The Power of Actually Using Positive Thinking
Recently I picked up a rather old book, from 1987, called “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers. I remember hearing years ago of the physical demonstration that she talks about in her book.
During her seminars she would get a volunteer out of her audience and have them hold their arms straight out to the side. She would tell the volunteer to resist with all their strength as she attempted to push down on their arms. “Not once have I succeeded in pushing ….the arms down on my initial trial” she states in her book. She would then tell the volunteer to repeat “I am a weak and unworthy person” ten times and really feel the statement. When trying to push down the arms right after this, she was able to pull both arms down. To prove her point even more, she would again ask the person to repeat ten times the positive statement “I am a strong and worthy person” but this time, she would not be able to budge their arms, even more so than the first time she tried to push them down.
A couple days ago, just before heading out to play in a round robin tennis tourney, I repeated to myself, many times over, (even thought I felt kind of childish doing it) ” I am a very strong tennis player and I am very worthy of winning” and also repeating “I am younger and more fit now than I was a year ago”—and did it ever work! I played 4 rounds of tennis winning each round by a very wide margin!!
Most of what Jeffers had to say was stuff I already knew but I was not doing it anymore. It was like a rebirth doing it again and, wow, does it feel good. The power of positive thinking is pretty amazing. Especially when you remember to use it!
The Power of Positive Language
I’ve been thinking about my negative self-talk blog from last week and I figured we probably have more negative thoughts than we imagine so I did a bit of light research on it and, yep, there are a lot of ways negativity can seep into our thoughts.
The thing is, we constantly have this internal chatter where we comment on and determine how we interpret our circumstances. And a lot of us have this set of both conscious thoughts and less conscious assumptions and beliefs that lean to the negative side so that this internal chatter ends up being critical and, ultimately, demoralizing. And it’s very hard to get away from, unless you’re mindful of it:
- Next time you find you’re being critical of yourself, stop and find alternatives to “I’m an idiot!” or “I’m getting so fat!” such as “Next time, I’ll pay more attention and I’ll ace this!” or “I know I can eat better and I’m going to do that starting now!” This will stop you from what is called “Self-limiting talk” when the negative comments make you feel defeated and so you don’t bother looking for answers. Never accept defeat!
- Don’t jump to conclusions. “He must have thought I was a fool the way I keep blathering on!” or “I’ve never done this before. I’m going to fail terribly.” are your interpretations of situations but aren’t the actual truth. However, we make these statements facts in our mind by using this negative self-talk. Look at exactly what happened or will likely happen and keep your thoughts on the positive aspects of a situation.
- Stop using negativity when talking to others. What you say aloud becomes common chatter internally. When someone says you look good, don’t brush it off with an “Ugh! I feel like a whale today.” Instead say “Thank you. That’s sweet of you to say.” Or if you are used to saying “I’m just not good at that.” try saying “Someday I’m going to figure out how to do that!”
It’s those small but significant changes in our language both in our heads and when talking to others that a battle with too much negativity is fought and won. Just be mindful of what you say and what you think and turn negative commentary into positive, empowering statements!
