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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 4:14:42 PM

slaveluci

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep

What are some tips or things you've tried to help yourself think more positively? Care to share? I imagine there are a lot of us who could use a new bit in our arsenal, or people feeling down or low who could use some advice.

So feel free to add anything that's worked for you if you've had to deal with something dark and wanted to get a little sunshine.

These are more like two things I do once I've already BEGUN to think/feel negatively.....

1 - I've learned that if I don't verbalize it by getting started on a rant, it's easier for me to get over. If I don't actually put it into words and hear myself getting all riled up (and hear comments from others about how upsetting what I'm complaining about is) sometimes it'll just pass and I don't get as upset by it as I would if I "gave it voice," so to speak.

2 - If something someone has done (esp. at work) has irked or upset me, I always try to check my feelings by asking if I would be as upset over it if (fill in blank with someone else) had done it. A couple of my co-workers are always great and if they don't handle something like I would have, I know they had good reasons and made the best decision they could. If it's one of my more "troubled" employees, I always ask myself if it was one of the prize ones, would it upset me as much? 99% of the time I decide it wouldn't and that gives me much more perspective and understanding on the matter..........luci

< Message edited by slaveluci -- 6/17/2011 4:15:05 PM >

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 4:15:52 PM

sunshinemiss

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I do a couple of things specifically for THINKING...

1. I force myself to see something beautiful in even the worst of situations. I remember working with a guy who was a rapist and murderer. His biggest concern was wanting his son to know who he was. Welllll.... hmmmm.... So I found a program that lets convicts read books to their kids by video. He had to learn to read first. :)

2. I also do a lot of gratitude stuff. I say thank you to people for a lot! Even the smallest thing. It makes them smile, and that is contagious.

3. I do something that scares me every day. It can be something small like saying hello to the little old guy who is always gruff with me or it can be big like ... going to a concert all alone. (or Korea)

4. I try to always see something beautiful every day. I was teaching the poem "Oh My Luv is Like a Red, Red Rose" the other day, and I reminded my students that the red roses on campus were in bloom. Then I took them outside to look at them. :) They were like... "Oh I didn't see them! Thank you teacher!"

5. I make time for the people I love and make sure to share their joys and heartaches with them. It is a powerful tool to experience.

6. I burn incense. Yummy smells make me happy.

7. I laugh out loud at the silliest things. Kids are good for this. "Miss Sunshine, dirt tastes salty." OK. No attitude, no judgment, just, OK. And then we giggle.

8. When something goes wrong, and it will, find the goofy in it. I spilled coffee in class one day, and all the students were shocked when I started laughing. We looked at the mess and came up with "It looks like a ____________ to me." (Of course then we cleaned it up). One of the students actually got a good bit splashed on him (he was such a good sport about it!) The next day, we were making sentences with some verbs like - hope, want, expect - and he said, "I hope sunshine stops drinking coffee around me." We all laughed because they knew it was ok.

That's my quick list off the top of my head.

A great question!

best,
sunshine

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 4:27:10 PM

dcnovice

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It sometimes helps me to pause and list a handful of things I'm grateful for.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 4:28:32 PM

gothikbutterfly

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My ex-husband always used to tell me to weigh the pros and cons. More often than not, the pros outweighed the cons, but there was that 9 outta 10.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 4:59:08 PM

LinnaeaBorealis

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I had kind of a rough night last night & I watched a funny movie & then Family Guy Episode VI.

Not long after I woke up this afternoon, much too soon for me to really be hospitable, Lushy's 12-year-old came downstairs with a Bill Cosby video. I asked him what was up & he said, "I'd like to invite you to come watch this video with me. I've watched it 3 times now & it makes me laugh, but now it would be better if I had someone else who would laugh with me. Especially someone who hasn't seen it before. Because that will make me laugh harder."

I considered turning him down because going up there was sort of outside my comfort level, but I took a chance & told him that I would be up in 30 minutes. I went upstairs & we watched the whole thing & laughed so hard that now I'm kinda tired. It's the endorphins. What a great start to my day!!!

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 5:09:06 PM

RapierFugue

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dcnovice

It sometimes helps me to pause and list a handful of things I'm grateful for.

I actually do that. I also (and I know this is cheesy) play “What A Wonderful World” by Satchmo. Oh, and Bach. (And Satie, but that could just be me, coz it's an odd one to find cheering).

Many years ago, I suffered from depression, periodically. Or, rather, those around me did - I was actually fairly sanguine in my Tower Of Song, and not un-cheery wallowing (even though I would never have admitted it) but those who loved me got it in the neck, and I got very little done. As the years have passed, it's not so much that I've got "happier", more that I've realised how ungrateful I was for the good things I had (and have!), often blind to them, and my sense of perspective has become refined, so that I'm able to place things in their correct context. Is it (whatever "it" is that's causing the negative feelings) really that important? It’s also important, if you have a certain kind of perfectionist personality (*cough*), to give yourself a fucking break – once you realise you're a decent sort, and no-one is perfect (Muslims have a saying – “only Allah is perfect”), then you're halfway there.

As a result, for the last decade or so, I'm as chilled out and generally cheery a soul as one could hope to meet. It's pretty good being me, most of the time, and when it isn't it's usually a problem of my own making, either through lack of thought, or too much thought :)

Oh and one last thing; just because nothing "good" is happening right now doesn't mean that something bad is - in other words, the silences, and being alone, are not in and of themselves bad things - modern society, and more specifically marketing and media, would have you believe otherwise, but there's a lot of positive things one can do on one's own, and you don't have to be partying to be happy.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 5:59:38 PM

tj444

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a few things-
-doing vs sulking, get busy doing something even if its a drive or walk or whatever you enjoy to get you out of a funk

-being aware of hormonal cycles, if I seem to be getting upset easily (which is very unusual for me) or seem to be too emotional (like a sappy tv ad makes me teary) then i look at the calendar and lo and behold, i will be getting my period soon so i know its not me, I am just pmsing a little. Just knowing that turns things around totally and everything goes away. I know it may not be that easy for some people but for me knowing its hormones and not my normal nature is calming.

-avoiding negative people (& negative posters/posts). I used to have a friend that was always complaining about something in her life no matter how trivial. I got so tired of it that i dumped her and refuse to be friends with someone like that again. Negative people just suck the life out of anyone around. You can be feeling great until they come on the scene and turn your mood around 180 degrees.

-I dont watch the news and only get the newspaper on the weekened for the special sections. Any news I get is online or from newspapers and those I limit to reading only on a narrow range of subjects that interest me.

-sometimes i think about some of the things I have done, I sometimes need to know I still have that gutsyness and fearlessness in me.

-being organized, having a good sense of where you are going in your life and your plan(s). Focusing on that.

-exercise (or dancing) with really bouncy music or even just listening to really bouncy music.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 7:51:43 PM

juliaoceania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: RedMagic1

Physical exercise.

I love to walk and hike for this reason... which I have not done nearly enough lately.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/17/2011 9:38:31 PM

Awareness

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There's on particular aspect which I tend to teach my subs. It concerns self-talk.

Self-talk is that voice in your head which reacts to your actions on the world around you and tells you things about yourself. For example if you fail at a task, your self-talk is the voice which either says "Never mind, I'll succeed next time" or "I knew I couldn't do that, I'm worthless."

Self-talk is important because it constantly reiterates beliefs which become real to you if you let them. So it's important to have positive self-talk because it reinforces and promotes a positive mind-set. Negative self-talk which promotes negative beliefs about yourself or others simply does not serve you.

It's not the difference between being optimistic and realistic, either. Negative self-talk is frequently blaming and usually contains identity statements such as "I am". Rather than simply saying you've fucked up, negative self-talk will say you're a failure.

Anyway, there's a simple exercise which can be used to eliminate negative self-talk. Take a rubber band and put it on your wrist. It has to be loose enough to hang slightly and not hinder circulation in any way.

Now, throughout your day, every time you notice negative self-talk, pull that band back and WHACK - flick it against your wrist. Hard. The pain causes a pattern interrupt to the negative self-talk.

Keep that up for a week or two and watch what happens.

Incidentally, affirmations are the inverse. They're not some hippy, drippy new-age pseudo-magical bullshit like "The Secret". Affirmations are an attempt to induce positive beliefs into your brain through positive self-talk. They work because your mindset pretty much limits what you can achieve and the greatest obstacle to many people's happiness is believing that they're worthy of it. I shit you not.

Anyway, give it a go. Worth a shot for anyone - especially if they have low self-esteem.

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RE: Tips for positive thinking - 6/18/2011 5:53:10 AM

JstAnotherSub

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The popping band thing worked wonderfully for me when I was learning to control panic attacks. Pop the hell outa my self, picture a stop sign, and scream no, in my head, as loudly as I could.

That was 20 years ago, and that was when I began to realize just how much we can control, just by thiniking it to be so.

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