Meditation Techniques for Negative Thoughts

You may have already heard that meditation can help bring calmness and positivity into your life. Whether you’ve tried meditation in the past or you’re brand new to the practice, meditation can certainly help you center yourself away from negative thought patterns. However, it can be difficult to completely banish negative thoughts from your mind, especially when you take the time to sit in stillness and meditate. That’s why it’s so great that there are plenty of meditation techniques geared specifically towards getting rid of negative thoughts and being able to move past them.

Sometimes, it can take a little bit of extra attention to achieve your meditation goals. If getting rid of negative thoughts is one of the things you are looking to achieve in your meditation practice, there are a few things you can try. Of course, negative thoughts will never completely go away. We are all human, after all. But you can reduce their frequency and move past them with a sense of peace and calm.

1. Don’t Punish Yourself for Negative Thoughts

To start out, it’s important to remember to be kind to yourself, even when it’s hard. When your goal is centered around moving past negative thoughts, it can be frustrating when you notice negative thoughts appearing. Your first inclination might be to beat yourself up about the continued presence of negative thoughts. That self-critical nature is a negative thought in itself. It can continue the cycle without you even realizing it. Make sure that you aren’t punishing yourself mentally for the presence of negative thoughts. You don’t deserve that.

2. Acknowledge Them, Then Let Them Go

One technique that is used in mindfulness and other meditation practices is to acknowledge the negative thoughts head-on so that you can let them go and move forward. Often, trying to push down negative thoughts doesn’t work because suppressing things leaves so much below the surface. Even if negative thoughts surface over and over again throughout your meditation, simply acknowledge them and allow them to float away, as they have nothing left to give you.

3. Focus On the Breath

One of the core foundational principles of meditation, focusing on the breath can give you a concrete touchstone to return to in your body. If you notice negative thoughts bubbling up during your meditation practice, try fixating your attention completely on the breath. It can also help you feel grounded in your body and more centered in the current moment.

4. Use Meditation As a Cue for Positivity

One technique that can truly work wonders in life is to have cues for positivity and practices that are specifically designed to lift you up. You can absolutely use meditation as one of these practices! Specifically, building it into a routine and meditating at the same time every day can condition your mind to make the most out of your experience and garner as much positivity as possible from it.

5. Check In With Your Body

Similar to the technique of focusing on the breath, you can also focus on the physical sensations of your body while you meditate. This can be used as a grounding technique and a point of reference for the mind. You can try doing a body scan or simply noticing the different physical sensations around you. Notice the carpet beneath you, the temperature of the air and the feeling of your clothes on your skin. All of these small details work together to create your experience in your body, and taking the time to notice it can bring you back to yourself mentally.

6. Seek Guidance 

Sometimes, the best thing that you can do to banish negative thoughts during meditation is to look a bit outside yourself for some guidance. There are a few different ways that you can take this, and it’s up to you which one you prefer. You can go to a class and speak with a teacher about your meditation goals, you can find a guided meditation or audio track to focus on and you could even meditate with a friend or loved one. Essentially, many people Who struggle with negative thoughts or anxiety tend to do best when they meditate without complete silence. If complete silence works for you, that’s great. But there’s nothing wrong with taking a class or listening to a guided meditation.

Meditation Techniques for Negative Thoughts

Everybody has goals for their meditation practice, and if yours is about moving beyond negative thoughts, there are so many ways to work on that. From self compassion to grounding techniques, there are so many methods built into the framework of meditation that you can use to guide you towards positivity. Have you had any luck with these techniques before?