Is Your Negative Thinking Blocking Love? 5 Hacks To Rewire Your Brain
Stop self-sabotaging your relationships
getty It can be so frustrating when lasting love feels elusive. It feels like the universe is telling you that you’re not supposed to have love; as if there is some invisible force micromanaging your life, making sure you don’t get love.
While it’s unlikely that karma or fate are blocking love, your strategies for giving and receiving love — which are influenced by self-sabotage and negative self-talk — probably are.
You learned all about love in your family of origin. The way love is expressed (or the lack of expression), the strategies utilized by your family members to feel love, approval, and acceptance are all part of the equation.
Unfortunately, most people don’t ever consciously upgrade those behaviors, beliefs, or strategies. Don’t let a little kid’s understanding of love be the reason you continue to struggle.
Here are 5 hacks to "rewire" your brain so you stop blocking love in your life.
1. Go on an "inner-child date."
The little child inside of you might sabotage your attempts to create lasting love because you’re not paying enough attention to their needs and wants.
No one receives love exactly how they desire to feel loved. The gap between what you desire and how you give love creates a wound inside of you.
How do you know that your inner child is blocking love?
- You sabotage good relationships
- You seek validation for your feelings from others
- You don’t trust your intuition
- You abandon your needs and wants
- You select a similar mismatch for a relationship over and over again
It’s time to rewire your relationship with your inner child. The quickest hack is to start going on "inner-child dates" so you can transform your relationship with them (and therefore, yourself).
The “rules” around the inner-child date are as follows:
Once a week for two to three hours, engage in an activity selected by the little child inside of you. There is no multi-tasking. If you go for a walk and you have a dog, you do not walk the dog. This activity is done by yourself and for yourself only.
For 12 consecutive weeks, the activities must be unique. At the end of 12 weeks, reflect on which activities refueled you the most. These dates should be a top priority and treated as if they're the most important event scheduled on your calendar with the most important person.
Do not cancel on yourself.
2. Practice receiving.
This assignment may make you feel resistant. You might not want help with your baggage. Because of this, many people come up with reasons why they can't receive a compliment, help, or even verbal support.
Human beings are meant to live in communities — that means you rely on one another. No one thrives in life alone.
Saying, “Yes!” to all the support and help offered to you will be great practice for receiving from the person you would like to have in your life.
Receive compliments from strangers by saying, “Thank you!” Resist the urge to reciprocate by offering them a compliment in return. Allow someone to get your door or carry your bags. Say yes to an offer of help.
If you want to remove what's blocking you from love, open up to receive and receive it all!
3. Make fear your friend.
Emotional fear is probably blocking love from you more than you can imagine. If there's a risk of physical danger, then fear is present for your survival. However, emotional fears are nothing more than paper tigers.
Emotional fear is a force field that surrounds the path to your highest and best self.
If you’ve never experienced what you desire, then what you want is unfamiliar. Growing towards the love you desire means you must step toward that fear, not away from it.
Stepping toward the unfamiliar through fear won’t kill you. In fact, you won’t experience any physical harm whatsoever.
A friend is someone you’re happy to see, not someone you’re looking to avoid. By making fear your friend, you're ensuring your own personal transformation.
Fear is only blocking love from you if you let it. Breaking free of the status quo may feel scary and uncomfortable, however, comfort is overrated.
Stepping toward your fear takes courage and commitment. Take an action that says, “I count and I matter. My needs and desires are worth fighting for.”
When you take this action and step toward what you’re afraid of, your energy will free up and every part of your life will begin to change.
4. Laugh.
You're blocking love when you focus on negative events. Don’t get trapped by repeatedly reliving bad things.
Instead, you can rewire your brain through a simple but effective laughter exercise. Tell the details of a hurtful event, and laugh while doing it. This will rewire the emotional response to the event.
This technique will lighten your spirits and rewire your emotional response to those painful events you’ve experienced. Emotions trigger chemicals in your brain that flood the body, and faking an emotion has the exact same effect. Yes, really!
It can be difficult to imagine yourself laughing about something serious or traumatic. However, fake laughing will give you all the benefits of real laughter, so get ready to fake it until you make it!
There are three sounds that make up laughter: "Ho," "ha," and "hee." Vocalizing them three at a time will give you an easy way to start. Place your hands on your lower belly, take a deep breath, and then begin to fake laugh:
"Ha Ha Ha! Ho Ho Ho! Hee Hee Hee!"
After a few moments, you’ll find that you'll start laughing for real. Laughter is infectious and contagious. Once you have a good laugh going, retell the upsetting story of what happened out loud.
It may take some getting used to, but practice makes perfect. Asking a friend to help makes this exercise easier and more fun.
Tell your wounding stories like they're the most hilarious events you can think of. Be sure to have your friend laugh with you, and those events will no longer haunt you or block love in your life.
5. Be grateful.
Want to stop blocking love for good? Find gratitude.
A gratitude practice is the number-one way to rewire your brain. Gratitude keeps you focused on finding love in your everyday life.
See if you can find the gratitude for your past relationships, including all the ones that really hurt you. Focusing on how experiences with your exes motivated you to grow and make changes in your life will help you find the gratitude in your breakups.
Look for reasons to be grateful by keeping a nightly gratitude journal. Write down five things you're grateful for at the end of the day, and you’ll fall asleep with a smile on your face.
Happy, grateful people are more fun to be around and are generally more attractive to possible matches (nobody wants to spend a lot of time with someone who is negative or cynical).
It’s important to practice gratitude right before going to bed, as you'll take these suggestions into your sleep, your dreams, and integrate a feeling of gratitude into your subconscious mind.
The list can be different every night, or you can repeat some or all of the items. It’s entirely up to you.
Feel free to include people, your pets, events, a characteristic of yours like your creativity or tenacity, material things such as your car or home, or whatever you want to put on the list.
The important thing is to turn this practice into a nightly ritual and to do it before going to sleep.
Your old habits of thinking and outdated strategies are blocking love from you, whether you're consciously aware of it or not. Expressing gratitude for what you do have feeds your soul and creates space for more good to flow into your life.
These hacks will rewire your brain for long-lasting love over time. Make a plan to incorporate these new habits into your daily life.
Orna and Matthew Walters have been soulmate coaches for over a decade and helped thousands of readers create soul-lasting love. Download a complimentary copy of their ebook, "Recognizing Mr. Right," along with a guided program on self-acceptance on their website.