I think if you’re thinking this you’re also learning to be fair with yourself!! Good on you! Don’t take on the negative force that sometimes tells us one thing that’s bad about ourselves. If you can see the good and bad answer of your question from worry, choose the good answer! It’ll be you being good to yourself !

You have to redirect your thoughts. Ask yourself if it's absolutely true. I may have suggested this before but go to YouTube and look up Dr. Daniel Amen and ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) or go to his website www.amenclinics.com and go to blogs and check him out.

I agree with Green. I have to redirect my thoughts often. If I find a song impacting my mood in a negative way I change the station. I'm not watching as much negative news online or tv. I walk an hour a day to clear my thoughts. I'm more mindful of eating less junk food. Also trying to keep a better sleep routine. My mom used to tell me to be kind to myself. I'm realizing more and more that no one on earth will love me better than I love myself

You’re not alone in struggling with this. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between a reasonable concern and an anxious thought.

The approach that’s helped me the most is the cognitive distortion model, first developed in the 1970s by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck. I was introduced to this model and the idea of automatic negative thoughts (often called ANTs) through Dr. David D. Burns’ book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, which I highly recommend. GreenEyes' recommendation of Dr. Daniel Amen is also a good one. (Dr. Amen first coined the term "ANTs.")

Here are the ten common cognitive distortions:

1) All-or-nothing thinking: Seeing things in black-and-white categories. If something isn’t perfect, it feels like a total failure.

2) Overgeneralization: Taking one negative event and assuming it will keep happening. (“This always happens to me.”)

3) Mental filter: Focusing on a single negative detail and letting it overshadow everything else.

4) Discounting the positive: Brushing off positive experiences or feedback as if they don’t count.

5) Jumping to conclusions: Interpreting things negatively without solid evidence. This includes mind reading (assuming you know what others are thinking) and fortune telling (predicting things will turn out badly).

6) Magnification or minimization: Blowing problems out of proportion or shrinking strengths and successes.

7) Emotional reasoning: Assuming that because you feel something strongly, it must be true. (“I feel it, so it must be real.”)

8) Should statements: Telling yourself how you or others “should” or “must” behave, which often leads to guilt, frustration, or resentment.

9) Labeling: Attaching a harsh, global label to yourself or someone else based on a single behavior. (“I’m an idiot” instead of “I made a mistake.")

10) Personalization and blame: Taking responsibility for things outside your control, or blaming others in ways that overlook context.

Fighting ANTs is a skill that takes a lot of practice. Here's the process that has helped me challenge my own negative thoughts. It originates from the cognitive distortion theory developed by Beck and expanded upon by Burns, Amen, and others:

1) Write down your automatic negative thoughts (ANTs): Putting them on paper helps get them out of your head and makes them easier to examine.

2) Identify the type of ANT: Recognizing the pattern is the first step in understanding it.

3) Ask yourself these five questions:

-- Is this thought true?
-- Is it absolutely true, 100% of the time?
-- How do I feel when I believe this thought?
-- How would I feel if I couldn’t have this thought?
-- Is the opposite true, or perhaps even truer than the original thought?

I hope this helps in some way. Hugs.

i take a two-step approach.

1) share within my support network and ask for reality checks.
2) let go and let god. if the negative thought is legit and changeable, the solution will come to me in due time.

I think Judy, Thank's Judy, btw, really summed up things very well. I've read the "Feel Good" Books and Cognitive therapy hits the nail on the head on our thinking processes. I've also been doing DBT which has been helpful. I take a PAUSE and think about my thoughts and how are they affecting me and how realistic it is to let them take over. I hope this all helps you. Hugs

I think arfie is right on number 2 on that 2-step approach,
let it go, let God take care of it.,

But, You can't help to wonder, why.. are these intrusive thought's happening.

That's one reason why I play guitar, so I'm not thinking about this situation. When I was in school and taking guitar lessons, I never thought about it. But, now I am, so every time I have these thought's, I listen to a song, that expresses how I feel.

Some of those Lyric's are in some of my journal's.