Have you ever had a negative thought and felt like it was an emergency? Like something had gone terribly wrong — especially if you've done a lot of self-development work and feel like you should know better by now? I've certainly been there.

In this episode, I'm answering the question several listeners sent me after last week's episode on Eileen Gu and Olympic thinking: Okay, but how do I actually make my head a good place to be?

Here's where I start: with normalization. Negative thinking isn't a sign that something is broken. It's just what human brains do — they're trying to keep us safe. The moment we stop treating every unwanted thought like a crisis is the moment we start having some power over them.

From there, I walk you through the framework I actually use myself — including how I stopped talking trash about my body after literal decades, not through years of painstaking work, but by making a decision. I use the metaphor of being a vegetarian: just because someone offers you something doesn't mean you have to put it on your plate. Your brain is going to keep offering you thoughts. You get to decide which ones you accept.

I also talk about:

• Why giving yourself permission to keep your negative thoughts can paradoxically loosen their grip
• What to do when thoughts are really sticky — and why curiosity and compassion work better than willpower
• The ironic moment that happened after I recorded this episode (my brain is very on-brand)

The goal isn't a mind that never generates negative thoughts. The goal is a mind that feels safe — even when it doesn't feel good.

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