Breaking the Negative Loop: Getting Out of Our Own Heads

This is Lyman Miller with Lyman’s Wild Ways and thewildways.ca, today I want to talk about something I see everywhere—in myself, in friends, in strangers online, in people I meet day to day. It’s that negative loop that runs in our heads, the one that keeps us stuck even when life is handing us better options.

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for real wisdom in a world that feels like it’s lost its mind. The more I look, the more I notice how often we refuse to hear the truth—even when it’s right in front of us. We get told something helpful, something that could change things for the better, and instead of listening, we double down on the old story. It’s like that old line: it’s easier to fool somebody than to convince them they’ve been fooled.

We all do it. We cling to beliefs, habits, or versions of ourselves that stopped serving us years ago. And the crazy part? It’s okay to be wrong. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody messes up. The real damage happens when we won’t admit it, when we won’t let go of the old narrative, when we keep running the same broken tape in our minds. Like the Bible says, it’s like a dog going back to eat its own vomit—something that already made us sick, yet we keep returning to it.

That loop doesn’t just waste time; it holds us back from becoming who we could be. My whole goal—for myself and for anybody who listens or reads this—is to help break that cycle. To stop letting the negative feedback in our heads run the show so we can actually move forward, grow, and live with a little more peace and purpose.

One of the biggest tools that’s helped me do this is journaling. I used to do it years ago, then life got busy and I dropped it. About a year back I picked it up again, and now it’s part of my morning like brushing my teeth. Every day I sit down—usually with coffee—and I write:

• What happened yesterday (the good, the bad, the ugly)

• What I’m planning to do today (keeping it simple and real)

• A few things I’m genuinely grateful for from yesterday

• Where I messed up, what I learned from it, and one or two concrete ways I can do better next time

That last part—owning the mistakes without beating myself up—has been huge. It forces my brain to see the patterns. I start noticing what actually works for me and what keeps dragging me down. Over time, those daily entries add up. I’ve got almost a full year of them now, and I already look forward to flipping back to the same date last year just to see how far my headspace has shifted. It’s proof that small, consistent effort actually changes things.

Gratitude mixed in there helps too. When I force myself to name a few things that went right or that I’m thankful for, even on rough days, it quiets some of the noise. It’s not about pretending everything’s perfect—it’s about reminding myself there’s still good worth holding onto.

Journaling isn’t the only thing that works, but for me it’s been the single biggest lever to pull myself out of that negative spiral. Other stuff helps too: getting outside and moving, talking things out with people I trust, spending time in quiet reflection or prayer, reading things that challenge my thinking instead of just confirming what I already believe. But the writing? That’s where the patterns become clear and the old loops start to lose their grip.

If you’re stuck in your own head right now, feeling like the same thoughts keep winning, I get it. I’ve been there more times than I can count. Start small. Grab a cheap notebook, set a timer for five or ten minutes in the morning, and just dump what’s in there. No fancy rules. Just honesty. Over days and weeks you’ll start seeing the loops for what they are—old habits, not unbreakable truths.

We don’t have to stay trapped. We can choose different. We can grow. And we can help each other do it.

That’s what The Wild Ways is about—real talk, real tools, real progress in a world that tries hard to keep us spinning. If this hits home, give journaling a shot for a month and see what happens. Come back to thewildways.ca, drop a comment, or shoot me a message at thewildways@proton.me. I’d love to hear how it goes for you. Also, if you get a chance subscribe to Lymans Wild Ways YouTube or The Wild Ways Podcast on YouTube or wherever you get your Podcasts

Keep pushing forward. The loop only wins if we let it.

Stay real, Lyman