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How to Stop Negative Thoughts Without Fighting Yourself
A tense moment with my wife led to a 5-step mental reset that works for anxiety, creative blocks, and self-doubt.
Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash
Transparency Note: The article below contains affiliate links to book titles. If you purchase something through it, Sophia and I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This directly supports our work here. I only ever share tools I use and believe in.
That familiar, cold dread of “I did something wrong” washed over me. I had upset Sophia.
It wasn’t just what I said but how I said it. It was my tone — too sharp, too full of unseen pressure. The moment the words left my mouth, I felt the atmosphere between us ice up. I saw it in her eyes: a flicker of hurt, a closing off.
If you’ve ever felt that twist in your gut after a misspoken word, or the heavy silence that follows, you know the script. The mind races into battle. Defensiveness rises like a shield: “I didn’t mean to say it like that.” Or, shame takes the wheel: “I’m a terrible husband.” We believe we have to fight or suppress the negative feeling to make things right. It’s exhausting, and it never works.
In that tense silence, a simple, shared memory surfaced. We’d recently seen a movie where a couple, mid-argument, stopped and counted down together: 3… 2… 1… and then took a deep, synchronized breath.
“Let’s breathe together,” I said to Sophia, my voice softer now.
We held hands. We counted down. And we breathed. Three times.
That was Step One. We had just initiated what we now call The G.R.E.A.T. Reset — a 5-step method to regain power when your mind turns against you. It’s the framework Sophia and I teach in our abundance mindset classes, and in that raw, personal moment, it became the lifeline for our relationship.
Here’s what happened, step by step, and how you can use it for anything from marital spats to creative resistance.
G — Ground & Get Perspective.
We held hands. We took the breaths. The countdown (a trick that echoes Mel Robbins’ 5-Second Rule — it implies a significant change about to happen) forced a pause. In that pause, I named the thought without becoming it: “I notice I’m having the thought that I ruined the evening,” while Sophia located the hurt in her stomach. Just that — a noticing. This is non-judgmental awareness. It creates a sacred space between you and the mental noise. The emotion is allowed to exist. And here’s the counter-intuitive magic: By allowing it space, it begins to lose its power of our psyche.
R — Release & Reframe.
I felt the shame sitting in my chest. I breathed into that tight space. Instead of arguing with the feeling, I thanked it. “Thank you, mind, for bringing up this old conditioning so I can release it.” Sophia used forgiveness instead of gratitude and placed the task to forgive me and her past self for creating these thoughts and feeling into the hands of a higher power. Gratitude and forgiveness disarm the inner critic. You’re not fighting the hurt; you’re reframing it as a blessing in disguise and opportunity to heal so you can easily let it go.
Whether you use gratitude as a reframe or forgiveness as a release, the goal is the same: to disarm the critic’s power by meeting it with compassion, not combat.
E — Embody Your Empowered Self.
This is remembering the core identity shift. We asked ourselves: “Who would we be right now without this thought of being ‘the partner who messed up’ or ‘the hurt victim’? Who are we aspiring to be?” The answer was clear: Harmonious and Compassionate Partners who feel joyful and peaceful, who move through life with ease and lightness. We consciously stepped into that identity. Our posture changed, our hands still connected. We were no longer a problem to be solved; we were a team facing a moment of friction.
A — Activate and Anchor the Antidote Feeling.
The antidote to shame and hurt is connection. We remembered our state of feeling joyful, peaceful, easeful, and light. We actively generated these feelings. We noticed the release. We felt relief. A small, unnoticeable smile began to form. It wasn’t forced; it was the natural expression of the identity we had just chosen.
T — Turn & Take New Action.
The emotional loop was broken. Now, we turned inward. We gently placed our attention on the lingering tightness in our bodies — my chest, her stomach — and enveloped those spaces with the new feeling of peace and connection. Then, we took action to allow a change in physiology to cement the shift in our mental state: Sophia grabbed a tissue, I stretched, then we hugged. The conversation that followed came from a place of “us,” not “me vs. you.”
This reset isn’t just for relationships. It’s for any moment your mind rebels.
Take the classic “I’m too tired for the gym” thought.
G: “I notice I’m having the thought that I’m too tired.” (Pause, one breath).
R: “Thanks, mind, for looking out for my energy. I’ve got this.” (Release the grip that tiredness has over your mind and body).
E: “Who would I be without this thought? The athlete who feels energized and proud after a workout.” (Step into that person’s posture).
A: Generate a shot of determination and excitement to get to move your athlete body. Feel it. Smile.
T: Turn to the tiredness and envelope it with warmth and light; then put on your gym clothes and shoes. Just the first small action that leads to many other healthy actions that follow.
The thought isn’t gone. It isn’t suppressed either. It’s just background noise that has come and will leave in due time. You are in the driver’s seat because you are no longer the tired person — you are the athlete who shows up.
Most mindset shift techniques fail because they start with a battle. “Stop thinking that!” The G.R.E.A.T. Reset succeeds because it starts with compassionate witnessing. It is a practical, immediate application of the teachings we love — from the Buddha’s mindfulness practices to Neville Goddard’s assumption (in The Power of Awareness) to James Clear’s Atomic Habits. You assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled (Embody & Activate) by first making peace with where you are (Ground & Release), then let the wholesome habits of the person you strive to be take over (Turn & Take Action).
The Unspoken Belief We All Hold:
We believe our negative thoughts are orders we must obey, magma we must keep from erupting, or enemies we must destroy. The gentler truth is that they are just weather patterns in the mind. You don’t fight the storm. You learn to ground yourself within it, and let it pass.
Your Practical Takeaway: The next time a negative thought arises — be it doubt before a client call, resistance to a creative project, or frustration in a relationship — don’t fight it. Pause. Say “Time for a G.R.E.A.T. Reset.” Go through the steps. It takes 60 seconds tops. You are not managing a thought; you are consciously choosing who to be.
This is the essence of identity shifting. You move from being plagued by a thought to being the person who transcends it through awareness and choice.
Changing your identity in a vacuum is hard. The mind loves its old, familiar stories. That’s why we created Shift Your Identity (SYI), our free Skool community.
It’s a space of like-minded people on the path of manifestation, assumption, and conscious creation. Here, you find more than inspiration — you find accountability. You can share your reset wins, get support on your stuck points, and practice these shifts in a supportive tribe. The journey from knowing to being is always lighter together.
If this resonated with you — if you’re tired of battling your mind and ready to start compassionately redirecting it — you’re who we built this community for.
Breathe. Reset. Step into who you choose to be. We are there, doing it alongside you.
With peace and belief,
Sophia & Cristof
The Missing Link Between Enlightenment and Manifestation
How I resolved the conflict between wanting nothing and creating everything — and how you can, too.
Photo by Lance Grandahl on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of something I struggled with for a long time.
This path of spiritual growth and conscious creation… it can feel confusing. Contradictory, even.
And if you’re feeling that tension, you’re not alone.
Something tells me you’re someone who feels deeply called to both inner peace and outer creation.
You want the freedom the Buddha spoke of, but you also feel the pull to manifest a life you love.
And if that’s true, you’ve likely felt the friction between these two worlds.
From my own journey and the work we do, I’ve seen that this conflict often shows up in a few key ways. See if one of these feels familiar.
The Seeker: You’ve studied the path to end suffering, but you wonder if that means you have to give up on your dreams and desires.
You feel a pull towards non-attachment, but you also have goals, a business to run, a life to build. It feels like a choice between being spiritual or being successful.
What you need isn’t to abandon your desires, but to understand how fulfilling them can actually be part of your path to freedom.
The Manifestor: You’ve tried using the law of assumption, but it often leaves you feeling more attached, more desperate for the 3D world to confirm your imaginal act.
You visualize and feel the feeling, but a part of you is still anxiously checking — did it work? This very craving, as the Buddha taught, is the root of the suffering you’re trying to escape.
This isn’t a failure of the technique. It’s a misunderstanding of its highest purpose.
The Integrator: You sense these two truths must be connected, but the bridge between them has always felt vague and intellectual if not outright elusive.
You’re ready for a practice that doesn’t just sound good, but that feels like a profound relief in your body and mind — the relief of true alignment.
Wherever you see yourself, the resolution isn’t about choosing one master over the other.
It’s about finding the one powerful point where their teachings fuse into a single, liberating practice.
It all comes down to a single, misunderstood moment: the moment you generate the “feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
Most people use this feeling to fuel their craving for the 3D world. This, according to the Buddha’s precise map of the mind, only creates more suffering.
But when you do it correctly — when you generate the feeling as an end in itself — something miraculous happens.
Relief. Satisfaction. Peace.
The craving doesn’t just get quieter. It stops. In that moment, you have everything you actually wanted. The thirst is quenched in your imagination. The 3D manifestation becomes a secondary detail.
You are no longer manifesting from a place of hunger. You are creating from a place of satiation.
This is the “forbidden alignment” we discovered. The Buddha gave us the map to end suffering. Neville gave us a precise tool to walk it.
If you’re ready to experience this shift, we explore it deeply in our article, “The Forbidden Alignment: What the Buddha and Neville Goddard Secretly Agree On.”
This is the work we live and breathe in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity. It’s a place to move from conflict to clarity, together.
Remember, the most powerful shift is an inward one.
Make the shift inwardly, and the mirror of life is bound to conform.
With alignment,
Sophia & Cristof
The Forbidden Alignment: What the Buddha and Neville Goddard Secretly Agree On
How a 2,600-year-old Buddhist truth and a modern manifestation secret point to the exact same method for finding peace and realizing your goals.
Image created with the help of Canva AI
I (Sophia) was having a crisis of faith, and I bet you’ve felt it too.
On one hand, I am a devoted student of the Buddha’s path. My mornings begin with taking refuge. I am convinced his teachings on the end of suffering are the ultimate truth. The Dhamma is my compass.
On the other hand, I was diving deep into the work of Neville Goddard. His teachings on the power of imagination to shape reality were producing tangible results. But a quiet, persistent voice in my heart kept whispering:
“Are you being led astray? Is this desire for manifestation pulling you away from the freedom from desire?”
It felt like I was trying to serve two masters. One promised enlightenment; the other promised the world. The cognitive dissonance was a low-grade hum of spiritual anxiety.
This morning, a line from Neville’s The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) made me ponder:
“There is only one substance. This substance is consciousness. It is your imagination which forms this substance into concepts. Which concepts are then manifested as conditions, circumstances, and physical objects.”
I brought it to Cristof, whose understanding of the Buddha’s teachings is profound. “This,” I said, “reminds me of Dependent Origination.”
What happened next wasn’t just an intellectual exercise. It was the key that unlocked the door between my two worlds. The relief was immediate and physical — a literal weight lifted from my chest. We realized we hadn’t found a contradiction; we had found the secret bridge.
And it all hinges on one powerful, misunderstood link: craving.
The Meeting Point of Two Giants
For those unfamiliar, the Buddha’s teaching on Dependent Origination is a practical map of how the mind works and suffering arises. It’s a twelve-link chain, and a crucial part of it goes like this:
Consciousness leads to…
Body-Mind (Name & Form) which leads to…
The Six Senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch… and the mind as the sixth sense, the one that imagines) that allow for…
Contact between a sense and an object (including a thought or mental image), leading to…
Feeling (the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral experience from that contact; not to be confused with emotion), turning into…
Craving (the “I like this, I want more” or “I hate this, I want it gone” reaction).
This craving is the engine of suffering. It’s what makes us cling, grasp, and ultimately feel pain when reality doesn’t match our wants.
Now, let’s look at Neville through this lens.
Neville says the one substance is Consciousness.
Your Imagination (the sixth sense) forms this consciousness into concepts. This is the Contact with a mental object.
Next, the Feeling of that concept arises. Neville calls this the “feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
And here is where the magic happens. Where the two teachings don’t just align — they complete each other.
The Hack Isn’t Getting; It’s Stopping
The common mistake in manifestation is to feel the “wish fulfilled” with the desperate energy of craving for the 3D world to confirm it. We feel the feeling in order to get the thing. This, according to the Buddha’s map, directly fuels the chain of suffering.
But what Neville actually taught — and what we so often miss — is that the feeling of the wish fulfilled is an end in itself.
When you successfully generate the feeling that your desire is already fulfilled, what happens?
Relief. Satisfaction. Peace.
The thirst is quenched. The hunger is satiated. In that moment of genuine, embodied feeling, the craving stops.
You have, using Neville’s technique, actively broken the Buddha’s chain of suffering before it could create more suffering.
You are no longer “manifesting from lack.” You are “manifesting from satiation.” You have your desire realized in the only place it has ever truly existed: in your consciousness. The 3D manifestation becomes a secondary confirmation, a natural echo, not the source of your happiness. You can enjoy it when it appears, and you are equally at peace if it hasn’t yet, because your state of fulfillment is internal and untouchable.
This is the ultimate freedom. It’s not the absence of desire; it’s the absence of craving. The Buddha provided the comprehensive map to end suffering — the Noble Eightfold Path. What Neville Goddard offers is a powerful, precise tool for navigating one of the most difficult parts of that map: dissolving the craving of a specific desire before it takes root.
Your 2-Minute Practice to Dissolve Craving
This isn’t just philosophy. It’s a tool you can apply daily to keep desires from turning into craving. Here’s how you can use it today.
Identify the “Why” Behind the “What”: Pick a desire. Let’s say it’s “$10,000 a month.” Now, ask: ”What feeling would having that give me?” Is it security? Freedom? Validation? A sense of being capable and successful?
Step Into the Feeling, Not the Vision: Close your eyes. For just two minutes, forget the money. Forget the bank statement. Instead, generate the core feeling itself.
→ Feel the shoulders-drop relief of security.
→ Feel the deep-breath expansiveness of freedom.
→ Feel the chest-out confidence of being capable.Rest in the Relief: Linger in this feeling. Let it feel real and true right now. As Neville said, you must feel it so real that you experience a sense of relief, as if the thing is done. The moment you feel that relief, the craving for the external object vanishes. You have what you actually wanted all along.
It’s like the child who, unable to have a cat, imagines petting one so vividly they feel the joy and purring. They aren’t desperate for the physical cat in that moment; they are satiated by the feeling of love and joy. That feeling is the true goal.
Walking the Path, Aligned
This realization was our liberation from spiritual conflict. We no longer have to choose between the path to enlightenment and the tools for a well-lived life. They are two languages describing the same truth: consciousness is primary, and freedom is found not in getting what you want, but in no longer being enslaved by the wanting itself.
You can be a powerful creator of your own reality and a peaceful Buddha-in-training. In fact, one is the surest path to the other.
Ready to make this shift with a supportive community?
This synthesis of mind, manifesting, and identity is what we live and breathe in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a place where we move beyond theory and into practice.
Inside SYI, you get:
A supportive community to share your journey and successes.
Live Q&A calls where we dive deeper into these alignments.
Practical teachings on identity shifting to make these states a permanent part of your being.
Stop feeling the conflict and start experiencing the alignment.
Click here to join our free Shift Your Identity (SYI) community.