Be Positive

G’day and welcome dear readers to the latest post to the blog “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Scotsman”. 

I want to write a wee bit today about an article I was reading the other day produced by the world-famous Mayo Clinic (I’m a Hellman’s man myself) on the subject of positive thinking and its benefits. Positivity is something I’ve written about before, and it’s a trait we can all benefit from having a bit more of.

Apparently, the people in the know have worked out, through extensive study, that being an optimist, or a pessimist can have an affect your health and general wellness. 

Yes, you’ve guessed it, generally if you are someone who goes through life with a positive outlook you are better in control of your levels of stress, more able to handle the impacts of being stressed and therefore you gain the obvious health benefits of not being wired to the moon with a head full of anxious thoughts on a regular basis. (As an anxiety sufferer I make that last statement about being wired to the moon in jest, and in no way disrespectfully to myself or fellow sufferers).

But do not despair dear friends, because it doesn’t matter if you are not the world’s most positive individual. Even if for you the glass is half empty, there’s a big hole in the bottom of it and two blow flies are doing the front crawl in what’s left of your Irn Bru positive thinking skills can be learned!

To be clear, positive thinking doesn’t mean that you wander about with a big grin on your fizzer, like a lotto winner on the way to the luxury car showroom, or that you ignore the unpleasant things in life that we all have to unfortunately go through. 

No, it just means that you approach unpleasantness with a sense of hope (which I wrote about in previous posts). You think the best is going to happen, rather than the worst. 

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk, that wee voice we all have in our heads, the endless stream of thoughts not spoken. This automatic self-communication can be of a positive or negative nature, some are logical and reasoned, others random, some others may be false, arising from misconceptions or lack of understanding or information about whatever it is your inner voice is telling you, giving you “the fear” about something that hasn’t actually happened or might never happen. 

If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, your outlook on life is more likely pessimistic. If your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist — someone who practices positive thinking.

So how do you identify negative thinking? 

(By the way if you do a lot of this don’t worry too much about it. It’s probably something that has been drummed into you, conditioned in you by others in your life since your childhood. I’m from a generation where it was generally common (well it was where I come from) that the only feedback you ever got as child from adults was when you fecked something up or had stepped out of line. Praise or positivity just weren’t a thing. That’s how our parents were parented so that’s how they parented us. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it was). 

You can identify it this way. Common forms of negative self-talk include:

Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all the positive ones. For example, you had to write a report for senior management at work. You did it on time and with a high degree of skill and accuracy. You receive a number of complimentary emails from your managers and peers. At the bottom of one of these emails a senior manager points out that you have made a spelling mistake on page 34.  That evening, you focus on the mistake and forget about the compliments you received.

Personalising. When something bad occurs, it’s your fault. You convince yourself that this is the case and can’t be convinced otherwise.  For example, you hear that an evening out with friends has unexpectedly been cancelled, you have no idea why. It could be for any number of reasons, but no, you assume that the change in plan is about you. 

Catastrophising. In every challenging situation you immediately see the worst thing that can happen, with no facts, no information, no basis to think that way, but you do anyway, anticipating the worst without facts that the worst case will happen. You’ve missed your usual train to work and have to wait half an hour for another. You are late for a work meeting now. You think you are behind already so the rest of your day will be a disaster. 

Blaming. You avoid being responsible for your own thoughts and feelings, and swiftly try to shunt that responsibility onto someone else.  

Saying you “should” do something. You have a fair idea of the strategies you ‘should ‘begin’ to put in place to stop being so negative, but for some reason don’t, and then start to feel guilty about not helping yourself. 

Magnifying. You make a huge deal out of even the most minor of problems. Focussing on the seemingly impregnable barrier that the problem presents, rather than the solutions.

Polarising. There is no middle ground for you. You see things only as either good or bad. Shades of grey or nuance in problematic situations simply don’t exist for you. 

Wow! What a miserable set of examples that was! I was starting to feel pessimistic just typing them out! I could feel a dark cloud start to emerge from the beautiful blue sky above me and descend towards sitting right above my head.  What a way to live a life, but hey, we’ve all got a bit of these in us to various degrees. 

The key is about balance.  So, let’s get to the good stuff, how we can break out of the shadowy cell block of negative self-talk?
 
As I mentioned earlier the good news is you can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. 

The process is reasonably simple, but it does take time and practice. Remember, you are breaking a habit that you may have had for a lifetime, you are working against your muscle memory, out of your comfort zone. You are creating a new habit, for the better, to help you to become the best version of you that you can. 

Here are some ways you can do this….

Identify areas to change. You know yourself best, better than anyone else. If you want to become more optimistic and engage in more positive thinking, have a good think about targeting areas of your life that you know that you usually think negatively about, whether it’s your work, your daily commute, life changes or a relationship. Start small by focusing on one targeted area to approach in a more positive way. Plan it. Think of turning that negative into a positive. 

Check yourself. Deliberately schedule in moments during your day to stop for a moment and evaluate your thinking. Bring this process to the surface, and consider am I making myself miserable? Am I focussing too much on the negative? If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, concentrate on finding ways to put a positive spin on them.

Pull the cord on the humour parachute Give yourself a break! Life is hard enough, have a laugh and a smile. It’s amazing the things you can find humour in if only your look closely enough, even in difficult times. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh. When you can laugh at life, you definitely feel less stressed, and laughter also gives the body’s chemistry a wee positive kick of feel-good endorphins as a bonus. 

Follow a healthy lifestyle.  Find the time to do some form of exercise every day. It’s good for you in many ways, not just in terms of cardiovascular. It lifts the mood, helps boost your self -esteem and, depending on the exercise you take, can get you out and amongst others for a bit of social connection. It also reduces stress and helps you to get enough regular sleep, which as an anxiety sufferer I often now find difficult.   

Eat the right grub too, you don’t have to give up on the burgers altogether but now and again as a treat is enough. A healthy diet fuels your mind and body and helps with gut health, which, studies have shown, can help regulate the bodies chemistry and hormones and reduce anxiety and stress. Adopt and practice my very good new friend Mindfulness. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before (only in every single post I’ve written). I can’t recommend Mindfulness enough to you. Please do yourself a favour, research it and consider if elements of it could help you. It’s been a great help to me over the last year. 

Surround yourself with positive people. Make sure those in your life are positive, supportive people you can depend on to give helpful advice and feedback. Get away from the entrenched dark-clouders (unless you can help them to change their mindset that is) but they are not doing you any favours. Negative people may increase your stress levels and make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.

Practice positive self-talk. Try following one simple rule: Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else. Be gentle and encourage yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, sit with it for a moment, evaluate it rationally, not with emotion, and respond with affirmations of what is good about you. Think about things you are thankful for in your life. If it helps write down some personal positive affirmations and place them somewhere prominently (my sage-like daughter suggested this to me) so that you can turn your mind to them when you need to. Up amongst photos of my beautiful grandchildren I have a couple of one sentence positive affirmations from me, for me, on my kitchen fridge door.  
 
If you tend to have a negative outlook, don’t expect to become an optimist immediately. I can’t promise that you’ll go through a damascene conversion overnight or wake up one winter’s morning after seeing three ghosts and start throwing your money at wee lad’s hobbling around on crutches.  But with practice, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You may also become less critical of the world around you.
 
I’ll leave you with this thought for today ‘Be very careful what you say to yourself because someone very important is listening… YOU!’ (unknown)