"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."
~ Dalai Lama
Imagine a fan spinning - bring your awareness to the sound it makes.
Negative thoughts find a way to loop—they echo in our minds like the sound of that fan. They amplify stress and pull us away from the present, either to the past or the future. Then, there we are, living from a negative mindset dominated by limiting beliefs, influenced by knowledge from past-based or future-feared experiences.
Emotions are automatic, biological responses. You can’t just stop an emotion from arising, but you can choose how you relate to it. And while cognitive strategies such as reframing or journaling can be helpful, our bodies, how we relate to our emotions, and our capacity for using creativity hold the key to true transformation.
What is important is to keep in mind that we are not striving for absolute control, but for influence, regulation, and choice.
If you've ever felt that you're thinking your way “into a hole,” there are experiential techniques that can help and offer another route: using movement, imagination, and role-play to disrupt old patterns and make space for new perspectives. The first thought or feeling shows up, and you can choose where to go and how to be next.
Here are five body-centered, creative psychodramatic practices to help transform negative thinking effectively:
1. Reverse Roles with your Negative Part
Negative self-talk often sounds like it’s coming from some inner voice inside us. Instead, try treating it as a role - a character you are playing. Psychodrama teaches us that when we externalize parts of ourselves, we can engage them directly.
Try this:
- Choose a negative thought (e.g., “I’m a failure”).
- Stand in one spot, representing the thought. Feel into the part holding this thought, and say it out loud..
- Reverse roles into another spot representing your authentic self: try saying, “This is not true. I am doing my best in difficult circumstances.” And name the facts.
- Dialogue back and forth to deepen the exchange.
- You might consider bringing in a 3rd spot or role to represent wisdom to help balance the dialogue.
Why it helps: This method gives voice to both your negative part and the underlying dynamics contributing to your experience. Ideally, the parts find a more balanced approach through wisdom. It can be empowering to witness that you are not your thoughts - you have thoughts, and you can respond to them.
2. The Embodied Interrupt
When a harsh thought enters your mind, interrupt it physically. The body holds wisdom; shifting your state in the moment can prevent a further downward spiral.
Try this:
- When you notice the thought, pause.
- Clap your hands, shake out your arms, or stomp your feet. Two of my favorite practices are to get on the floor on my back and breathe, or to go outside barefoot in the grass, stand there, and breathe.
- Take a full breath and say aloud, to yourself, one helpful, grounding statement (e.g., “I’m here. I’m safe.”).
Why it helps: Movement creates a physiological pattern break, giving your nervous system a chance to reset, helping you return to the present moment.
3. Guided Imagery with an Inner Ally
Sometimes the negative voice is loud because it is trying to protect us. Rather than push it away, we can bring in a more compassionate presence as an ally and have it stand with us.
Try this:
- Close your eyes and imagine a supportive presence - think of an animal, perhaps, or an ancestor, a mentor, or your higher self.
- Imagine them placing a hand on your shoulder and speaking to you with loving kindness.
- Let yourself be open to receiving their message, fully.
Why it helps: The brain responds to imagination similarly to how it does to real experience. Calling in an “inner ally” builds new neural pathways that are rooted in compassion and support.
4. Transform the Thought Through Art
If your negative thinking feels heavy or hard to articulate, try to create an image of it. When you externalize a thought through art, you gain the power to shift it.
Try this:
- On a piece of paper, draw or represent your negative thought.
- Notice its colors, its shape, its mood.
- Then change it - abruptly rip the paper in half, paint over it, collage it into a new image, or (safely) burn it.
- To make this psychodramatic, reverse roles with the art image, and/or aspects of the art image. And then have a dialogue to receive its message.
Why it helps: You are moving from being stuck in the thought to being the artist transforming it. The shift alone is deeply healing.
5. Voice Dialogue with the Self using the Empty Chair
We often hold multiple truths at once. The Empty Chair is a technique that invites multiple Parts and Self into conversation so multiple voices can be heard.
Try this:
- Place two chairs facing each other.
- Sitting in one chair, speak as the part of you holding the negative thought.
- Reverse roles, now sitting in the other, speak as the part of you that is calm, capable, or loving.
- Reverse roles again, and now stand behind the chair to double. (Doubling is accessing deeper understanding and expression that might be hidden beneath or held in younger parts of the system.) Come back to the chair and integrate whatever you feel called to integrate from the double.
- Let them dialogue this way, giving both roles in the chairs an opportunity to double.
Why it helps: This method will help you build a relationship between your inner parts by going deeper into your system, accessed through the doubling. Using the empty chairs as tools is a powerful way to hold the roles of the parts.
Final Thought
Negative thinking doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. We all struggle with negative and limiting thoughts. It’s what we do with them that makes the difference.
Give one of these a try today. If you’d like more support in learning these psychodramatic practices, contact me or join an upcoming workshop.
You are more than just your thoughts. You are the witness, the creator, and the healer within.
