02 Jul If you’re finding it hard to be positive, that’s OK, just don’t be …
Many, many years ago, in another life time, I worked as a clinical researcher specialising in understanding and treating the psychological aspects of chronic pain.
I won’t bore you with all the details of my PhD research in this short post, but one factor that was very well established at the time, and we elaborated on it in my research, was that the way people thought about their pain affected the extent to which it was and became distressing and disabling.
That is, once someone had chronic pain, if they thought about it catastrophic ways, they would then experience significantly more emotional distress and functional disability when compared to those who thought about their pain in more helpful and constructive ways.
And note the second part of that sentence. Those who functioned better didn’t necessarily think about their pain in positive ways, they just weren’t excessively negative!
And I think this is something from which we can all learn; whether you have pain or not.
You don’t need to be positive all the time; just try NOT to be overly negative.
Sure, positivity can be great, when you can create it, but there’s nothing more damaging than extreme self-hatred and self-criticism and self-loathing and, well, I think you get the idea.
You don’t have to love yourself, just don’t hate yourself! So if you’re finding it hard to generate positivity today, or any day, remind yourself that that’s OK, and just try NOT to be too damn negative.