rohit
Think of the world as a jungle. All survival skills are negative, they have to be to avoid the tiger. and there are more tigers now than ever. All skills run at the speed of light. the problem is which ones are available and which we choose.
Every action has a number of choices we can choose and because we do it so fast it seems like only one. Every situation has a stack of answers we choose from, both negative (for survival) such as what if's and past experiences. And positives. (for function.) Positive what ifs and positive experiences. All in a stack like a stack of papers. Negatives and positives together for every situation. And even though it happens at the speed of light there is still limited time for each action unless you make conscious thought on the situation.
We continuously reshuffle and add to the stacks with every experience. So what you thought on a situation yesterday can be different from what you do today because what you thought may have started negative and changed to positive before added to the memory stack (and vice versa) and since it is now on top you will use that thought first. A trigger may and often does send you searching (at the speed of light) for a negative for survival. The more negatives in the solution stacks in memory the more chance you will choose one of them even if there is a positive choice. Now add in tendency and attitude as control factors and you will not only choose negative but most of your choices will be negative because that is what is in the stacks in memory from previous situations.
So you can see it is more than just changing negative to positive (the easy part) but changing your attitude and tendency and even harder, changing belief so you will choose positives out of the stack. (if there are any). Millions of solutions to situations all happening at the speed of light so that we function without banging into things and falling down. Everything we do and think first goes through memory for a reason or decision. Almost all subconscious but controlled by attitude and tendency. Everything, even how we walk and talk. (facial expressions)
So it boils down to attitude mostly. Every time you think something negative rethink it with positives. It is too late to stop the negative, it has gone into memory but not too late to put positives on top of it. Concentrating on the negative will add more to it and they are all going into memory stacks to be accessible next time a similar situation comes up. And because Man uses associated memory to think where animals don't man can use an associated thought for a solution to a problem only remotely close. This is why the more life experiences the better you are at solving problems. Eg: if you can ride a bike you can drive a motor cycle. Two different things but closely enough associated to use memory of one to make the other work. But if you have a negative attitude you will bring negatives to any associated situation. Eg: I can't ride a bike so I can't ride a motorcycle. And this attitude and tendency will carry over to all life situations.
We have a built in time factor limiting how long negative (survival) thoughts will last before we get on with life. Tendency makes this built in control longer till mild panic and anxiety turn into chronic anxiety and panic attacks. Still the built in controls will shut it down, it just takes longer.
If you have a negative tendency and a lot of negative solutions to bury it is obviously going to take a long time, especially if you keep slipping back into negative thought.
An exercise: meditate somewhere quiet. Bring up a negative situation, think positive thoughts toward it and any associated negatives that try to come up with it. Think positives till you stop thinking negative. Bring up the negative situation again. If you automatically think negative towards it then you haven't buried it good enough or you haven't changed your attitude good enough. This will give you an idea of how long it will take before you automatically think positive. It means you are still looking for the negatives in the stack in memory.
Davit.