I’ve been paying close attention to people around me who seem to always be positive. Even when it’s not sunny, they affirm the sun will shine again, but not until after they celebrate the clouds.
My Tai Chi Chih teacher is one who never fails to find encouraging words.
For example, when I was whining about how “hard” working on my posture was, she encouraged me to ditch the word hard and to not focus on the difficulties of realigning my skeleton. She told me focus on the progress I’m making on being aware of my posture, I took her advice and declared to myself in that internal, solemn tone of a resolution that I was banning the word hard. It was getting me depressed and negative. I wanted to keep working on my posture with a more positive attitude. I started to feel a glimmer of more positivity.
I know how much easier it is to focus on the problematic and to think things are getting worse. For example, one day when I was outside with my exercising poles, I noticed that both of my big toes hurt and were uncomfortable. All of my attention became laser-focused on how painful they were. My day had suddenly veered toward miserable, as I suddenly remembered my mother sitting day after day in her chair making cards. Her ankle had never healed from stepping in a gopher hole in our front yard when going to get the mail. It hurt her to walk and now the same thing was happening to me. I didn’t want to be stuck in a chair! I loved the nature trail we were on.
But when I remembered that my toes didn’t hurt the day before and would hopefully feel better tomorrow, when I focused on the warmth of the sun coming through the barren trees and how cheery that felt, my day was rescued.
I’m not sure how I got off the miserable train that day, and if I’d be able to do it again. Is there a secret to being positive?
IMAGE; From a trip to Hong Kong in 2013.
