How to be more positive. Happy matters.
Fight or flight? We spend a lot of time there. From the time I awaken, usually with a gasp, I’ve got my sympathetic nervous system working overtime to help me drag this faulty meat suit out of bed. What kind of day I have is often dictated by how long I “let” myself stay there.
I don’t understand a lot about biology. Can’t tell you where my kidneys are lol, or most of the intricacies of the body, so I find discovering new things to be exciting #dork. N gave me “studyitis and bookitis” so my best way to learn without falling asleep is from entertaining lectures lol, maybe that’s where my writing style comes from, I dunno lol, some have said I’m entertaining 💛.
Anywho *squirrel* I’m always trying to help people understand how much embracing happiness while you’re stuck in the suck matters for coping. Found a new way to “explain” it and discuss something that’s been on my mind so if you’re down for my long winded blatherings, enjoy lol. If not, all good 💛
“Forced” positivity is acting like you’re positive when you’re not. This is about the worst thing you can do to yourself. I am naturally positive about 95% of the time. This came from years of honing my perspective to find the good nugget in whatever I’m considering before I look at the whole. If I can see the good, the bad is already a bit easier to look at. Case in point, my car was stolen last Wednesday. My first thought was, “I’m so damned glad I got that gap insurance.” Because that meant, worst case scenario, I’m out my $500 deductible. Then I went on to “how did this happen?” And “call 911.” But I did not panic.
What I learned, just in the last few days even, is that my thought process helps my body stay calm, which means I am not activating my “sympathetic nervous system” aka fight/flight. One step more… fight/flight is directly involved with N as it’s the hypothalamus that is affected by the response. “Blowing” all my cortisol stores = Zzzz. So, keeping myself out of fight/flight helps my wakefulness.
Another thing I recently learned is that your “parasympathetic nervous system” is where rest/healing happens. So, if you’re always in fight/flight, you’re fighting your own healing system for control.
The speaker in the thing I watched talked about how forced verbal positivity is useless, actually counterproductive, if your thoughts don’t match your words you’re still activating the sympathetic nervous system. This is different from “fake it til you make it” and I’ll explain how.
In the beginning of trying to turn yourself from someone who is predominantly negative (who I was most of my life) to someone positive (who I am now) you have to do the fake it til you make it. You post/say the positive things, and you “try” to believe them lol. You don’t “argue” with them. You let them sink in and change your existing belief system.
I’m sure there’s been several things in your life that were misconceptions. I’m 50 years old and just discovered honey bees 🐝 (I love bees!) are an invasive species to North America. I was so defensive of my beloved bees that I had to google it. Sure enough, they are! Wow.
Similar to that there are misperceptions. You look at something one way your whole life, and then suddenly you see it differently. And you usually can’t unsee those things lol.
It’s all about the want.
If you go into trying to be more positive with the mindset that you WANT your perspective to be different, that you WANT your life to be different, you can put the things out into the world that you WANT, and with enough belief, you can get there.
So, look for who you want to be in others, look at your own things that you do that YOU consider negative (not someone else’s perspective), and just decide who you want to be.
This process took me YEARS, with daily learning, corrections, practice, practice, practice. I used to think other people knew a lot more than me, and about a lot of things… they did lol, but I realized… nobody, and I mean nobody, “knows” what they’re doing!! Not even me!! Lol, everyone just does what they perceive they “should” be doing. There is no “book of right” there is no meat suit operating manual. People figure things out and do their best in their own perception.
My own brain was a big obstacle to me in getting where I am today. I had to quiet it. To get myself out of my own way. I have a piece I did about “killing the monkey in your mind” that’s where I did my best work, when I killed all my monkeys. That’s when I was finally able to get my verbal “attempts” at positivity to kick in. Then I wasn’t just “saying” it but I was believing it too.
I wrote something many years ago, inspired by the quotes “Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are.” And, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
“When your words match your actions, you’ll never have to tell anyone who you are.”
They will know 💛
Don’t “force” yourself to be positive, inspire yourself to! Surround yourself with positive things, happy things. Look for the good in the world around you, in the people around you, inside of you. It’s there. Just waiting for you to say, “it’s ok. I know the thing sucks and we’re kind of stuck in it for now, or forever, but look – there’s this good thing here we can look at too. It won’t take the suck away but it makes it easier to live with.” And the more you do that, the more you see the good, the more you’re so deeply grateful for the good, the easier the suck is to look at and, if you’re activating your parasympathetic nervous system more than your fight flight, it’s actually like medicine.
Happy matters warriors. It’s not just a kitschy phrase. Believe 💛🖤
