The Practice of Positive Thought
This specific statement really spoke to me when I was listening to Gabor Maté’s podcast on trauma understanding recently. “ Our capacity to be wounded is called vulnerability,” he says, explaining that everything in nature requires vulnerability in order to grow. It cannot evolve without it.
After my dad died a few years ago, I went through a really sad period. Even though I was in a lot of pain, I tried to pretend it hadn’t happened in order to suppress my grief. After his passing, my family experienced a severe financial difficulty. I was forced into a really difficult situation to live in by all of this. Another incredibly tough part of that period was that I also have an alcoholic sibling. I had to go through a few years of that darkness before I began to acknowledge the suffering and realized that neither my family nor my friends could bring me out of that darkness.
I’m going to attempt to discuss how, by practicing consistently, I was able to train my mind to think positively through the darkness.
1.) Don’t Ignore the Darkness: Leaning into the darkness and negativity to understand ‘why’ is the first step towards adopting a positive outlook.
‘When there is a shadow directly next to the light, the light appears really lovely’. This is the perfect metaphor. We cannot pretend that the negativity/darkness doesn’t exist; we must acknowledge it. Rather, we must examine them and identify the reason(s) why we are unhappy, depressed, or sad.
2.) Take baby steps everyday: I’ll give you an example: When we first attend the gym, we don’t go there and bench press one hundred and fifty pounds; instead, we start with a very little weight, maybe five pounds. If we go to the gym on a regular basis, we can gradually progress from lifting five pounds to lifting hundred and fifty pounds.
When we are surrounded by negativity and harbor depressing thoughts for an extended period of time, it is extremely difficult — nearly impossible, in fact — to get over these feelings quickly. The best approach is to take small moves.
3.) Practice keeping negative attitudes, behaviors, and words at bay: Our mental processes are influenced by every idea we have, every action we take, and every word we utter.
Saying hurtful words or whining a lot influences our thoughts, which in turn influences how we feel. Positive thoughts will begin to enter our minds when we consciously work to gradually distance ourselves from negative behaviors, words, and thoughts. That is crucial for creating the positive thinking habit.
4.) Physical Activity: Daily exercising, ideally 20 mins to begin with, working up to an hour or two, is a vital step towards regularly being able to think positively.
I tribute my mental health to my daily physical exercise. You need to find what works for you, be it yoga, a walk, lifting weights, swimming etc.
Swimming is wonderful! If I lived by the ocean, I’d swim every single day. I feel something about it that is just lovely.
5.) Practice Gratitude: Stop and think about the things that you should and could be grateful for. Remind yourself on a regular basis. I can see, I can go outside, I can see the sunset, there are so many people that can’t see. I can hear the sounds of birds. I am grateful for that. I can touch things. I am so grateful. If you do this, your mind will slowly move away from that dark place into a better place, and you start to think positively.
6.) Keep your distance from pessimistic individuals: We cannot influence others’ viewpoints by whining in front of them. Similarly, we need to be allowed to avoid people who are constantly whining, unless they have something more worthwhile and interesting to discuss.
I’d rather be completely alone with my healthy mind than with people who suck my energy out of me.
7.) Practice Solitude: Spending time alone yourself is a necessary component of practicing positive thinking.
We try to fill the emptiness by our continual distractions from reality, whether it’s through social interaction, screen time, or turning to vices like food, drink, or drugs. We are not alone with our thoughts when we act in that way.
I will caution you that this is not an easy task. Sitting by yourself with your thoughts is difficult, but it’s necessary. Thinking is necessary if we are to learn how to think positively, and thinking can only occur when the mind is clear of outside distractions.
8.) Learn more about yourself: Examining others from the outside is much simpler, but how often do we do the same to ourselves?
I am aware that this is a very challenging task, but the work must be done. Start noting the aspects of yourself that you find comfortable and the aspects that you find lacking.
If you don’t like certain quality about another person, try and think whether you have the same trait as the individual whose quality you find objectionable.
It takes effort to cultivate positive thinking through the dark, but you can do it by practicing daily, little by little. You too can find light if you can accept that the way to find it is to realize that there is a shadow directly alongside it.
