Positive Thinking
When considering the overall wellness of our lives, one of the things that I believe can really make a positive difference is a consideration of how positive thinking makes you happier. One of the biggest factors that helps us to have a happier and more fulfilled life is our thought processes which are particularly developed by our communication with ourselves. (For more information on how this works, check this article out) If you haven’t noticed this yet or are regularly unaware of your internal dialogue, take a quick survey of how often you whisper to yourself throughout your day. If you’re like most people, you will realize that you are having constant running dialogue with yourself – a small voice that speaks inside your head throughout the day that comments on everything – things like what other drivers are doing when you’re in traffic, what your friends were thinking when they posted that picture to social media, and what your life is like at any particular moment. The truth is, we communicate with ourselves more than anyone else and just like any dialogue, our inner dialogue can be either constructive or destructive.
Unwanted Repetitive Patterns
If you’ve ever gotten into an argument with someone, you can understand how quickly communication can break down and become destructive. Maybe you’ve been in a relationship and it seems like every conversation turns into an argument. Regardless of the topic of the conversation, you and your partner always seem to find a way to argue. For many people this can lead to frustration, anger and ultimately if not corrected, it can destroy the relationship. This happens as a result of recurring communication patterns in our conversations. These patterns are called URP’s or Unwanted Repetitive Patterns. A URP takes place when one person says something to another person, the other person gets defensive and responds in a habitually bad way that in turn causes the other person to get defensive and respond back habitually and so on until the situation devolves into an argument. Many times in these types of conversations, our brains force us to operate on autopilot due to our past experiences and we are not mindful about what is being said to us or what we are saying in return and how our messages might be interpreted by the other person. These URP’s are habitual, destructive, and difficult to break. Of course, the first step to conquering them and improving our communication and our relationships is to be aware of them and when they are taking place in our conversations so that we can intervene and change the conversation. If you change the conversation, you can change the outcome.
How Positive Thinking Makes You Happier
This happens in our intrapersonal conversations as well. Intrapersonal communication is the internal dialogue that we each have with ourselves every day which helps to define our purpose, determine our confidence, and develop our perspective of ourselves and the world around us. Unfortunately, these mental constructs have many times been formed by what people from our past (teachers, parents, friends, etc.) have said about us. Those labels stick and provide the lens through which we see ourselves. Those labels along with destructive patterns of intrapersonal communication structure our internal dialogues and define our self-perception. Just like with URP’s in our interpersonal dialogue, the first step to correcting this problem and changing our thinking patterns requires an awareness of these patterns in our internal dialogue – recognizing how we communicate with ourselves and then taking intentional action to communicate with ourselves in a more constructive way. What we say to ourselves and how we say it matters. If you find yourself speaking destructive messages to yourself; if you find yourself speaking words that do not build you up and are not constructive, take a step back and examine your internal dialogues and see if you might find some habitual patterns in how you talk to yourself. Self-awareness requires that we see those patterns for what they are, that we recognize their effects, and that we work to intentionally change what we say to ourselves. Changing our internal messaging can lead to a change in our thinking and thought processes and that can be transformational in our lives. If you change the conversation, you can change your thinking and then change the outcome.
The Science of Positive Thinking
Based upon this premise, when you intentionally make your conversation positive and constructive rather than habitually falling into destructive internal dialogues, it changes the way you feel. Research on this topic by Barbara L. Fredrickson shows that positive thinking through a specific type of meditation practice, produced more positive emotions, a greater range of personal resources (e.g. mindfulness, life purpose, decrease in symptoms of illness) and an increased life satisfaction with less depressive symptoms. This scientific research is based upon Fredrickson’s broaden and build theory which is composed of two parts. The broaden hypothesis states that positive emotions broaden a person’s scopes of attention, cognition, and action. In other words, their world opens up, their visual attention capability expands, they are open to new experiences and greater possibilities in their interpersonal relationships, and even their own-race bias decreases. The build hypothesis states that positive emotions, over time, build personal physical, intellectual, and social resources. This means that over time, positive thinking can help us to do more, think better, and have better social relationships – all things that contribute to greater happiness in our lives.
How To Think More Positively
Considering the science behind positive thinking, here are a few ways you can think more positively in your life and ultimately live happier.
- Recognize the Power of Words. The words that we use (our language) are carriers of meaning. We may think they are merely words, but these words affect how we think (for more on this click here). So to think more positively, begin to be attentive to the words that you are saying to and about yourself, and intentionally change those words from negative to positive. Instead of being destructive in your language about yourself, begin to be constructive. Instead of tearing yourself down, be a person who builds “you” up. This may seem difficult at first because if you are pessimistic or habitually are negative about yourself it can be challenging to break those old habits. One way to do this is to create positive sentences about yourself, memorize them and recite them to yourself often. Remember it takes at least 30 days to break old habits so stick to it for a couple of months and you will find that your words about yourself will begin to change.
- Take Time to Meditate or Pray. In her research, Fredrickson shows that people who meditate regularly have more positive emotions. Meditation is nothing more than focused thought. Prayer is really recognizing who God is and what He really thinks about you. For many people, their perspective of God has been one that sees God as a brutal overlord who wants to punish them for their sin. Instead of looking at God like that, know that God loves you for who you are.
- Write. Writing is nothing more than an account of our thoughts. Writing engages your mind in an incredibly focused way so writing out your positive words and writing out your prayers and your meditations can have an incredibly powerful impact on how you think.
- Minimize the Negative. Unfortunately, we all have many negative people in our lives who say negative things about us. In some cases, these negative perspectives have stuck with us from our childhood because extremely influential people said them. It’s important to realize that you create your own reality by what you think. Just because someone said something negative about you doesn’t mean necessarily that it is true. And even if it was true at one point, the good news is that we are not condemned to be slaves of our past – we can start again. Your past doesn’t have to be your future. What was once true about you doesn’t have to be true about you forever so whenever a negative though comes to you, don’t accept that as true and replace it with a constructive and positive thought.
Remember this – you can change! It all starts with thinking in a different way.