Positive Thinking

The Philosophy of Life

Sometimes we're somber	Sometimes we're joyous
Sometimes life is difficult	Sometimes life is easy
Sometimes life is tawdry	Sometimes life is beautiful
Sometimes we're worse	Sometimes we're better
Sometimes we're struggling	Sometimes we're well off
Sometimes we're sick	Sometimes we're in good health
Sometimes we're depressed	Sometimes we're euphoric
Sometimes we're sad	Sometimes we're happy
Sometimes we want to die	Sometimes we want to live
Sometimes we're cast down	Sometimes we're exalted
Sometimes life is a battle	Sometimes life is glorious

To actively change our moods we have to seek out our negative thoughts, see how these thoughts are flawed, and create new positive thoughts to replace them.

Every bad feeling you have is the result of your distorted negative thinking. Every time you feel depressed about something, try to identify a corresponding negative thought you had just prior to and during the depression. Because these thoughts have actually created your bad mood, by learning to restructure them, you can replace them with positive thoughts which will brighten your mood.

A powerful technique for becoming more peaceful is to be aware of how quickly your negative and insecure thinking can spiral out of control. Have you ever noticed how uptight you feel when you're caught up in your thinking? And, to top it off, the more absorbed you get get in the details of whatever is upsetting you, the worse you feel. One thought leads to another, and yet another, until at some point, you become incredibly agitated.
The solution is to notice what's happening in your head before your thoughts have a chance to build up momentum. The sooner you catch yourself in the act of building your mental snowball, the easier it is to stop. Remember every image you hold in your mind and communicate to your subconscious has an impact on your body and your health.

You can use visualizations to become more peaceful and relaxed. There are eight steps to the visualization process.

Take 3 deep breaths
1. Take a deep breath in until your stomach begins to rise
2. Keep breathing in intil your chest expands and your stomach falls
3. Let all the air out in the reverse order you took it in
Tense each muscle for about 5 seconds then relax it for 15 seconds before going to the next muscle
Picture yourself in pleasant natual surroundings
See yourself and the problem area as it is now
Change the problem area in whatever way you want
Feel the feelings of achieving your goal. i.e. pride, satisfaction, joy
Return to your home base. Pat yourself on your back for doing this
Tell yourself you deserve this goal!

Cognitive Distortions and their definitions

All-or-Nothing Thinking; this refers to your tendency to evaluate your personal qualities in extreme, black or white categories, if your not the best then you must be the worst.
Overgeneralization; you arbitrarily conclude that one thing that happened to you once will occur over and over again, i.e. that always happens to me.
Mental Filter; you pick out a negative detail in any situation and dwell on it exclusively, you pay very little attention to the positives, they're of little consequence or they're not real, a mistake.
Disqualifying the Positive; to transform neutral or even positive experiences into negative ones. You don't just ignore positive experiences, you swiftly turn them into their negative opposite. i.e. if someone compliments you, you tell yourself that they're just being nice, they don't really mean it.
Jumping to Conclusions; you jump to negative conclusions that are not justified by the facts of the situation, You either presume you know what the other person is thinking, or you forecast something, in a negative way, that hasn't happened yet.
Magnification and Minimization; you are either blowing things up out of proportion or shrinking them. Magnification commonly occurs when you look at your own errors, fears, or imperfections and exaggerate their importance. When you look at your strengths, you see them as small and unimportant.
Emotional Reasoning; you take your emotions as evidence for the truth. i.e. I feel inadequate, therefore, I must be a worthless person. or I feel unsure, therefore, I must be an idiot.
Should Statements; you try to motivate yourself by saying, "I should do this" or "I must do that". These statements cause you to feel pressured and resentful and then apathetic and unmotivated. If you use should statements towards other people you usually end up feeling frustrated or resentful.
Labeling and Mislabeling; you create a completely negative self-image based on your errors. You think the measure of a person is the mistakes they make. Instead of saying "I made a mistake" you say "I'm a failure". Instead of thinking that she is independent and could use a better explanation, you think of her as an uncooperative bitch. Mislabeling involves describing an event with words that are inaccurate and emotionally heavily loaded. i.e. A woman on a diet ate a dish of ice cream and thought, "How disgusting and repulsive of me, I'm a pig.". These thoughts made her so upset she ate the whole carton of ice cream.
Personalization; this is guilt to the extreme. You assume responsibility for a negative event when there is no basis for doing so. What ever happens it must be your fault because of your inadequacy, even when you were not responsible for it. i.e. When a mother saw her child's report card and a note from the teacher indicating the child was not doing well in school, she immediately decided, "I must be a bad mother, this shows how I've failed".

Use these negative distortions when you seek out your negative thoughts. Enter them in a journal either pen and paper or electronic.

Now here is a sample of more logical thinking to the above distortions, enter them in your journal next to your negative thoughts.

In life nothing is black or white, but an infinite shade of grays and colours. What ever happened was probably closer to the average than you thought.
No single event has a never-ending pattern, try very hard to think of all the times the event turned out positive.
Think of the negative detail as insignificant and look for all the positive details.
Remember that you've been looking at your self through your own negative thoughts, the compliment probably comes from the heart and is very real. Believe the positives and they will become real.
Unless you are psychic you can not read other people's minds or foresee the future. If you expect something to happen, your subconscious mind will cause you to act in ways that will fulfill that expectation. Try to think of as many logical and possible solutions to the problem as you can then choose the most positive one.
Everyone makes mistakes, you don't own the market, just see them as a learning experience. Overlook other people's mistakes they probably didn't mean it or they're as mixed up as you, ha ha.
Your emotions are just symptoms of your feelings. Try to look at things in a factual and logical way if you really want to solve a problem you'll put them away and try to see the problem from another person's eyes.
Change your shoulds and oughts to "I would like to" or "I wish they would". Change your shoudn'ts to "I'll try not to".
The measure of a person is the good they do, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is an individual so labeling is quite illogical. The subconscious mind is very literal. If it hears "I'm so stupid" repeated time and time again, it takes that to mean that your goal is to be stupid and it will work to see that you do stupid things.
Every event has many causes, even if you did contribute to it in some small way, don't dwell on it but try to correct what you think you've done wrong.

When you have finished seeking out your illogical thinking and tried to correct it start on your positive thoughts. Begin by thinking up an affirmation that would benefit you the most, I will give you a short list of bad things you would like to correct and the affirmation that you could use. If you use your own affirmation try to keep it simple and easy to remember, eventually you'll want it to be a automatic response to the negative thoughts your trying to get rid of.

Negative Feelings

Frustration at not being accepted.
Inability to move forward with ease.
Lack of emotional support.
Feeling unloved.
Holding back love.
Fear or tension.
Trying to control everything.
Not trusting the process of life or love.
Feeling dirty and unloved.

AFFIRMATION

I love and approve of myself.

Negative Feelings

Smother love.
Inability to breathe for one's self.
Feeling stifled.
Suppressed crying.
Fear of parent.
Holding on to old ideas.
fear of letting go.
Lack of joy in the decisions made in life.

AFFIRMATION

It is safe now for me to take charge of my life.

Negative Feelings

Fear of life.
Not wanting to be here
Trying to control everything.
Not trusting the process of life.

AFFIRMATION

I am safe and loved

Negative Feelings

Guilt.
Stuck in all that "stuff" back there.
Get off my back.
Anger and revenge thoughts.
Experiences backing up.
Holding on to old ideas.
Fear of letting go.

AFFIRMATION

I release the past, so that I may look forward to a positive future

An old stand by that sometimes works is
"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better"

Once you have an affirmation put it everywhere you might see it, the computer screen, taped to the fridge, by your bed ect. Every morning say it to yourself three times, do the same thing when you go to bed. If you do my exercises or some form of meditation try fitting it in there. The art of positive thinking is just repeating something over and over until your subconscious mind accepts it as the truth, so be sure you pick an affirmation you can really believe in. Also try not to tell your subconscious anything negative as it will believe that as well. Think the thoughts you want to hear and if any negative thoughts come in, turn them around and make them positive. You can do it!

The next step would be to do the relaxation exercises (or mine) until you are so compleatly relaxed the outside world seems to be in the very far distance or doesn't exsist at all and you're at compleat ease at this point you can let any or all of your affirmations sink into your subconscious mind. You might want to set an alarm clock to bring yourself out of it in say 30 minutes. If you can master this as well as the ancients did than you should be on the road to full recovery from what ever problem you had. Good luck.

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