If I were going to play Devil’s Advocate, the first question should be: Why is it useful to have a positive mindset anyway? If I’m feeling rotten, why hide it? Shouldn’t I be honest? If someone wronged me, why gloss over it? Shouldn’t I be entitled to lick my wounds? And if I have a serious problem in my life, how am I supposed to solve it if I’m not thinking about it?
These are actually very good questions. I’ve heard them from many people. Let’s look more closely at each one.
What’s the value of a positive mindset anyway?
Here are several answers:
- Research shows that people who are hurt, angry, depressed, anxious, or just plain negative will suffer from increased hypertension and heart conditions, reduced immunity to disease, and actually a shorter lifespan. Wow. That is not something you want to mess with.
- Research shows that a negative mindset clutters the brain with a stream of unhelpful information that actually prevents clear thinking. Many people ruminate over their problems to the degree that they lose sleep, and everyone knows you function more poorly with less sleep.
- Research shows that a positive mindset, in contrast, clears the mind to receive new and valuable ideas; it paves the way for creativity. This may bring answers to the very questions troubling you.
- Research shows that with a positive mindset, a person attracts other people, which in turn, may be the very thing needed to resolve the problem that cause the negativity.
- Research shows that a positive mindset somehow gives the brain and body a shot of energy, something we can all use in a challenging world.
If I’m feeling rotten, why hide it? Shouldn’t I be honest?
You absolutely should be honest with your spouse and children as to how you feel – but only up to a point. Let’s take an extreme case. Should a parent tell a child the worst news of the child’s life? Children may need to know what’s going on – but not in graphic detail. Do you see my point? There’s ways and ways of saying things.
So let’s say mommy is crying. It’s normal to cry, but it frightens children. It’s unsettling to them. Children want their parents to be a platform of stability, so again, maybe go cry in the bathroom. Cry at night when they’re sleeping.
This logic applies to your spouse as well. Of course they need to know when you’re disturbed by things. You don’t want to hide behind lies, even lies meant to protect them from emotional harm. Nevertheless, here are some bad outcomes from constant negativity:
- Your spouse starts to feel down too. Then you’re both down. And no one can help the other person.
- Your spouse may start to avoid you. They may be terrified of sinking into a depression of their own, so staying away is a good solution for them.
- Your spouse may lose sexual interest in you. I mean, it is not sexy to be with someone who is hurt, down, or anxious.
- Your spouse may feel an extra burden because your bad mood means you’re not doing the things you need to do in the house and for the family.
- Finally, your spouse may decide they’ve had enough. And that’s not good at all.
Bad moods should really be over with in a few hours at the most. I know of people who have them for days and weeks. No good. Lots and lots of bad outcomes come from bad moods. It is not worth it.
If someone wronged me, why gloss over it? Shouldn’t I be entitled to lick my wounds?
You should not gloss over it. But actually, by licking your wounds, you’re making it worse. And you’re preventing yourself from solving the problem. Here’s why:
- When you lick your wounds, what you’re really doing is re-traumatizing yourself. Whatever it was that hurt you, by going over and over it, you’re hurting yourself all over again.
- When you lick your wounds, what you’re not doing is taking care of the problem. So in a funny kind of way, by licking your wounds and feeling sorry for yourself, you actually are allowing the problem to remain. The alternative, of course, is to speak to the person who hurt you. If they are not capable of listening, then the next best thing is to stop being with them and stop thinking about what they said.
And if I have a serious problem in my life, how am I supposed to solve it if I’m not thinking about it?
This makes sense. You absolutely have to give it some thought to solve the problem. However, the best way to do that – ironically – is by spending a very short amount of time thinking about it and then allowing your unconscious mind to do the rest of the work. It is amazing how brilliant your unconscious mind really is and how much more efficiently it works (paradoxically) when you’re not thinking about the problem.
So, all this takes us to the question, Okay, DrDeb, I get that being positive is better, but how do you do that when you’re feeling so negative?
I’d like to answer that question with a very important question: How much of the time are you feeling negative?
Because if it’s a lot of the time, or the blue mood can last a long time when it comes, or it’s really, really dark when it comes, then do not procrastinate getting to work on it. This means it is a very serious problem. The 3 measures of how bad anything is, are: frequency (how often it happens), intensity (how very bad it feels), and duration (how long it lasts). So if any of these is off the charts, it’s a problem. For you, for your spouse, and for your kids.
The first requirement to make this big change has to be desire: You have to want to abandon being in the dumps badly enough. Because when you make this change, when you get out of being depressed, hurt, playing victim, or whatever negative mood you get into, you’re going to take some losses. You will lose
- the excuse to drink, gamble, drug, or any other addiction
- a way of comforting yourself that victim playing is
- an excuse for making everyone else miserable around you which they say is what you really want because misery loves company.
So you have to really, really want to make this change more than you really wanted to hold onto the things in the list above. That’s first.
Second, you need accountability. You cannot expect to make such a huge change, like heaving a boulder off your boat, all by yourself. There needs to be someone there who will call you out if/when you backslide or want to slip. And you have to like it, and appreciate it, and thank them for it.
Third, you will need to clear some time in your calendar to focus on this. It isn’t easy. But it is so worthwhile. And I am certainly here to help. https://drdeb.com/book