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So tired...

What does anyone here do when the negative thoughts start to creep in. I have been trying to stay positive, and with comments and input from all you guys, I have been doing pretty well with that. But sometimes I start to over-analyze, and play out what-if's and what did she really mean when she said that... Is there an effective method to wipe out those things before they start to take hold?
Thanks.

O,

Real quickly, since I'm about to head out:

May sound odd, but when my mind starts swirling away on a flight of past-present-future negativity, I try to 1) recognize and admit that it's happening: ("Okay. here I go again"). 2), for me that voice is the little boy me in me. Not the good one (joy, wonder, stars, bubbles, etc.), but the adaptive little boy ("Okay, there you go again") and I gotta get his sticky little fingers off the steering wheel fast so I talk to that side of me quickly. ("I'll handle this") . 3) And then I totally interrupt/break what I'm doing. I will pull the car over and get out for a moment. I will stop mowing the lawn and read a book or magazine for 20 seconds. I will turn off the TV and go throw out the garbage. I will leave wherever I am for a 2 minute walk. I will sing. Anything.
Then congratulate myself.

Yeah, I know...I'm weird

Thanks, gardener, I will keep those ideas in mind.

Monday night W had her IC. I didn't ask how it went even though I wanted to. Last night she went out with friends, I went to a wake and the gym. The wake was for the father of a friend of mine who has been very helpful to me during this whole thing. He is a Catholic deacon, and he knows both of us. Even at his dad's wake, he was asking how I was and what was going on. It is good to have friends like that.
I finally picked up "The Divorce Remedy" and will read it today (the boss is off today)

Orich, what has helped me tremendously with this problem - I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's books, The Power of Now series. The Power of Now is his first book, Practicing the Power of Now and Stillness Speaks.

Practicing the Power of Now is a good read - it's a condensed version of his first book. But they are all good.

When I catch myself mentally wandering into the future I just remind myself I am writing a fictional story in my head. I have no idea what the future holds and any thoughts regarding this are just a waste of time. Those thoughts are just an attempt by my ego to somehow control things and to try to 'guess' the future. They usually are of the negative flavor - negative projection. (A little man in a dark room making negatives)

Steady,
Thanks for the advise. It's true, I don't know the future, I can only guess. It doesn't look good, but nothing is set in stone. Worrying isn't going to change the future either. I will check out those books

See? There it is right there. It actually doesn't look like anything..it doesn't even exist except in your mind. This is you projecting negaatively. How do you really know what it looks like? (rhetorical question)

All event are actually neutral and it's how we 'perceive' (guess) what impact the current situation will have in our future is how we determine whether the event is actually good or bad. Like Shakespeare said: "Nothing is good or bad but our thinking that makes it so."

Here's a Zen story that fits in this vein:

We'll See...

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

"Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.

"We'll see," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

"How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.

"We'll see," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

"We'll see," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

"We'll see" said the farmer.

I do hard Sudoku to stop my head running away with itself.

Also, getting some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, (CBT), might help you with dealing with situations. It helps you look at how you approach things, deal with them in smaller chunks, recognise those things you can't deal with now and so might as well just store away for later etc........ I have found it invalauble.

Steady,
Hard to see, but I think I understand. It all comes back to being positive, focusing on the good, and not even considering which way the future might go, no?
Saffie,
I have tried many times to do Sudoku. It just gives me a headache
How does one get CBT? It sounds beneficial. Do you need to see a therapist? I do know that I tend to be codependant, so I am looking into that, too.
Thank you both for your responses.

I'll clarify...

You said, "It doesn't look good, but nothing is set in stone."

I replied it doesn't look like anything. It doesn't exist. It doesn't look good or bad, in only looks like what it actually is at this moment. You can't project what you see now into the future as something bad or something good.

The only thing set in stone is what has been and what is right now. It is what it is... nothing more, nothing less.

I was pointing out that your comment had the element of projecting into the future what you 'imagine' what it would look like. You could just as easily have said it does look good...although either response is incorrect.

Some what if scenarios:

What if, in the future, things don't work out as you hope they will right now... what if it all went opposite of what you want...but you end up being happier and healthier than you could ever have imagined. From that perspective, is what's happening now good or bad?

What if you go through all of this, which appears to be 'bad', and then it leads to the whole sitch turning around and you and W reconciling into a R that is beyond both of your wildest dreams? Would what is happening now be good or bad?

But the bottom line is this - both of those projections are actually a waste of mental time and energy. No one knows how it will play out. The important thing is to concentrate on what is right in front of you now...and I don't mean the sitch. I mean literally, what you are doing right now.