Conversations with the Psychologist. Veronica Semenova
state directly depends on the way we think and what we talk about. Our thoughts define our lives. Many negative things happen, but focusing on the negative is wrong. If life is given to us for happiness, so it must bring joy and pleasure.
Positive thinking is a conscious choice made by each person. Life does not always bring happy moments. Everyone has the right to choose those thoughts that will help them find a more constructive way out of a difficult situation and reinforce the fight against hardship.
Even in the most difficult life moments, you can still find something good. You just need to be able to see it. When you choose positive thinking in life, you can free yourself from the restrictions of negative thoughts and can see that life is filled with opportunities and solutions, not just worries and obstacles.
Positive thinking affects one’s physical as well as mental state and the ability to adapt to circumstances and unforeseen changes in life. When a person realizes this, he receives an ongoing motivation to think positively.
Attitudes towards life depend only on personal choice. If someone is used to depending on the negative emotions of other people, then this is also a personal choice. One needs to realize that thoughts and feelings can be controlled. Once this realization is made, it becomes clear that one can also change thinking patterns.
Often, things seem more significant than they really are, and certainly do not involve as much anxiety as a person actually thinks. Do not allow yourself to succumb to anxiety. You need to calmly think about and make a weighted decision.
Working With Negative Thoughts
It is important to identify those negative subconscious thoughts which do not allow you to look at the world in a different way. When you learn to quickly identify them, you can then challenge and block them. When you identify a negative thought and understand its origin, you are able to counteract it with positive responses.
Black and White Thinking
In this type of thinking, everything that a person encounters is perceived as either “all” or “nothing,” with no other possibilities. For example, if something goes wrong and life is not like a person wanted or envisioned things would be, the situation can immediately fall into the category of being terrible, unsalvageable, and hopeless. Such a person thinks only in two extremes-positive and negative.
But in order to judge a situation for what it is, it is necessary to make a list of all possible outcomes. This approach enables one to see that everything is not as terrible as it seems. If you can see shades of grey in situations, and not just black and white, you can grow to understand that negative situations are not the end of the world.
Personalization
In this type of thinking, a person thinks that if something went wrong, then he himself is the cause of failure. This approach leads to feeling terrible in any situation, or responsible for everything.
To avoid this trap, it is necessary to be rational and think carefully about the causes and all possible factors that could have contributed to a situation’s negative outcome.
“Filtered” Thinking
Some tend to focus on receiving only negative messages, given the information provided to them. For example: your boss praises you for the work you’ve done, but also mentions what could be improved next time. Although your boss is trying to help, you perceive this as a harsh criticism.
If you continue to think this way, it is likely that you will never see anything positive in any critical remark. Meanwhile, after a moment’s reflection, you could have come to the conclusion that the boss’s positive comments significantly outweighed the negative ones.
Catastrophic Thinking
This is the viewpoint in which a person is completely pessimistic and believes that everything is doomed to fail. To counter this type of thinking, one must become a realist and seek evidence against negative beliefs.
Predictive Thinking
Someone may think that if their past relationship failed, any new relationship is doomed to fail, too. And it will most likely fail because that person has already programmed such an outcome in his mind, and the human subconscious will do everything to prove him right.
Instead, it would be helpful to learn from each individual life situation and apply your knowledge to new situations to avoid making the same mistakes.
An effective method to start restructuring negative thoughts is to question yourself. For example: “Is this situation as bad as I imagine it?” or “How can such bad thoughts help me?”
Positive thinking, like any other skill, requires practice. It takes time to cultivate positive thinking, as learning to think positively requires that we develop certain skills and abilities. Learn to praise yourself regularly and make a list of what you could thank yourself for every day. This will have a positive effect on your thoughts and emotions. Try to find something good in all events, things, and people. Praise yourself for the work you have done and do not blame others or yourself for mistakes.
This way, you will be able to reinforce your self-esteem and will clearly see what you were able to achieve through your own efforts.
Learn to perceive problematic situations and people as opportunities that give you the chance to learn and grow. When you see something positive in other people, you can let your thoughts and feelings move in the same direction.
Developing positive thinking will bring you closer towards being able to control your own life.
About Forgiveness: How To Forgive And Let Go
Question: “By nature, I am a very sensitive person. I always have the feeling that life is unfair and that it constantly throws unpleasant surprises at me, either through other people or through situations. I can’t help but feel offended all the time. This accumulated resentment gradually begins to eat at me from within. I really want to change something, but I do not know how to do that. Tell me, please, what I should do.”
Each of us, regardless of age and life experience, has been faced with situations in which we were hurt by the people around us. Some have had more situations like this in their lives and some less, but each of us has our own experience with them.
As a result of such painful situations, we experience very unpleasant feelings. We may feel offended or insulted, and these painful emotions can live within us for many, many years, badly poisoning our lives. Prolonged exposure to strong and destructive emotions can cause significant harm to health. Suppressed moods, low self-esteem, feelings of guilt or helplessness, depression, and psychosomatic illnesses can pave the way to developing malignant tumours in our bodies as a physical response to the ongoing pain.
This is why it is very important to learn how to forgive and stop holding grudges and the negative emotions connected to these situations, making room for positive emotions and sensations and for joyful events in life.
The importance of forgiveness is affirmed by representatives of various religions as well as numerous psychologists and teachers. All of them speak as one, maintaining that if an offender appears in a person’s life, this may not just be a coincidence. For some reason, we need to go through difficult and painful experiences, learn to love regardless of the circumstances, and learn to forgive and change something in ourselves.
For example – often when women are hurt by men in their lives, this is a sign that a woman does not love herself enough, or is so immersed in caring for others that she completely loses her true