I’ve been training people for a long time.
At this point, I can usually tell how a client is feeling within a few sentences of them walking through the door.
Sometimes they’re stiff and beat up.
Sometimes they’re actually injured.
Sometimes they’re feeling great and have a ton of energy.
Sometimes there’s something deeper going on in their life that’s affecting them.
And sometimes they’re stuck in what I call the negative rain cloud.
It’s not like I have some magical power.
Although, if you ask me, some of it is probably a natural talent.
The better explanation is that I’ve trained more than a thousand people, I’ve definitely put in my 10,000 hours, and during all of that time I’ve had an almost infinite number of conversations where I’ve paid close attention to people’s tone, body language, the words they’re using, and the patterns underneath all of it.
I’ve collected a ton of data.
I’ve analyzed it.
I’ve noticed patterns.
I’ve learned what certain behaviors tend to look like.
It’s a simple math formula, really.
But the most important part is that I actually listen to people.
Anyway, back to today.
THE NEGATIVE RAIN CLOUD
I had a client come in who seemed to be in a pretty good mood.
But within the first warm-up exercise, I noticed something.
They were being particularly hard on herself for not getting the movement right away.
They were making self-deprecating jokes.
They were getting frustrated, but laughing it off.
And I recognized the pattern.
They were stuck in what I call the negative rain cloud.
First things first:
How you talk to yourself matters.
It really does.
I’ve talked before about the social-media algorithm being similar to the way your brain works.
The more attention you give something, the easier it can become to notice more of it.
Sometimes you get stuck in a negative cloud because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Sometimes you’ve been consuming too much negatively stimulating content.
Sometimes something happened in your life.
Maybe you had a fight with someone you love.
Maybe somebody pissed you off on the road.
Maybe something happened at work.
Whatever it is, your emotional state can start influencing what you notice.
You start focusing on the negative.
Then you notice more negative things.
Then those things become more evidence that everything is negative.
It’s like your brain keeps saying:
“Oh, you want me to prove that today sucks? No problem. Here you go.”
And clients have a habit of doing this from time to time.
When any client is in the cloud, the entire session can become a challenge.
Sometimes positive reinforcement and gentle coaching are enough.
Sometimes I have to stop and point out:
“Hey. You’re responding to everything I’m saying with something negative right now.”
And once you notice it, you can start doing something about it.
WHAT THE CLOUD SOUNDS LIKE
The comments usually sound something like:
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I’m having a hard time figuring this out.”
“You know I suck at this stuff.”
“Coordination is hard for me. I can’t do it.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“I don’t know…you have more confidence in me than I do.”
“You must need some entertainment in your life today because I cannot get this.”
“This is hard for me.”
“This is dumb.”
And whatever other version of that you can think of.
Now, there’s a big difference between making one or two comments like this and getting stuck in the cloud.
One negative thought isn’t the end of the world.
But if you keep going with it, those one or two comments can become the beginning of a pattern.
When you’re really in the cloud, it’s like it’s raining on only you.
Every exercise becomes evidence that you’re bad at something.
Every mistake becomes evidence that you can’t do it.
Every difficult moment becomes evidence that you’re failing.
And eventually you want every response to every exercise or conversation to become another negative comment about yourself.
And you don’t always realize you’re doing it.
You’re just responding.
You’re on autopilot.
Sometimes you’re looking for compliments.
Sometimes you want almost a parent-like response from somebody to hold your hand and tell you everything is going to be okay.
And sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
But sometimes you need something else.
Sometimes you need somebody to say:
“Hey. Look at what you’re doing right now.”
HOW YOU TALK TO YOURSELF MATTERS
I’m going to say it again because it’s important:
How you talk to yourself matters.
If every mistake you make gets followed by:
“I’m stupid.”
“I suck at this.”
“I can’t do this.”
“This is never going to work.”
you’re not exactly creating the mental environment that makes it easier to keep practicing.
And this can affect everything you do in the gym.
You can make an exercise harder because you’re distracted by the story you’re telling yourself about how badly you’re doing.
You can become afraid to try something.
You can lose confidence.
You can stop paying attention to the actual task because you’re too busy judging yourself.
And if you don’t catch it, the cloud can stick around.
Maybe for the rest of the workout.
Maybe for the rest of the day.
Maybe for a few days.
For some people, it can become a pattern that lasts for weeks.
So…
How do you fix it?
FIRST, NOTICE THE CLOUD
Sometimes it takes another person saying:
“Hey. You’re responding to everything in a negative way right now.”
You need to take a breath.
Take a step back.
Be a little more positive with yourself.
Tell yourself you can do this.
It’s supposed to be hard.
You’re not going to be good at everything on the first try.
Sometimes you’re not going to be good at it on the tenth try.
But you’re improving.
Be present.
Pay attention to what you’re actually doing.
And tell yourself you can do it.
Because you can.
If you’re on your own, it’s going to take some practice.
And this is one of those moments where the emotion of the cloud can feel incredibly strong.
You’re going to want to let it take you away.
You’re going to want to decide:
“My whole day is ruined.”
“Everything is going to be miserable.”
“Maybe I’ll just try again tomorrow.”
And maybe tomorrow turns into the next day.
Then the next.
Then suddenly you’ve been living underneath the cloud for a week.
First, you need to notice that it’s happening.
That’s the first skill.
EDIT YOUR RESPONSE IN REAL TIME
This is where the practice comes in.
The negative thoughts are going to keep popping up.
That’s important to understand.
You’re not going to have one breakthrough where the negative voice disappears forever.
It doesn’t work that way.
Your old patterns are going to keep showing up.
Your job is to edit your response to them in real time.
You say:
“I’m terrible at this.”
Then you catch it.
Edit.
“I’m learning this. I’m getting better every time I practice.”
You say:
“I can’t do this.”
Edit.
“I can do this. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”
You say:
“I’m stupid.”
Edit.
“I’m frustrated because this is hard, but hard doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”
You say:
“I’m never going to get this.”
Edit.
“I’m not good at this yet. Let’s see what happens if I keep practicing.”
Notice what we’re doing here.
We’re not pretending the thing isn’t hard.
We’re not lying to ourselves.
We’re choosing a more useful response.
And yes, sometimes it really is that simple.
You can choose to feel better.
I know that sounds like woo-woo bullshit.
People hear that sentence and immediately want to fight it.
They’re eager to preserve the concept in their head that it’s not that simple.
“You can’t just choose to feel better.”
And I get it.
But take a second.
Just consider it.
Let it marinate.
What if you could?
What if there is even .01% of your brain that could believe that was possible?
Wouldn’t you want to try?
And if that sounds too radical for you, fine.
How about this:
You can choose to practice a response that helps you feel better.
That’s still a choice.
And you can practice it.
Sometimes you’re so invested in proving that things are hard for you that you actually need other people to agree with you.
“Yeah, you’re right. This is really hard for you.”
“Yeah, you really are just wired that way.”
“Yeah, you have every reason to feel this way.”
And now you’ve gotten everyone to validate the identity you’re trying to change.
You have protected your ego.
You’ve proven your story.
And you’ve kept yourself exactly where you were.
Let that shit go.
You don’t have to convince everyone that it’s hard for you.
Maybe it is harder for you.
Your genetics matter.
Your history matters.
Your life experiences matter.
The things you’ve been through matter.
The amount of practice you’ve had matters.
All of those things can influence your starting point and how difficult the process is going to feel.
But none of that means you can’t start practicing a different response.
Pick the version where you feel better.
Then practice it.
You might not believe it at first.
That’s okay.
Say it anyway.
Practice it anyway.
Let go of the other response.
Over time, the new response becomes easier to access.
And eventually it doesn’t feel like you’re forcing it anymore.
That’s the training.
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU LET SIT IN THE RAIN WITH YOU
There’s another piece of this that people don’t talk about enough.
Pay attention to the people around you.
Sometimes you need somebody to validate what you’re feeling.
If you’re having a horrible day, a good friend might say:
“Yeah, man. That fucking sucks. I understand why you’re upset.”
That’s healthy.
You don’t need somebody who immediately tells you that your feelings are wrong.
But there’s a difference between someone who validates your feelings and someone who validates your entire story.
Those aren’t the same thing.
A good friend can listen to you.
They can understand why you’re angry.
They can let you vent.
They can sit with you in the shitty moment.
But eventually, they might also say:
“Okay. I understand why you’re upset. But I think you’re making this worse.”
Or:
“I love you, but you’re doing that thing again.”
Or:
“I don’t think that’s actually the problem.”
That’s a good friend.
Be careful about surrounding yourself with people who just want to sit in the misery with you forever.
Because sometimes misery is comfortable.
It’s familiar.
If both of you are constantly complaining about your jobs, your relationships, your bodies, your families, your lives, or how unfair everything is, there’s a strange kind of safety in knowing someone else agrees with you.
You can reinforce each other’s stories.
“Yeah, people fucking suck.”
“Yeah, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Yeah, that’s just how you are.”
“Yeah, I’d be pissed too.”
“Yeah, nothing ever works out for us.”
Now you’ve got an entire echo chamber.
Nobody is challenging anything.
Nobody is asking:
“Is this actually true?”
Nobody is asking:
“What are you going to do about it?”
And eventually, the people you’re surrounded by can become part of the Formula.
They’re adding inputs.
If you’re constantly practicing negativity together, you’re getting really fucking good at negativity together.
That doesn’t mean you need to cut everybody out of your life the second they complain.
That’s not reality either.
People need people.
Sometimes you need to vent.
Sometimes you need somebody to listen.
Sometimes you need to be pissed off.
Sometimes you need somebody to tell you that you’re not crazy for feeling the way you’re feeling.
That’s part of being human.
But pay attention to what happens next.
Does that person help you get back on your feet?
Do they help you see another perspective?
Do they tell you the hard thing when you need to hear it?
Do they want you to get better?
Or do they just want you to stay right there in the rain with them because it’s safer and more familiar?
There’s a difference.
A good friend might sit in the rain with you.
A great friend might eventually hand you an umbrella and say:
“Okay. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
And sometimes you need to be that friend for yourself, too.
MEDITATION ISN’T ABOUT THINKING NOTHING
This is also why I think meditation gets misunderstood.
People will tell me:
“I can’t meditate.”
I’ll ask why.
And they’ll say:
“There’s no way I can sit there and think about nothing.”
That’s not what meditation has to be.
You’re not trying to turn your brain off.
You’re observing your thoughts.
You’re sitting there long enough to actually notice what’s happening inside your head.
A thought shows up.
You notice it.
Where did that come from?
Why did I think that?
What happened right before it?
What does it mean?
Do I need to follow it?
Does this thought actually deserve my attention?
And then another thought shows up.
And you observe that one too.
That’s practice.
The negative thoughts aren’t necessarily going to stop forever.
They’re going to show up.
But the better you get at this, the less enticing they may become to follow.
You get better at seeing the thought without automatically climbing inside it.
And that is a skill.
SIT IN THE SILENCE
And honestly, I think part of what makes meditation uncomfortable is that we’re rarely actually alone with our thoughts anymore.
Think about your average day.
Your phone.
Music.
Podcasts.
Television.
Social media.
Notifications.
Emails.
Conversations.
Traffic.
Work.
Messages.
There’s almost always something coming at you.
How often are you actually sitting in silence with nothing to distract you except your own thoughts?
Probably not very often.
And that’s exactly why it can feel uncomfortable.
You finally sit down.
There’s nothing happening.
And suddenly your brain starts throwing shit at you.
Good.
Watch it.
You don’t have to fix everything.
You don’t have to solve your entire life in one meditation session.
Just observe.
Learn what your mind does when nobody is feeding it something else to think about.
Sometimes you’ll understand where a thought came from.
Sometimes you won’t.
Sometimes you’ll notice a pattern you’ve never noticed before.
Sometimes you’ll sit there and think about absolutely ridiculous shit for ten minutes.
That’s okay too.
You’re practicing.
You’re learning how to operate the machine.
And the more you practice, the better you get at noticing what your mind is doing before it automatically takes you somewhere you don’t want to go.
THE CRUISE SHIP DOESN’T TURN ON A DIME
But like everything else…
It takes practice.
You didn’t develop these patterns overnight.
You’re not going to change them overnight.
People sometimes expect the change to happen like doing a U-turn in a brand-new Corvette.
You turn the wheel.
Boom.
You’re facing the other direction.
But changing deeply ingrained patterns is more like trying to turn a massive cruise ship around.
It doesn’t happen as quickly as you think it should.
But it does happen.
You just have to keep turning the wheel.
And keep practicing.
Eventually, little things that used to bother you don’t have the same effect.
Something happens that would have ruined your entire day six months ago.
You notice it.
You feel it.
But it doesn’t take you all the way down.
Maybe you recover in an hour instead of a day.
Then eventually ten minutes.
Then maybe you catch it almost immediately.
That’s progress.
And just when you think you’ve gotten good at it, there will be another challenge.
Another trigger.
Another situation that exposes a part of the system you haven’t strengthened yet.
Good.
That’s another opportunity to practice.
I’M NOT SELLING YOU A QUICK FIX
This is a never-ending process.
I’m not selling you some magic trick that will eliminate negative thoughts forever.
I’m not telling you to “just think positive.”
And I’m definitely not telling you that having a bad day means you failed.
What I’m telling you is that you are capable of strengthening your mind the same way you strengthen your body.
Think about what happens in the gym.
You start with a weight you can barely handle.
You practice.
You get stronger.
Eventually you handle more weight.
Then you add more.
Then you practice again.
The same basic principle applies here.
Practice a response.
Collect evidence.
Notice what changes.
Adjust.
Practice again.
The process itself gets better.
And so do you.
YOUR BRAIN DOESN’T KNOW YOU’RE JOKING
Here’s another thing I want you to think about.
People will make jokes when I tell them to talk positively to themselves.
They’ll give me that exaggerated sarcastic voice:
“Ohhh, I’m amazing! Everything is wonderful! I can do anything!”
Basically trying to show me how stupid they think it sounds to say something positive when they’re in a bad mood.
Well…
Yeah.
At first it probably will sound ridiculous.
You’re not used to it.
You’re strengthening a muscle you haven’t been practicing.
You wouldn’t walk into a gym, pick up a weight you’ve never lifted before, struggle with it, and conclude:
“Well, I guess strength training doesn’t work.”
You’d understand:
I’m weak at this because I haven’t practiced it yet.
Same thing.
If you’ve spent years practicing sarcastically talking shit about yourself, of course telling yourself something positive is going to feel foreign.
You’ve been practicing the other thing.
YOU GET GOOD AT WHAT YOU PRACTICE
Think about lifting weights.
The first time you do it, the light weight might feel incredibly challenging.
You might feel weak.
You might think you’ll never get strong.
You might wonder what the point is.
But if you keep lifting, eventually you handle more weight.
Then more.
Then more.
And one day you’re squatting a weight you once thought was impossible.
Your brain can work the same way.
If you keep practicing the negative response, you get really good at being negative.
If you keep practicing self-deprecating thoughts, you get really good at finding ways to put yourself down.
If you keep practicing the positive response, you can get better at finding that too.
The negative doesn’t necessarily disappear.
But it doesn’t have to run the entire show.
You can become better at catching it.
Better at challenging it.
Better at responding differently.
Better at returning to baseline.
And just like training your body, the progress comes from repeated practice through the setbacks and ups and downs.
DON’T GET STUCK IN THE RAIN CLOUD
So here’s what I want you to remember.
How you talk to yourself matters.
You don’t control every thought that pops into your head.
You don’t control every emotion that shows up.
But you can practice choosing what you do with them.
Notice the cloud.
Take a breath.
Give yourself some space.
Accept that you’re having the emotion without deciding that the emotion is who you are.
Look at what’s happening.
Analyze it.
Figure out what you can.
And if you can’t figure it out yet, that’s okay too.
Then choose the response you want to practice.
Edit in real time.
Repeat.
Practice.
Practice.
Practice.
You don’t get good at this by thinking about it once.
You get good at it by doing it.
You get good at anything you practice.
Including being mean to yourself.
So why not choose to practice being nice to yourself?
Because the goal isn’t to make sure it never rains.
The goal is to get better at getting out of the rain.
And eventually, you may look back and realize something pretty cool:
The storm that used to control your entire day is still capable of showing up.
It just doesn’t have the same power over you anymore.
That’s what getting stronger looks like.
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