The Power of Positive Thinking

Would you say that your glass is half empty or half full? If we are what we think, then the eternal optimist and the habitual pessimist will each be creating their own realities, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, for better or worse. Readers who have seen the ground-breaking film 'The Secret' will understand this Law of Attraction concept ( http://thesecret.tv/ ).

As Lisa Nichols observes "You can see the Law of Attraction everywhere. You draw everything to yourself. The people, the job, the circumstances, the health, the wealth, the debt, the joy, the car that you drive, the community that you're in. And you've drawn them all to you, like a magnet. What you think about you bring about. Your whole life is a manifestation of the thoughts that go on in your head."

Defeatists will tend to interpret every single setback in their unhappy lives as being inevitable, out of their hands, and they will put it all down to their never-ending run of bad luck in life. It is a catalogue of doom and despair. They expect to fail, and generally they do, so that proves that they were right all along!

By contrast, if the pessimist sees the rain, the cock-eyed optimist will focus on the rainbow, not forgetting the silver lining in every cloud. With a positive attitude, the sky’s the limit. Sure, they too have setbacks and disappointments, but they don’t let it affect their belief in themselves, because they know they can pick themselves up, dust themselves down, and start all over again. They expect to win, and, most often, they will.

What makes some people negative, while others can be so positive? It’s all down to attitude, built up from our interpretation of our past experiences and what we have picked up from our parents, peers, and society in general, including the constantly negative slant on everything in the media, which seems to thrive on spreading bad news - how often do you see a cheerful headline? All this colours our self-image and the way we view the world around us, and this will go on being reinforced by our upbeat or downbeat internal dialogue, whenever we talk to ourselves.

The good news for those feeling down in the mouth at the moment is that you can change for the better! NLP which has been described as the science of positive thinking is built on the basic premise that we can achieve whatever state we set our mind to. The first step is to change the tone of your inner voice, so that, in future, it speaks only positive thoughts to you. Cross the ‘t’ off ‘can’t’, and boost your confidence all day long with ‘I can’. And ‘I will’. Act optimistic in everything you say and do until it becomes second-nature and visualise only good things in your mind’s eye. Remember Henry Ford's wise words: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right."

The implications of having a happy or sad, positive or negative, outlook appear to go much further than our state of mind. As research studies at the Harvard Centre for Society and Health are revealing, a more optimistic outlook is linked to a dramatically reduced risk of heart attacks, angina, and fatal heart disease among older men. Over a ten year study, around 17 per cent of the pessimists developed heart trouble, but for the optimists the incidence was more than halved, to just 8 per cent. Many apparently physical illnesses may have been triggered by an underlying psychological cause (psychosomatic), but, of course, this doesn’t make the results any less real, or painful or disabling. Much more research is still needed on the interaction between mind and body, to establish how far our emotions and disposition do shape our health. The effects may turn out to be very far reaching indeed.

Whatever your future holds, you might as well enjoy the ride, and having a positive frame of mind may actually save your life. So learn to look on the bright side. As Abraham Lincoln shrewdly observed: "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

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For further information and confidential advice please email: Gina@QuantumTherapy.co.uk

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