I get really easily sucked into negative thinking and I want to stop. I'm making improvement, at least!

Unfortunately, I've always been more of a negative thinker, and I can get stuck on it pretty easily. It's not unusual for me to not even realize my brain is going there until I've already been stuck in a loop for awhile. I'm definitely getting better at recognizing it and redirecting to gratitude about what is going well in my life rather than what isn't, but I really want to retrain my brain if at all possible.

I know I can do it, because I have certain times where I really do well, but sometimes I fall off the wagon. I'm also so much better about it than I used to be. I'm noticing that I continue to improve, especially since I recognize that when my brain starts going into a mode of focusing on all of the bad things that have happened, I can now redirect it to all of the good things that have happened instead and how lucky I really am. Today, I was thinking about something bad that happened that I really regret (and something that's very easy for me to get caught up in), but I immediately thought of some great people I have in my life and it made me start to think about how lucky I am to have them, and how glad I am that we're in each other's lives. It made it all so much better. Yes, there will always be problems and not everything will go my way, but I really try to focus on the many things I have to be grateful for.

My next goal is to recognize it more quickly, before it gets me sad or angry first. I know I'll always experience those emotions at certain times in my life and that is okay, but I don't want to unnecessarily dwell on things, either.