Mind Matters: Cultivating Positive Thinking for Mental Wellbeing
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Introduction
This week we are writing about the importance of keeping your mood positive. We usually look at our topics in terms of why this is important for health and beauty, and the main reason for wanting to maintain a positive mood would be that when you feel good you are more likely to invest in self-care such as exercising and eating nutritious food. You will probably have noticed that when you are feeling “down in the dumps” you are more likely to eat comfort food and want to curl up on the couch.
We are also going to suggest another reason to keep your mood positive and for this we are borrowing from a coach we really admire, Frederick Dodson. His reasoning for keeping your mood positive is that when your “vibe” is low, you are more likely to attract negative experiences. This may seem a little out there for many people to believe but we would invite you to think about it like this – if you are driving along and are consumed with negative thoughts, maybe you are more likely not to see the pothole in the road, you drive into it and end up with a flat tyre.
In this article, we are going to share our top three tips on how to get yourself out of the downward spiral of negative thinking that can occur when something happens to us that we don’t like.
#1 For Every Negative, Find 5 Positives
We are taking this from a video by Frederick Dodson. He talks about writing a list of 5 positive things to write, say or do when ever something has occurred that is causing you to feel sad, unhappy or angry.
He says that actions are the most powerful steps you can take and your list of 5 should have some action items. He also mentions that you should give whatever it is that you feel you are lacking – so, for example, if something happened where you feel disapproved of or put down, then part of your action plan should be to help other people to feel approved of. The idea of this is that we get back what we put out – if we are critical towards others, we may experience criticism ourselves.
An example might be:
Negative experience: I didn’t get a promotion at work; it goes to a colleague who I believe is less qualified.
Five positive actions:
- Consider whether it is time to move job or to upskill in some way. Put an action plan in place to either apply for other roles or to improve your chance of being promoted the next time and opportunity arises.
- Take a day off work and do something really nice like treat yourself to some shopping and a new haircut.
- Spend some time in nature.
- Be gracious and wish the successful applicant all the best in the new role and do your best to support them.
- Make a list of all the things in your life more important than work.
#2 Reframing Through Journaling
Reframing is an interesting one as it allows you to look at the situation from a different, more neutral perspective. A good way to approach this is through journaling. Write down all the reasons that you are unhappy about whatever has happened. After you get it all down on paper, start to write about it in a slightly softer way, eventually coming to a place where you can accept it and even see it as an opportunity.
Using the example in #1 above where you didn’t get the promotion at work –
- 1st paragraph: Focus on how bad you feel – I’m so angry, it’s not fair, I feel humiliated, etc.
- 2nd paragraph: Begin to take a more neutral stance – maybe it’s not the end of the world, maybe this promotion isn’t as important as I thought it was, etc.
- Final paragraph: Start to see potential upsides of what has happened – maybe this was not the right time for me to get a promotion, maybe the culture in this organisation is toxic and this is just the impetus I need to move on, etc.
In this book, the technique of reframing is applied to personal situations, to business models and to global questions about our future. Presented in a rich philosophical context, reframing is a simple, four-step tool to generate creative approaches for your own life. Reframing will take you out of your mental comfort zone.
#3 Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
For this section, we are going to use a video from a Counsellor, Tia Obed Krzak. If you feel that you would like to work with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, you might want to consider working with a licensed psychologist. Here we will give you are overview of how you can identify negative thinking and turn it into more positive or neutral thinking.
Firstly she lists cognitive dissonances as follows:
- Black & white thinking – thinking in extremes or catastrophising
- Overgeneralisation – for example, one failure leading you to believe that you are a failure in general
- Jumping to conclusions – making negative assumptions about what other people think or about the future
- Mental filters – only looking a all the negatives in a situation and filtering out the positives
- Emotional reasoning – judging a situation on how you feel rather than what the evidence is
Solutions to address these types of thinking include:
- Awareness – watch your thoughts and notice when your thinking is actually cognitive dissonance rather than healthy thought processing.
- Find evidence for and against a particular thought – get a piece of paper and create two columns. In the first column, write the factual evidence to support the thought and in the second column write down your opinions about the thought.
- Find alternative explanations for your original thought.
- Can you control this situation and, if so, what action can you take?
- Reframe the thought – for example, instead of thinking I’m a bad person because I said something to hurt my friend’s feelings, think “I’m human – I made a mistake and I’m going to apologise to them to resolve the situation”.
This bestselling guide to the basic theory, skills and applications of cognitive behaviour therapy is fully updated to reflect recent developments in CBT theory. It includes in-depth material on working with diversity, and new case studies and exercises to help you reflect and explore how theory can be used to develop effective practice.
Conclusion
We think that there is a lot of empowering information in this article. The important step is to actually put it into practice. It can be very tempting to wallow in our unhappiness, but it is so much better for us if we try to elevate our mood. Ideally, we should get good at spotting when we are thinking negatively, and we should get into the habit of taking steps to counteract this.
Things in our lives that help us to keep our mood elevated are loving connections with family members, friends and pets, community activities, hobbies we enjoy and exercise.
We are talking about the range of everyday human emotions. If you feel that you are depressed or may have a mental health issue, you should consider professional help. Everybody deserves to feel mentally healthy and strong.
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