can even visualize yourself pulling the critic off stage to make it more effective. Now, take a second to take a few deep breaths, and replace all those negative thoughts with positive affirmations.
Overthinking Mistakes
People who are anxious or depressed tend to ruminate and worry quite a lot.If you’re dwelling on something you said or did in the past and can’t seem to move past it, it’s time to reframe the way you look at things. You understand that dwelling on these things won’t bring about any positive change, so it’s time to put a rest to it. Take a deep breath, and remind yourself that mistakes happen, and all that you can do for now is learn from your mistakes.
Before Upcoming Events
In the minutes leading up to an important event where there’ll be eyes on you, your mind may be racing with all sorts of negative Nancy possibilities. It’s important to shift your perspective at this time, or else you’ll be too caught up in the ‘what if’ to be able to carry out what needs to be done.
Recognize that you’re panicking, and order yourself to stop. Take a few deep breaths, and now reframe the negative thoughts you’re experiencing. Think of it as ‘Even if it doesn’t go the way I want it to, everything’s going to be completely fine’.
Taking Action Against Negative Thoughts In The Long Term
The Freeze Frame technique is a great way to counter negative thought processes as they arrive, but they treat a symptom, not the cause. In order to build long-term resilience towards negative thoughts, you need to implement things like mindfulness and self-awareness into your daily life. Having Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sessions can further help challenge negative thought patterns you experience.
Aside from that, healthy lifestyle factors make a world of difference. Simply getting 8 hours of sleep and eating 3 square meals a day can contribute massively to your mental well-being and resilience. It’s also important to understand that no matter how much progress you make, you will still have bad days. It’s not your fault, that’s just how life is. This is when you make use of Freeze Frame technique and mindfulness to acknowledge the emotions, and then let it pass.
Conclusion
Using the Freeze Frame Technique will help you put a pause on the negative thoughts racing around your mind. Then, you can regain control over your mental state. It takes practice to recognize when to use the Freeze Frame Technique, but in conjunction with other strategies like CBT and mindfulness, you’ll learn to conquer the negative thought spiral once and for all.