It’s time to evict your negative thoughts.
“Hanging on to resentment is like letting someone you despise live rent free in your head”- Ann Landers
Is there someone who has done you wrong in the past?
You keep replaying that situation over in your head, dredging up the same feelings you had during the time it actually happened, even if that was years ago.
Or is there someone you just don’t like?
The very thought of them gets your heart racing, your mind spinning. You get a visceral response whenever you see them or even hear their name.
Is there something going on currently on the local or national stage that you have no control over, but it consumes your thoughts? (stock market, politics etc.)
These are all common thought scenarios that take up our valuable mental real estate free of charge.
Squatters Rights
These thoughts have moved in free of charge, now they feel like they belong.
“We were here first, this space is ours.”
It is much harder to dislodge negative thoughts than to think positive ones. Think of a typical workday. Plenty of good things probably happened, but we only remember the one or two negative experiences.
Whenever we feel like we have been wronged it is natural to dwell on it. Like the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books we keep going back to the start of the chapter, replaying the event thinking through different ways we could have handled it. This is a great way to mentally exhaust yourself.
A Facebook post, workplace drama, stock market volatility, government shutdowns all one-hundred percent out of our control, but man how they love to cozy up on our mental couch, kick off their shoes and make themselves at home. For free.
Bad Tenants
Letting these thoughts bounce around in your head does nothing positive for you. They impact your mood, productivity and your overall general sense of well being.
If you owned rental property with tenants this bad they would be on the fast path to eviction.
So why do we let these thoughts live with us daily, “rent free” as the saying goes. While the process of evicting tenants from a physical space is not easy, with lease arrangements, legal maneuvering it still can be done. The process of evicting these thoughts from our minds is much harder.
You Own the Building
In every situation where resentment has developed over a perceived or real injustice, true closure needs to occur before progress can occur. The good thing is it’s your building and you can guide this process. It starts with being honest with yourself.
Do some soul searching if you feel like you had any responsibility in how things went down, own it. Take responsibility for your part, seek the other party out, say you’re sorry then move on. Don’t think about it again. No more free rent.
Evict them!
Move on. Renovate. Make those thoughts uncomfortable in a new environment. Make them want to leave, or make their new space so small they don’t want to say.
It’s your mind and your life is too precious to give negative thoughts prime real estate without paying any rent.
Let that stuff go, life’s too short.
Great article