How To Make Sense of Your Negative Thoughts: Dr Yasmine Saad (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of award-winning NYC psychologist Dr Yasmine Saad’s talk titled “How To Make Sense of Your Negative Thoughts” at TEDxOltrarno 2025 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

DR YASMINE SAAD: “What’s wrong with me? Are you going to criticize me? I’m just simply not good enough.” Why do we get negative thoughts like this? Are they here to sabotage us?

In my 17 years of experience working as a psychologist, my team and I have helped over 3,300 people with negative thoughts. And I’ve noticed three ways they handle them.

First, they just ignore them. They let them pass like clouds in the sky. Second, they replace them with positive thoughts. Third, they simply accept them. They take them at face value and drown with them.

Well, whether you replace them, accept them or ignore them, you’re thinking your negative thoughts are detrimental to you. You have created the enemy within. Is that what you want? Fight the enemy within? I certainly don’t want that.

What if our negative thoughts were not an enemy, nor a friend, but a messenger here to deliver information to you?

The Unwelcome Knock at the Door

Picture this. You’re sitting in your living room and you’re watching a good movie. You’re enjoying yourself when suddenly there’s a loud bang at the door. Who is it? You’re not expecting anyone, so you just ignore it. You want to go back to enjoying your movie, but the banging continues. This time you’re really frustrated. Well, the banging goes on and on and on.

That’s exactly what happens with our negative thoughts. They come banging at our door at unwanted times. They rob us from our joy and can bring angst, frustration, doubt, and fear. And then we think they’re detrimental to us. That’s our perspective as the recipient of the knock at the door.

Now, what’s happening to the person at the door? Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. They’re like, why aren’t they opening the door? I know they’re in. I can hear the TV. What’s going on here? How can I call their attention? Let me bang louder, louder, and louder.

Our negative thoughts are trying to call our attention. They have something precious to deliver to us.

Now, the interesting thing is we don’t believe all our negative thoughts the same way that we don’t believe all the negative comments we get. So why do some stick and others don’t?

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The Cracks Within

Picture this. Let’s say I think I’m pretty. And you tell me I’m ugly. What happens? I just won’t believe you. The negative thought will simply not enter. Instead, I’m going to be thinking, why are they telling me this? Are they mean? I think they’re jealous. Oh, no. You need glasses. That’s what it is. You need glasses because I am pretty.

Now, let’s take exactly that same example. And this time, I’m doubting my beauty. I’m not so sure. And you tell me I’m ugly. What happens? I’ll be like, maybe they’re right. Maybe my nose. Maybe my mouth. Yeah, I’m not so sure about it. The negative thought would have entered through the cracks within. I wasn’t 100% convinced of my beauty. Therefore, the negative thought came in.

As a psychologist, I help people call their attention on what their thoughts are meaning to them. And I help them fix the inner crack. I help them make sense of why the negative thoughts come in.

Allison’s Story

I lead a team of psychologists in New York City. And one day, one of them came in, knocked at my door. I was sitting at my desk. And he comes. He said, can I consult with you about a patient? I said, sure. Let’s call her Allison.

He goes, Allison thinks she’s stupid, but she’s top of her class. She’s brilliant, but she won’t take any positive in at all. Her family tells her, stand in front of a mirror. Tell yourself that you’re intelligent. So that’s what she does. She stands in front of the mirror, tells herself, I am intelligent. But the negative thought keeps knocking at her door.

Her friends tell her, come on, you’re top of your class. You know this ridiculous thought is just not true. Just ignore it. The negative thoughts keep knocking at her door. And now, not only does she think she’s stupid, but she’s thinking, what’s wrong with me? Are they going to criticize me? I’m simply not good enough.

So what are we to do with this? What was I to do with this? Well, I thought, maybe Allison knows something about her intelligence that I don’t. Maybe there is a crack within. Let’s ask her, what is being intelligent for her?

So my psychologist went and asked her the question. He came back and he said, whoa, you’re never going to believe what we found. Allison thinks that being intelligent is actually being able to understand people’s emotions and read their facial expressions. And she’s really, really, really bad at it. So she thinks she’s stupid. That made sense.

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So now, with just one thought, we found out Allison’s current state, which is book smart, her desired future, emotionally smart. What else did we know?

Did you know this? Allison didn’t come and tell me I am book smart and I want to be emotionally smart. Allison said, I’m stupid. Why would somebody do that? Why?

Well, in my experience, they make their whole self feel bad so that they give themselves a big kick in the butt so that they move forward. Because if I’m about to tell you what I did is stupid or I am stupid, which one is the biggest kick in the butt? I am stupid.

So now, not only we knew Allison’s current state, her desired future, we also knew the path she was taking to get from one to the other, kick in the butt. And in my experience, after a while, a kick in the butt ended up being a kick in the ground.

And that is a huge obstacle.

One thought carries your current state, your desired future, the path you take to get from one to the other, and the obstacle along the way.

Engaging Your Inner Compass

Now, how can you apply that to your life? Let’s decode your thoughts together. The first step is ask yourself, what is the thought calling your attention to? I call this engaging your inner compass, because like a compass, your negative thoughts point you in the right direction.

So let’s apply this to a daily life experience. You come home from work, and you had a very long day, and you see the dirty dishes on the sink, and you’re like, I’m so frustrated. So let’s decode this thought together. Let’s engage your inner compass. Ask yourself, what is the thought calling your attention to?

You’ll tell me, the dirty dishes. And I’ll be like, yeah, but let’s go deeper. Why are the dirty dishes so frustrating to you? You’ll be like, I work so hard. The last thing I want is come home and work harder. Aha. Now we’re onto something. The problem is not the dirty dishes. The problem is your life of hard work. Without decoding your thoughts, you’re going to be fixing your dish problem and figure out a solution for it, when the real problem was your life of hard work. That is the inner crack.

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Now, that inner crack is unique to you. Let’s say you have a friend who’s exactly in the same situation, comes home frustrated, see the dirty dishes, and thinks exactly the same thing. I’m so frustrated. We engage their inner compass, decode their thoughts, and they tell us, my mind cannot think clearly if my home is not organized. I need a clean home.

So what have we discovered? For your friend, the problem is not their overworked life. Their problem is that they are organizing all their home, all their houses, everything, so that they can think clearly. And that is obviously a problem, because if you want to organize everything for inside to be clear, you’re constantly going to be working on outside, outside, outside, never working on inside.

So again, without decoding your thoughts, that friend will be fixing the dish problem, when in reality, the problem was their cluttered mind. And this is what happens to us. We come home, we get frustrated with the dishes, we fix our dishes problem. Then, the next day we come, the carpet’s dirty, and now we’re frustrated with the carpet, and we fix the carpet problem, when they were never the issue.

So, I want to invite you to decode your thoughts.

Conclusion

Let’s recap. What have we learned today? Your negative thoughts are not an enemy. They are a messenger. They carry valuable information for you. They carry your present state, your desired future, the path that you take to get from one to the other, and the obstacle along the way.

Your job is to decode your thoughts and emotions, engage your inner compass, and ask yourself, what is the thought calling my attention to?

So the next time, a negative thought comes knocking at your door, don’t ignore it, don’t replace it, and certainly do not accept it. Instead, decode it.

Thank you. Thank you.