Meet It, Greet It, Transform It technique & Thought Firewall Exercise

Sep 17

Raise your hand if you struggle with negative thoughts and emotions. Don’t worry—you’re not alone. We all do from time to time, and if we’re in recovery or healing, those negative thoughts and emotions can be quite persistent.

Why do we lean toward negative thinking so easily? Neuroscientists call it “negative bias,” which was great when we had to be on alert for predators over 100,000 years ago, but not so great now. The awesome thing is that we now understand our brains are malleable. We can rewire them toward positive thinking, emotions, and behaviors. The more we push our brains in that direction, the more they will go that way on their own.

We begin with my Meet It, Greet It, Transform It technique. First, we Meet It by acknowledging the thought or emotion’s presence. This takes awareness. If any of you are like I was, this may take some effort. I loved to shove my emotions down and pretend they weren’t there, but that’s how I ended up collapsed on my kitchen floor hysterically crying, in an out-of-body experience. But that’s a story for another day.

After you’ve acknowledged the thought, Greet it. Give it a name. Is it fear, insecurity, rejection, loneliness, jealousy? Is it a trigger, like a place or a person? Then, allow yourself to move through the thought or emotion and process it.

Remember, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable as you do this. Many of us have spent a lot of time (and money) avoiding uncomfortable feelings. It’s also okay to be angry or sad. It’s normal. Many of us have been hurt, and some of us have been traumatized by what we’ve been through in our lives, present company included.

That’s why it’s important to have as many recovery and healing tools in your toolkit as possible while you’re on your journey, so you have ways to ground yourself and manage your anxiety.

Finally, you’ll Transform It. You’ll do this by changing your mind to something you’re grateful for. Having an attitude of gratitude creates new, positive pathways for our brains to follow. We can change from saying we’re happy the glass is half full to grateful for the cup. We can shift our thinking from saying, “What good is it?” to “What is the good?”

When we do this after a negative thought or emotion, it becomes easier to not only keep them spiraling but also prevent them from popping up so often.

A great exercise to help you sort through your emotions and thoughts is the Thought Firewall Exercise: