Читать книгу Conversations with the Psychologist - Veronica Semenova - Страница 7

Question: “Recently, everyone is talking about the need to think positively… But how can this be achieved? It’s not as if everyone is born an optimist. How can one learn not to pay attention to various little upsetting things and annoying troubles?”

It’s common knowledge that our physical and psycho-emotional state directly depends on the way we think and what we talk about. Our thoughts define our lives. Many negative things happen, but focusing on the negative is wrong. If life is given to us for happiness, so it must bring joy and pleasure.

Positive thinking is a conscious choice made by each person. Life does not always bring happy moments. Everyone has the right to choose those thoughts that will help them find a more constructive way out of a difficult situation and reinforce the fight against hardship.

Even in the most difficult life moments, you can still find something good. You just need to be able to see it. When you choose positive thinking in life, you can free yourself from the restrictions of negative thoughts and can see that life is filled with opportunities and solutions, not just worries and obstacles.

Positive thinking affects one’s physical as well as mental state and the ability to adapt to circumstances and unforeseen changes in life. When a person realizes this, he receives an ongoing motivation to think positively.

Attitudes towards life depend only on personal choice. If someone is used to depending on the negative emotions of other people, then this is also a personal choice. One needs to realize that thoughts and feelings can be controlled. Once this realization is made, it becomes clear that one can also change thinking patterns.

Often, things seem more significant than they really are, and certainly do not involve as much anxiety as a person actually thinks. Do not allow yourself to succumb to anxiety. You need to calmly think about and make a weighted decision.

Working With Negative Thoughts

It is important to identify those negative subconscious thoughts which do not allow you to look at the world in a different way. When you learn to quickly identify them, you can then challenge and block them. When you identify a negative thought and understand its origin, you are able to counteract it with positive responses.

Black and White Thinking

In this type of thinking, everything that a person encounters is perceived as either “all” or “nothing,” with no other possibilities. For example, if something goes wrong and life is not like a person wanted or envisioned things would be, the situation can immediately fall into the category of being terrible, unsalvageable, and hopeless. Such a person thinks only in two extremes-positive and negative.

But in order to judge a situation for what it is, it is necessary to make a list of all possible outcomes. This approach enables one to see that everything is not as terrible as it seems. If you can see shades of grey in situations, and not just black and white, you can grow to understand that negative situations are not the end of the world.

Personalization

In this type of thinking, a person thinks that if something went wrong, then he himself is the cause of failure. This approach leads to feeling terrible in any situation, or responsible for everything.

To avoid this trap, it is necessary to be rational and think carefully about the causes and all possible factors that could have contributed to a situation’s negative outcome.

“Filtered” Thinking

Some tend to focus on receiving only negative messages, given the information provided to them. For example: your boss praises you for the work you’ve done, but also mentions what could be improved next time. Although your boss is trying to help, you perceive this as a harsh criticism.

If you continue to think this way, it is likely that you will never see anything positive in any critical remark. Meanwhile, after a moment’s reflection, you could have come to the conclusion that the boss’s positive comments significantly outweighed the negative ones.

Catastrophic Thinking

This is the viewpoint in which a person is completely pessimistic and believes that everything is doomed to fail. To counter this type of thinking, one must become a realist and seek evidence against negative beliefs.

Predictive Thinking

Someone may think that if their past relationship failed, any new relationship is doomed to fail, too. And it will most likely fail because that person has already programmed such an outcome in his mind, and the human subconscious will do everything to prove him right.

Instead, it would be helpful to learn from each individual life situation and apply your knowledge to new situations to avoid making the same mistakes.

An effective method to start restructuring negative thoughts is to question yourself. For example: “Is this situation as bad as I imagine it?” or “How can such bad thoughts help me?”

Positive thinking, like any other skill, requires practice. It takes time to cultivate positive thinking, as learning to think positively requires that we develop certain skills and abilities. Learn to praise yourself regularly and make a list of what you could thank yourself for every day. This will have a positive effect on your thoughts and emotions. Try to find something good in all events, things, and people. Praise yourself for the work you have done and do not blame others or yourself for mistakes.

This way, you will be able to reinforce your self-esteem and will clearly see what you were able to achieve through your own efforts.

Learn to perceive problematic situations and people as opportunities that give you the chance to learn and grow. When you see something positive in other people, you can let your thoughts and feelings move in the same direction.

Developing positive thinking will bring you closer towards being able to control your own life.