{"id":5247,"date":"2017-03-15T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=5247"},"modified":"2017-03-11T12:33:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T17:33:29","slug":"letting-go-obsessive-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Question:<\/strong> When things don\u2019t work out in my life &#8212; when I lose someone or something &#8212; I am plagued by thoughts over what could have\/should have been. How do I pull myself out of this obsessive thinking\u00a0about what I once had?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer: <\/strong>The sense of self that any suffering produces is guaranteed to find ways to continue that same suffering. Try to see when these sad thoughts come to you and invite you into their world that they always promise you something. Connect the pain that follows your entrance into their world with their presence, and eventually you will see through these lies. To help you refuse this insidious invitation, ask yourself repeatedly: What good is anything I may possess that when I no longer have it, I no longer have myself? Stay with this question (and its intent) until something in you awakens that wants its own life more than the false life provided for it through temporary conditions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Question: <\/strong>My greatest weaknesses are my obsessive negativity and dramatic mood swings. I literally feel the pressure of my moods bringing me down. It is a physical force and it is painful. It wears me down and it infects my family. How do I disengage from this painful involuntary physical response to the negative images that occur in my mind?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer: <\/strong>These negative and dark pressures that are dragging you down have drawn you into a fight with them that by the very fact of that fight you have lost. Here\u2019s how to \u201cwin\u201d this spiritual battle: Imagine a house with its front door open and back door as well. Treat every passing negative feeling like a wind that enters and exits at the same moment. This can be done. The way in which these negative forces trick us into believing that they have not left when we bring them into our open awareness this way is that they simply flood back in or engage a part of our mind whose interest is in the revisitation of these devitalizing forces. Just keep coming awake and letting things go. They will tire and eventually seek more fertile ground. Be assured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: When things don\u2019t work out in my life &#8212; when I lose someone or something &#8212; I am plagued by thoughts over what could have\/should have been. How do I pull myself out of this obsessive thinking\u00a0about what I once had? Answer: The sense of self that any suffering produces is guaranteed to find&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,591],"tags":[147,2700,2699,2698,1370,141,296],"class_list":["post-5247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letting-go","category-mental-health-2","tag-loss","tag-mood-swings","tag-obsessive-negativity","tag-obsessive-thoughts","tag-painful-thoughts","tag-self-awareness","tag-suffering"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: When things don\u2019t work out in my life &#8212; when I lose someone or something &#8212; I am plagued by thoughts over what could have\/should have been. How do I pull myself out of this obsessive thinking\u00a0about what I once had? Answer: The sense of self that any suffering produces is guaranteed to find&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-03-15T16:00:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-03-11T17:33:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"Question: When things don\u2019t work out in my life &#8212; when I lose someone or something &#8212; I am plagued by thoughts over what could have\/should have been. How do I pull myself out of this obsessive thinking\u00a0about what I once had? Answer: The sense of self that any suffering produces is guaranteed to find&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html","og_site_name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","article_published_time":"2017-03-15T16:00:29+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-03-11T17:33:29+00:00","author":"Guy Finley","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@guy_finley","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html","name":"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts - Letting Go with Guy Finley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-03-15T16:00:29+00:00","dateModified":"2017-03-11T17:33:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2017\/03\/letting-go-obsessive-thoughts.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Letting Go of Obsessive Thoughts"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/","name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","description":"Holistic, Mental Health and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16","name":"Guy Finley","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","caption":"Guy Finley"},"description":"Bestselling \"Letting Go\" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5249,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions\/5249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}