Rewiring the Mind: How One Woman Broke Free from Negative Thinking with NLP

Tali was weighed down by dark thoughts. When people spoke to her, she assumed they had bad intentions, and when she saw a person on the street, she feared they might attack her. She avoided being alone at home due to overwhelming fear. Even when she achieved successes in life, she thought they happened by mistake.

“In essence, her brain’s default mode predicted the worst from the outset, and over time, her mind ‘naturally’ learned to choose negative thought paths in every situation,” explains Sylvia Barda, coach, expert in relationship management in all areas of life, lecturer, and NLP Master Trainer at Hidabroot.

How can we repair the damage caused by years of habitual negative thinking?

“To answer that,” Sylvia says, “let’s go back a few years. Early in my professional life as a counselor, I would give women direct, practical advice: say this instead of that, don’t criticize, don’t judge, use kind words, and try to think positively. These were, in effect, operating instructions. While they often worked for a short while, most women found it hard to sustain the changes long-term.”

Through this, Sylvia came to understand that real transformation doesn't take place through surface-level advice, but by changing the way a person thinks at the core. When that shift happens, there’s less need for constant instructions and positive action flows more naturally.

“Just as the brain can learn to think negatively automatically, it can also be trained to think positively by default,” she explains. “It’s like moving your hand- you’re following a command from your brain. In the same way, our thoughts receive ‘commands’ from our brain: how to interpret something, what meaning to assign to a situation.”

Training the Mind to Think Positively

This insight led Sylvia to develop a method to help people refocus their minds toward positive thinking. “It’s just like when someone wants to buy a car, suddenly, they see cars matching their desired model everywhere. Or a woman who is about to give birth will start noticing pregnant women around her, overhear conversations about childbirth, etc. The brain is focused in that direction, so that’s what it sees.”

“The same principle applies to thought patterns: what I focus on is what I see.”

How does the method work?

“To train the brain to default to positive thinking, I teach a simple, daily exercise. It’s friendly, enjoyable, and consists of six elements, like buttons the person ‘presses’ to open the gates of healthy thought.” This practice rewires the internal voices from self-defeating, anxious thoughts to balanced, healthy ones that provide emotional breathing space. That’s when everything starts to shift.

When Tali practiced what Sylvia calls the ‘Voice in the Head’ Exercise, she began to reclaim the life she was meant to live of calm and mental well-being. “She later shared that even when she experienced a trigger that brought up negative thoughts, she had a well-stocked emotional toolbox to manage them, and she succeeded.”

Equipped with this "miracle remedy" in her back pocket that is free of side effects, Tali was able to attract better experiences, raise her quality of life, and realize that change is possible thanks to the voice inside her head.