One day, novelist Leo Tolstoy’s brother told him to sit in a corner until he stopped thinking about a white bear. Much later that day, Tolstoy remained in the corner, his mind fixated on the white bear he needed to stop thinking about. This experiment has been replicated in more studies, and the result is always the same: when people forbid themselves or attempt to rid their mind of something, it boomerangs back to them with alarming consistency and persistency. The solution, then, is to allow negative thoughts but not care about them.
