BECOMING A POSITIVE THINKER

 

“Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer this age-old question about positive thinking may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude towards yourself, and whether you're optimistic or pessimistic.  “Your attitude reflects what you believe about yourself. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” said the mystical teacher Christ. And so I ask you, what are your words saying about you, what is your story? 

Some studies show that personality traits like optimism and pessimism can affect many areas of your health and well-being. The positive thinking that typically comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management. And effective stress management is associated with many health benefits. If you tend to be pessimistic, don't despair — you can learn positive thinking skills. Here's how.

Positive thinking doesn't mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life's less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach the unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst.

Positive thinking often starts with self-talk. Self-talk is the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head every day. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information (false programming). A positive attitude comes from seeing things, from an inner knowing, and believing that all is moving you towards something more.

Therefore the power of positive thinking is directly connected to the ability to remove, control or eliminate negative thoughts.

Thoughts of doubt, fear, worry, doom and gloom, focusing on what could go wrong is a clear sign of negative thinking. And negative thoughts can harm you.

Here are some examples of negative self-talk and how you can apply a positive thinking twist to them.

Negative self-talk	Positive thinking
I've never done it before.	It's an opportunity to learn something new.
It's too complicated.	I'll tackle it from a different angle.
I don't have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

Here are some habits of a negative thinker

• Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all of the positive ones. For example, say you had a great day at work. You completed your tasks ahead of time and were complimented for doing a speedy and thorough job. But you forgot one minor step. That evening, you focus only on your oversight and forget about the compliments you received.
• Personalizing. When something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. For example, you hear that an evening out with friends is canceled, and you assume that the change in plans is because no one wanted to be around you.
• Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst. The drive-through coffee shop gets your order wrong and you automatically think that the rest of your day will be a disaster.
• Polarizing. You see things only as good or bad, black or white. There is no middle ground. You feel that you have to be perfect or that you're a total failure.

Both positive and negative thinking are contagious:

All of us affect the people we meet, in one way or another. This happens instinctively and on a subconscious level, through our thoughts and feelings, and through body language. Is it any wonder that we want to be around positive people, and prefer to avoid negative ones?

Negative thoughts, words and attitude bring up negative and unhappy moods and actions. Words like can’t, fear, hate, try are all lower in vibration, causing you to be negative. When the mind is negative, poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity. This is the way to failure, frustration and disappointment.

Positive thinking is a mental attitude that admits into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. Words like certain, joy, capable, present, happy, are lighter in vibration, thereby lifting your spirit.

If you want to create a better life you most first have a positive attitude!