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Breaking out of Negative Thoughts and Rumination

Do you ever feel like your mind is racing or your thoughts are stuck in a loop? You might be experiencing what’s called negative thinking or rumination. People who engage in this tend to overthink things, strive for perfection, look at the downside of events and miss the good stuff that happened to them.

Coping with negative thoughts and rumination can be a challenge. But it’s not impossible to overcome, and it’s not something you have to live with forever.

The good news is that you can learn ways to cope with negative thinking and rumination without using medications. Here are some things that might help:

1) Practice mindfulness meditation. This involves focusing on the present moment without judgment, especially when you have negative or repetitive thoughts. You can try this by focusing on your breath, listening to music or nature sounds (like rain or waves), or simply sitting quietly in silence and noticing what’s happening around you (or inside yourself).

2) If you are spiritual, pray! Prayer is a powerful weapon against depression and anxiety. It can be hard to pray when you are overwhelmed by negative thoughts, but if you commit yourself to prayer as a daily routine, it will help keep your mind focused on what matters most.

3) Get some exercise. Exercise releases endorphins into the brain, making us feel better about ourselves and more optimistic about our lives. So if you’ve been feeling down lately, try getting out for a run instead of staying cooped up inside all day!

4) Eat healthy foods! Eating well helps regulate hormones in our bodies that are responsible for mood swings (like serotonin). So if you’re feeling down, try eating something like strawberries or almonds—they contain nutrients that promote happiness and contentment. Ever heard the expression: “Your mental health is at the end of your fork”? It’s true.

5) Try writing down your feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside where no one else can see them except for yourself (and even then, only if you want to share them with others. Grammer and punctuation aren’t necessary. The point is to let that negative go.

6) Identify the areas where you were hurt or traumatized. Destructive thought patterns can result from betrayal, abandonment, unfair actions, and traumatic events. We can internalize external actions and believe we are the problem or too broken, leaving us in a vicious loop of negative thoughts and feelings.

7) Work with a professional therapist specializing in trauma-informed practices and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Together, you can get to the unhealthy core beliefs causing so much pain and suffering and find alternative perspectives on your life.

Negative thinking and rumination are exhausting. It ruins your sleep, and it interferes with your day. If you want help finding a way out of this destructive pattern, contact Ron Huxley and set up an appointment to start feeling good immediately! Click here now…

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Breaking the Cycle of Fear and Worry (FamilyHealer.tv Conversations)


Join me, September 23rd, from 12:15 pm to 1 pm (Pacific Standard Time) for the latest FamilyHealer.TV “Conversations”: This weeks topic is how to “Break the Cycle of Fear and Worry in Children”.


This is an education and supportive Zoom event. Parents and professionals will not want to miss this one! In this conversation, we will look at why children have anxiety, how to increase your child’s Emotional IQ, what parents can say to comfort their children, and how to help children become Worry Warriors and Fear Fighters!

This Conversations Show is part of our training course “Big Worries” at FamilyHealer.tv.

*The training portion will be recorded. Q and A is private.

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People-Pleasers Don’t Know Their Own Voice

A lot of people confess that they don’t like the fact that they are people-pleasers. Although pleasing others isn’t all bad, it is the negative qualities of always saying “yes,” taking on others’ problems and feelings, not standing up for themselves, assuming things are always their fault, and wanting others to like them or approve of them to feel valuable. If this describes you, you probably don’t like this side of you either.


People-pleasers let others’ voices be louder than their own. When left alone, they don’t know what they think or how to make the right decision. They are so used to listening to what others think or what other people want that they don’t know their minds. Practicing the art of listening to ourselves will help people-pleasers learn to know their thoughts and risk trusting their intuition.


The voice is the connection between the head and the heart.

Turning it on and up is the key to breaking the codependent pattern of people-pleasing. Start by saying your thoughts and feelings out loud. Speaking things into the space of your room makes thoughts and feelings more real. When they are in your head/heart, they can be easily dismissed or distorted. Practice this alone and build confidence for doing it in public.


When you get a thought, write it down. Words have life when written! Write it on post-it notes, as reminders on your phone, and start journaling. There is ample research on the power of handwriting your inner movements that will bring greater insight and clarity to your life. Don’t worry about grammar, making sense, or writing it perfectly. The point is to learn to recognize your thoughts and voice.


Record your voice and listen to the tone and content. How assured do you sound? Are you making excuses for your needs and wants. Do you have to apologize or qualify what you are communicating? If so, re-record it in a firmer tone and with more command.


Listen to affirmative, inspirational talks and decide what you agree with and what you don’t. Practice making statements about your likes and interests. People-pleasers often defer to others’ interests and feel they are rude or don’t have a right to say what they want. When practicing this with others, don’t expect everyone to agree with you suddenly or ask your forgiveness for controlling everything. They may act surprised that you are speaking up but will have more respect for you doing so.


People-pleasers are kind people. They want to keep the peace. The world could use more kind and peaceful people in it but don’t forget to show up. The world also needs people who are confident and can stand up for themselves too.

Get more tools for better mental health and relationships at FamilyHealer.tv

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Trouble with Anxious Thoughts?

Do you have racing thoughts and anxiety attacks? It’s hard to focus on anything else when anxiety takes control of your mind. It can ruin sleep, relationships, and your health. All you want to do is calm down and rest. 

Fortunately, there are ways to control anxious thoughts. And it just takes practice to master the techniques. 

Try these tips to control your anxiety: 

  • Distance yourself from the worrisome thoughts. Learn to look at your anxious thoughts differently.
  • The key is to reshape how you think about things.
  • When you get an anxious thought, immediately identify it as a sign of your worry and not reality. 
  • Labeling your thoughts raises self-awareness and makes it easier to control them. It also gives you something else to focus on instead of a constant worry.
  • Ask yourself questions. When you get an anxious thought, stop and ask yourself these questions:
  • What is the real reason for this anxious thought? What am I terrified about?
  • Is there a real danger, or is my mind merely playing games with me?
  • Is the negative outcome I imagine likely to happen?
  • How can I stop or change these negative thoughts into something positive? 
  • View your thoughts as data. Sometimes it’s helpful to view your thoughtss as data and your mind as a data processing center. 
  • You’ll get a lot of data coming in throughout the day. Some of this data can be incorrect and confusing. This is an example of anxious thoughts. 
  • You may also misunderstand the data. This means you allow the anxious thoughts to take over and control you. You let them grow and fester. 
  • As the data processing center, you get to decide how to handle all the information. Remember, you’re in control. This means you can choose to toss out or ignore the incorrect data. 
  • Also, keep in mind that the brain is designed to detect danger and is hypersensitive to it. You may pick up on things that aren’t even real. 
  • Focus on the present. Many anxious thoughts are focused on either the future or the past. You can break free by focusing on the present.
  • Avoid overthinking about the past or future by interrupting these thoughts. Notice when you’re thinking about the past or future and guide your thoughts back to the present moment. 
  • Sometimes thoughts from the past can make you afraid of the future. Remember that the past doesn’t have to repeat itself. You have the power to change how your future will look. 
  • Take action. Anxious thoughts often prevent you from taking action. They keep you stuck in fear and worry. Learn to take action even when you’re afraid.
  • Find one thing you can influence positively at that moment and take action.
  • Action can decrease the number of anxious thoughts you have daily. It can show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that you’re powerful, and that you can make a positive difference.
  • Get rid of unhelpful thoughts. Some thoughts may be real, but they aren’t helpful. 
  • Learn to tell helpful and unhelpful thoughts apart. 
  • Then, start to filter out the unhelpful ones. For example, if you know that the odds of making a perfect presentation at work are low, but you still have to do it, this is an unhelpful thought. It doesn’t encourage you to do your best. 

Anxious thoughts don’t have to control your life. You can use these tricks to effectively take control of your mind when you find yourself worrying. If these tips aren’t enough, consider talking to a therapist for additional help.

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Emotional Mastery: Surfing Unpleasant Emotions

I was watching a TED Talk on YouTube about Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings. Emotional mastery of these feeling states is a timely question as we deal with a Pandemic, teaching children from home, and struggling with the uncertainty of our social, financial future. Knowing how to manage unpleasant emotions is always a key question for our mental health and success in life.

Unpleasant emotions include feelings of shame, guilt, anger, sadness, anxiety, depression, fear, and grief, to name a few.

The TED Talk speaker explores how emotional mastery is demonstrated by our ability to move past/through these unpleasant emotions and not be shut down or run from them.

By “move through,” she refers to the neuroscience idea that when an emotional feeling gets triggered, chemicals flood the body, activating bodily sensations that can put into a survival state of fight, flight, and freeze. Interestingly, we experience these unpleasant emotions in our bodies before we cognitively understand them. The body always reacts first, fast, and defensively. If unpleasant feelings come from a traumatic event, we will develop emotional programs that will be set in the body to protect us from other unpleasant feelings or situations. We may make a conscious vow to never “trust people again,” be put “into an embarrassing situation ever again,” or “never take such a risk like that again” to further protect ourselves from such unpleasantness. Emotional programs (from the unconscious body-mind) and cognitive vows (from the conscious thinking-mind) paint us into a corner. Although they protect, they also prevent us from growth and success.

The goal is to “move through” unpleasant emotions and not avoid or dissociate from them. To do this, we have to “surf” the wave of bodily chemical sensations and stand up on the board of our own conscious choices. That unpleasant wave of chemicals only lasts 60-90 seconds. That is less time that a song on the radio, explains the psychologist from the TED Talk. Unpleasant emotions rush and then flush from the body.

It is the fight or flight from unpleasant emotions that make the waves more significant and more threatening than they are, and the vicious cycle of the more chemical reaction and mental obsessions continue.

How do we “move through” emotionally unpleasant feelings? The psychologists claim that the uncomfortable sensations are like a wave of chemicals that go through us like a wave. It lasts only 60-90 seconds and then dissipates. Rush and then flushed by the body.

Different unpleasant emotions have different patterns of waves: Grief has waves after waves. Anger is perhaps a big roaring wave. Sadness is a slow, lingering wave. Shame a sneaky, rip curl of a wave. But all of them come and go. We can get back on the beach and feel stable again. The beach is the place of acceptance in this metaphor.

The speaker’s recommendation is to learn to surf the unpleasant waves, let them rise, and then let them retreat. Stop fighting them, fleeing them, or freezing in the middle of them. With consistent practice, insights into life and your character will develop. The speaker describes how we will be better able to pursue the goals you dreamed about, have courageous conversations, and feel more conformable in your skin. Surfing them won’t take a lifetime. It only takes a moment. The present now where change always starts.

If you would like more information on how to surf the waves of unpleasant emotions, schedule a one-on-one session with Ron here or take a FamilyHealer.tv course at your convenience.

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Reflections for Resiliency: I Live A Worry-Free Lifestyle

In order to develop a more resilient sense of self, Ron Huxley has created a new series called “Reflections for Resiliency”. The reflections are free to use for your inner development and self-care. This is a sample of what you will get in a new course on resilience at FamilyHealer.tv, coming Fall 2020.

In this first blog on personal reflections, Ron Huxley provides direction on living a worry-free life. Use them as proclamations over your life and shift the atmosphere of your home and relationships. Use a journal along side each reflection to write our thought own thoughts and feelings. Answer the Self-Reflection Questions at the end to help you apply them to your life.

You can download a PDF version of this reflection : Click Here!

Be sure to share this blog post with your family and friends…

I Live A Worry-Free Life

There is no better way to live than to live a life full of joy, health, peace, and happiness.

I choose to live a worry-free life because I know that anxiety crowds out productivity. I can and do plan for the future, but I realize that the only moment I can control is the present.

I use the creativity and wisdom I have gained from my experiences to make the best plans I can for the future. I realize, however, that even the most carefully laid plans are just ideas – figments of my imagination susceptible to factors outside my control. By acknowledging that I have no control over the future, I free myself from the dead end of worry.

I choose to conserve my mental and emotional energy by keeping my focus on the reality of what is in front of me. I make the most of this moment and trust that I will be able to handle the next when it comes.

When my focus is on this moment, I am alert and able to recognize the people who are invaluable to me. When my focus is on this moment, I am able to take advantage of new opportunities that come my way and create a life that is rich and rewarding.

By letting go of worry, I free myself to use my energy to be productive in the here and now.

Self-Reflection Questions:

  1. Am I wasting time fretting about something that is outside my control? Why?
  2. What do I realistically gain by worrying?
  3. What can I do, today, to help me live a worry-free life?
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What is Anxiety and How to Manage Pandemic Uncertainty

In this first video of five total video series on Building Family Resiliency we talk about how to manage anxiety in a time of uncertainty. Learn powerful tools that will help you and your children find freedom from anxious thoughts. Discover bodily-based strategies that don’t require lecture, rationalization, or complex ideas to bring peace to your life.

Get more free tools at FamilyHealer.tv or schedule a time to talk to Ron today!

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Anxiety in Children: A growing US problem

Anxiety is the fastest growing problem in the US today. More and more children are presenting with problems that show up in physical symptoms and behavioral problems at home and school.

Anxiety is defined as excessive worry over a variety of topics with three or more accompanying symptoms such as tiredness, trouble sleeping, panic attacks, restlessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating and muscle aches. The presence of anxiety can lead to other medical problems such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, headaches or chronic nausea.

The better you understand what is happening your child’s body, the better you can help him or her heal from fears and anxiety.

According to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, “serious fear-triggering events can have a significant and long-lasting impact on the developing child, beginning in infancy…Children do not naturally outgrow early learned fear responses over time…and simply removing a child from a dangerous environment will not by itself undo the serious consequences or reverse the negative impacts of early fear learning.”

A child can be triggered just by thinking of giving a presentation at school, getting their homework right, seeing someone get sick or go to the hospital, reading about a disease, imagining monsters in their room, or seeing a bug crawl across their bedroom floor. Children are naturally creative and imaginative but this can become out of control thinking that results in fearful reactions. 

Emotional Hijacking

When children are triggered by a fearful or traumatic event, the brain and body will respond in a way to protect them from further hurt or harm. Even if this trigger is just imagined, it will have the same effect as if they are actually in a real, terrifying situation. The brain is giving the child a false signal that isn’t real or necessary. This signal comes from the emotional, mid-brain of the child in what is called a “fight or flight” response. The result is the emotional brain hijacking the thinking brain (the area in the front of the brain called the Prefrontal Cortex). This is very helpful if we are really in danger. It is not helpful if we are not. 

Fear could be described as “False Evidence Appearing Real.” 

Parents can help children learn how to “Face Everything and Relax.”

In order to deal with this emotional hijacking, parents must help children desensitize to stressful triggers. This is done through systematic exposure therapy, rational thinking, and bodily relaxation tools. We will explore many of these tools in this course. For additional help, it is recommended that you find a child therapist that specializes in anxiety disorders in children. 

Get more tools to help you and your child with anxiety, worry, fear, and panic at FamilyHealer.tv. The courses are free and you can get power-full tools for increased peace and joy today!

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3 Ways to Manage Anxiety Before It Manages YOU

Anxiety is the #1 mental health problem in American society. A startling one in eight people describe experiences, every week, that would qualify as a clinical diagnosis of anxiety or panic. Fortunately, it is also one of the easiest to manage if you know how!

Anxiety is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences at times. Many people feel anxious, or nervous when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test or making an important decision. Anxiety disorders, however, are different. They can cause such distress that it interferes with a person’s ability to lead a normal life. An anxiety disorder is a serious mental illness. For people with anxiety disorders, worry and fear are constant and overwhelming and can be crippling.

Here are three powerful tools, taken from Ron Huxley’s “Freedom From Anxiety” course, that you can use to manage anxiety instead of it managing you:

  1. Pause and Breathe. Take several occasions throughout your day to “pause and breathe.” Set your alarm for every couple of hours to take a couple of minutes to put everything down and take 10 good inhale and exhale breaths. Notice what is happening inside of you and around you but don’t have any judgments about it or need to take any actions. Simply notice and take another breathe. It’s OK if your awareness shifts frequently. Just go back to your slow, deep breathing.
  2.  Detect and Redirect. Play detective by cluing into what you are thinking or saying to yourself when you feel anxious. Again, don’t judge it as good or bad but take note (literally write it down) of what preceded your anxious feelings. Begin to be aware of triggers in the form of situations and socialization that make you feel anxious. Redirect yourself physically to disconnect that trigger from your life. Learn to move to another room or avoid negative conversations or take another course of action that might not lead you into an anxious state. Have a “hot list” of the 5 most anxious producing situations or thoughts to avoid. Challenge these anxious thoughts by asking how much of it is really true? One hundred percent of the time true or 50% or 10% or 1%. Even if it is true 90% of the time, what is different about the 10% that isn’t?
  3. Positive Declarations. Once you have a “hot list” of anxious thoughts, start doing or thinking the opposite. Make a list of positive declarations that start with: I am… I will… I can… Today, I have… I choose… I live… My life is… I know… I take back… It can be hard, at first, to come up with a list of positive statements so enlist the help of others. They will be much more objective. Say them out loud even it if feels awkward as your own voice can be self-empowering. The more you say them the more believable they will become and the more present in your life. Use these declarations whenever the anxious thoughts start up in your head. Yell them if necessary!

Are you ready to be free of anxiety, fear, worry, and panic? Take Ron Huxley’s FREE online course: Freedom From Anxiety. Just click here now!

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TriUnity Model of “Freedom From Anxiety”

The TriUnity Model of my online course “Freedom From Anxiety” refers to the three domains of our nature: Body, Mind, and Spirit. This faith-based approach to dealing with fear, worry, panic, and anxiety operate by focusing on our identity and destiny.

In the Bible, a favorite verse is Psalms 139 that declares, at the moment of conception, we were wonderfully and fearfully made. This original design struggles to present itself in a world full of brokenness and pain. Restoring this divine order is the central aim of the “Freedom From Anxiety” course.

To achieve this, the course addresses anxiety in the body by creating safety, turning off the false alarms, building NeuroResilience* to repair the limbic system and balance in the autonomic nervous system. It focuses on anxiety in the mind by capturing negative thoughts that lead to anxious feelings and behaviors. And finally, it concentrates on the spirit that rediscovers our true self and integrates disconnected aspects of the body and mind.

Another favorite verse is “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJB). This sound mind refers to the capacity to bounce back from traumatic events that are the root of much of our anxiety and fears. Having the correct alignment between body, mind, and spirit, allow us to build this capacity to have self-control and positive self-judgments in the face of anxious moments. 

A positive, God-centered identity allows us to have “ease” in life, living confidently and courageously. When we do not have “ease” we have “dis-ease” that affects every area of our nature. Having a higher perspective of yourself, in the world, brings a greater sense of peace. Viewing things from our bodily reactions and our mental experiences give rise to fear and terror. The world can be a scary place. Life can be overwhelming. One definition of trauma is when stressors overwhelm our capacity to manage them. Building spiritual capacity is key to our new freedom.

Learn more about how you can find “Freedom From Anxiety” by taking our free course at http://FamilyHealerSchool.com now.

*NeuroResilience is copyrighted by Ron Huxley, LMFT 2018