What do you think about thinking? Is the glass half full or is it half empty? Are you a Positive Thinkeror are you a Negative Thinker? If more often than not, you wake up in the morning and your first thought is:today is going to be an absolutely awful day, you’re likely to be considered a negative thinker. On the other hand, if you regularly wake up and think: hey, today is going to be a great day, you’re considered to be a positive thinker.
Negative thinking is considered to be off-putting thoughts, words and attitudes that bring up unhelpful and unhappy moods and actions. More often than not, this is the way to failure, frustration and disappointment. Positive thinking has been described as a mental attitude in which you expect good and favorable results. In other words, positive thinking is the process of creating thoughts that generate and convert energy into reality. A positive mind looks or waits for happiness, health and a happy ending in any situation. In other words, whatever the mind expects, it finds.
Positive Thinking often helps you achieve goals and maintain success, often increasing your happiness, energy, inner peace and strength. Not only does it have the ability to inspire and motivate you, but it can also inspire and motivate those around you. Positive thoughts = Positive Attitude: Change happens from the inside and reflects outwardly. Positive thinking doesn’t mean that one has to keep their head in the sand, ignoring the unpleasantries that life often conjures up- No. It simply means that we find a way to approach these unpleasant curve balls in a healthy, positive and more productive manner. Simply put, we hope for the best – we don’t automatically expect the worst. We are in control of who we are, what we have, what we do, how we think and to a degree ultimately, how we feel. Although you can’t always control what happens to you in this life, what you can control is your reaction to whatever obstacle or challenge you may be faced with.
Recovery is a long term process – obstacles and challenges will happen over the course of your journey. That’s why learning to think positively is essential. Positive thinking can increase ones self-efficiency and reduce stress levels; it can help you cope more easily with daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life and makes it easier to avoid negative thinking. If you are mainly positive, chances are you will be focused on good things, joyful thoughts and successful outcomes. Otherwise, you run the risk of dwelling on the negative things in life: the bad things, distressing thoughts, disastrous outcomes, ultimately increasing the likelihood of you acting and behaving in a negative manner, which can result
in relapse.
Be aware of your thoughts – reframe your thoughts. In order to change something, whether it be how you think or how you feel about a certain situation, that change often begins with reframing how you see reality. Meditation, practicing acceptance and maintaining relationships with others in recovery can assist in gradually changing your perspective on life, ultimately transforming you into being a positive thinker.