You fall in love with Denise. She breaks up with you. You feel terrible. How do you get over the pain?
Decide you are NOT in love with Denise.
By taking on the opposite belief (that you do not love Denise), the bad feelings of breaking up get easier to bear, and may even disappear. Sometimes immediately.
But how can you accept the exact opposite of what you believed the day before, when you were wildly in love? By finding supporting sub-beliefs for the new opposite belief. Such as, "I didn't really like her hair that much", "She was annoying sometimes", "Her mom didnt like me", "She didnt like the Beatles", and so on. Sub-beliefs that did not mean a thing before, when you (thought) you were in love, but now that you need to justify/support the new OPPOSITE belief, you are more willing to see them, accept them, and believe in them. In other words, the rose colored glasses are now off.
Welcome to the world of Cognitive Dissonance. By taking on the opposite belief, the inner (mental/cognitive) dissonance (conflict/contradiction) decreases or disappears. The only way you can feel better about the sub-beliefs that describe her right now ("She doesnt love me", "She is not here", "I cannot be with her", etc.) is to take on the higher level belief "I do not love Denise". Then, all your Denise-related beliefs (main and sub, higher and lower level) are in harmony, and do not cause cognitive "pain".
In short, OppThink can be beneficial in the realm of resolving conflicts on the internal kind, e.g., when it comes to relationships. Yes, Opposite Thinking can even help in dealing with the opposite sex.
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