Monday, August 22, 2011

How To Stop Being Negative

Ever notice that the more you try NOT to think about something, the more you end up thinking about it?

Ever notice that when a parent warns a child NOT to do something, the child usually winds up doing it?

And have you ever reminded yourself over and over NOT to forget something, only to wind up forgetting that something anyway?

As children the best advice our parents could give us was to ignore whatever it was that was bothering us. As parents ourselves we tell our own children to 'just not think about' the whatever it is that is bothering them. Whether children have been bullied at school, or are worried about switching schools, it seems that the best advice anyone could ever give had something to do with doing the almost impossible. How can you really ignore a bully when they're chasing you down the hallway, and how can you really NOT think about the one thing in your life that is causing you stress? It seems simply not doable.

What if instead of giving more focus to the very thing we do not want, like the bully, or the stressor of any given situation, and the subsequent anxiety induced by any said given stressor;what if instead of reinforcing the anxiety related to a particular stressor; what if opposed to the re-telling of stories that have to do with our stressor we instead trained our minds to focus upon things that made our spirits happy?

Maybe my mother should have told me what to do instead of what not to do. Maybe when I complained about being punched in the hallway by my bully, she should have told me to instead take a dance class. Maybe the dance class would have improved my self esteem, and would have given me something to look forward to. Maybe if I had something wonderful to cling to, I would not have entertained such negative thoughts about the bullies in my grammar school. Maybe all the focus, albeit negative focus, actually helped me attract the bullies in the first place.

Maybe instead of parents telling their children to be happy, parents actually made themselves happy, by taking a yoga class, or a painting class and in return offered their children a model for what self love is, then maybe our children would learn to focus all by themselves on how to draw positives into their lives, rather than falsely assuming that being a slave to negative programming is fate.

If we want to grow an apple tree, we wouldn't stare at the ground and say, "Wow this soil sucks. There is no way an apple tree is going to grow here. It will probably not grow. It will probably die anyway, or if it does grow it won't bare any fruit anyway."

We usually have more faith and hope in the annual impatient flowers we plant around our property every spring than we do in our abilities to attract positivity into our lives. The key is to hear the programming that is swirling about in our minds.

Happiness is but a single thought away....

Peace to you my friends...

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Thank you for visiting my site which was created to help heal adult children of alcoholics, codependents, those suffering from codependency issues, as well as all beings suffering from low self esteem, and who seek validation from outside rather from within.

Know--you are enough!

Lisa A. Romano
healingselfesteem@gmail.com