Fog
I was driving to an early morning appointment this morning and most of the trip was made in the fog. Some of it very dense and some of it quite light. It made me think about how easy it is to walk around the world in a mental fog.
We get up, perform the chores of daily living: shower, teeth, dress, grab our favourite caffeinated drink and hit the road for work. Unless something quite out of the ordinary happens, not much will break through our routine. I think of that as being in a fog.
Then there’s the fog created by emotional issues: a fight with partner or children, grief, worry or financial problems. All of those things have the power to cloud our brains and leave us floundering. 
At times like this it is difficult to remember the good things or see beyond the problems in our life. When that happens to me, I remember a question I learned in my NLP training. It goes like this: “What is the positive purpose of thinking (behaving) in this way?” Generally speaking there isn’t one, it’s just an old pattern with its roots in our childhood. Many of us run repeating negative thoughts which serve only to suck away our energy and motivation. Asking the positive purpose question of ourselves takes away the power of the pattern.
I once worked with a woman who ran a very destructive mental pattern. She described it as having a record playing in her head over and over again. I asked her the “positive purpose” and she sat for quite awhile before saying “I can’t find one”. So I suggested she create a picture of the record and break it. She did and years later that particular set of negative thoughts still have not returned.
I am not saying that this question is a magic bullet which will end all your problems instantly; rather I am suggesting that when you catch yourself saying negative things about yourself, asking the “positive purpose” may help. At the very least, it will stop your negativity for that moment.
If you are interested in exploring this area in your life, drop me a line, I’d be happy to work with you.