I own my Thoughts … what does this mean and how does keeping thoughts to myself help me? A tough one, but let’s begin with asking a few questions about the matter:

When you get annoyed or angry with a situation, what is one of things you first do right off the bat? Do you text or call your friends so you can vent to them? Do you gather all your closest friends all in one place, so they can be updated at the same time?

Then, what happens next? Since they happen to be your closest friends, they will most likely have your back and say you are right no matter what. It feels good to vent to them. However, whenever there is an update to the situation, the same subject comes up again. This just leads to more negative feelings coming up on a constant basis. It means you are easily distracted and consumed with negativity all the time.

This is true, isn’t it? When life is not going so well, all we tend to do is vent. That’s the only thing we feel like doing. And one of the main reasons we do it is because we get a lot of support.

For example, if you happen to hate your job to the point where you are miserable having to wake up to go there each day, your family and friends all know about. You spread it everywhere, from the updates you make on Facebook and Twitter to conversations. Your thoughts are consumed by it. Unfortunately, it just makes your day worse when you do this.

It could be any situation: A rocky relationship, trouble with a friend, etc., and when you share the negative parts of your life to everyone you know, you may get a lot more bad out of it than good. When you vent, you might get some temporary satisfaction out of it. However, your day sucks because you can’t think of anything else. Your day is worse, even when you stop thinking about it. You vented to so many people about your problem that someone is bound to bring it up again. Watch out, here comes all the negativity once more.

That is why I really favor keeping life’s hardships to oneself. Sure, it is fine to vent now and again. But, when you vent on a constant basis, really all you are doing is complaining constantly. Whenever you do this, you just adding another step in driving yourself insane. It makes it very hard to forget about it, and it ends up consuming your whole day. Actually it is the negative thoughts that consume the day. We definitely don’t want to live our lives that way.

It is very hard keeping problems to ourselves sometimes. I completely understand. The situation is on your mind and it’s hard not just blurting it out. However, when you do this, you really don’t do yourself any favors. You tend to just make the situation harder on yourself. When we think about something too much, we make the situation even worse in our mind. We begin creating scenarios and over-analyzing things. We ask “what if” and “how come” questions. It can ruin your mood and day. Why let this happen?

When you learn to keep your problems to yourself, it teaches you great self-control. You learn how to manage your thoughts and mind. You start to realize, that all the venting in the world to others to help make you feel better really doesn’t work. Ultimately, it is up to you and how you think about yourself and your situation that helps you feel better.

Why not try it?

Whatever the situation happens to be, from relationship problems to hating your job, try keeping things to yourself. Stay within yourself and learn how to work through things. It will make you stronger. You will start to realize the actions you need to take to pull yourself out of the negative situation that you are in.

TRY IT!