Meg Evans

To read all posts in this series from the beginning, click here.

 

Earlier in this series, I discussed the addictive, damaging nature of persistent negative thoughts and wrote that when we feel our thoughts are out of control, we shouldn’t be afraid to look beyond ourselves for help. What comes next—the third step in a 12-step recovery program—is the decision to actually do so.

Sometimes the third step is described much more succinctly as “Pray.” Although there are other ways to look beyond oneself for guidance and nurturing, many people find traditional prayers helpful because they provide the structure of a familiar, reassuring ritual. Words remembered from childhood come easily to mind and give us comfort, without need for all the mental effort that would be required to construct an entirely new ritual from scratch.

Ritual is important because when we remove anything from our lives, it needs to be replaced in a structured way by something else to fill the space. Otherwise, whether we’re talking about addictive behaviors or anything else we don’t want, it soon finds its way back into its usual spot because the power of habit is so strong. So, if we’re to succeed in removing negative thought loops from our minds, we need to put regular and comfortable patterns of positive thinking into the space they once occupied.

As mentioned, there are many ways of going about it—prayer, a gratitude journal, reading inspirational material, centering oneself through mindfulness and meditation, spending more time outdoors connecting with nature, and so forth. What’s important is that the new positive activities be done regularly, so that they can train the mind into better habits. Behavior and thought always are interrelated. When we do something regularly, it feels normal and expected; and whatever thoughts occupy our minds most of the day are the ones on which we’re most likely to act.

At first it seems awkward to fit different activities—whatever they may be—into our daily routines. We worry that there won’t be enough time or that it will feel like drudgery. We’re afraid of how other people will react—will they think we’ve joined a cult or gone loopy in woo-woo land if they notice us praying or meditating regularly? It seems so much harder than just keeping on with the same old stuff we’ve done before. And if it’s hard, then maybe it’s not working. Maybe we should just give it up before we totally fail and things get even worse.

After some time passes, though, we find that the new habits build on and reinforce each other. It feels more natural to start the day by counting our blessings, rather than by grumbling about the weather or some little inconvenience. Even in moments when we’re not consciously trying to shape our thoughts, we just happen to discover a few rays of peace and serenity breaking through the gloom anyway. The world starts to feel like a place where we really can expect to find love, care, and guidance when we need them. Of course, the journey is still in its early stages; but far below the surface of our awareness, real, substantial changes are happening.

Often it’s the little details and ordinary rituals that determine our happiness, rather than the major events and big-ticket purchases. Although our consumer culture insists that comfort has a price tag, what we buy doesn’t necessarily change how we feel about ourselves. Arranging things comfortably can make a lot more difference. An expensive new car, for instance, may not make driving all that much more pleasant if the garage is full of junk and the car has to be parked outside in the snow and ice.

This winter I’ve made a point of keeping a glass fruit bowl on the kitchen table, filled with navel oranges, McIntosh apples, and bananas. It’s meant to be a symbol of abundance in general; but I have noticed that there are also more specific positive effects, in addition to general feelings of well-being.

When the kitchen table lacks a centerpiece, it tends to get used as a shelf and to get covered with clutter. That in turn causes depressing feelings of disorganization and time pressure, such as that the house is a mess and it will take forever to get everything clean. If I let those feelings get out of control, I’m likely to neglect some household chores and end up with a real mess. A fruit bowl on the kitchen table avoids this unfortunate result by making clear, through its presence, that the table has been arranged with care and is not a random junk repository.

Keeping a fruit bowl where I’ll see it every time I walk into the kitchen gives me an effective visual prompt for healthy eating. Even though I know that fruit has a lot of good nutrients and fiber, if the fruit is tucked away in the refrigerator drawer then it’s “out of sight, out of mind,” and other, less healthy snacks may come to mind instead. Seeing the fruit makes me more likely to think “Yum, apple,” and eat it.

McIntosh apples are my preferred variety, but the supermarket where I regularly shop no longer stocks them; it seems they’re not as popular as they used to be. So I have to make a trip to another store just to buy apples. At first I thought the extra errand was a nuisance; but on reflection, I’ve decided to consider it a self-nurturing ritual and to be grateful for it. Every time I see McIntosh apples in the fruit bowl, they subconsciously improve my mood by reminding me that I am willing to go out of my way—literally—to do small things to make myself happier.

And one more thing about eating fruit – it’s a great opportunity for mindfulness.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Last month I began this series of posts by writing about the addictive nature of negative thinking, which can make our lives unmanageable. As with any addiction, the first and hardest step is admitting there’s a problem. What comes next in a 12-step recovery program is to believe that a power greater than ourselves can “restore us to sanity.” The concept of sanity comes bundled with some thorny social constructs, so I’ll leave it aside for the moment and talk about belief.

In this context, belief doesn’t require professing faith in a particular church or creed; it has more to do with acknowledging that we don’t know all the answers and that we can’t do everything ourselves. The human ego often stubbornly insists on trying to do things without help. While that may be understandable when we’re four years old and struggling to master shoelace-tying, it’s not the most useful way to go through life as an adult in our complicated modern world.

Sometimes we just need to recognize that there are things we can’t handle on our own. We shouldn’t feel that it is a weakness to ask for help, whether we are seeking divine guidance or simply calling a friend when we’re feeling down. And when we have the attitude that nothing ever gets done unless we do it ourselves, we end up depriving ourselves of help that we might otherwise have gotten, and struggling under heavy burdens that we didn’t actually have to carry alone.

Why are we often so unwilling to look outside ourselves for help? I’d say that a large part of it is fear. We may try to convince ourselves that we are tough and don’t need any help, or that whatever help we might get wouldn’t be very useful anyway; but underneath that bravado, we’re afraid of showing trust and then finding that it didn’t work out. Not believing that we’ll get any help is a defense mechanism to protect against the risk of asking and then being rejected or otherwise hurt.

Now, back to the topic of sanity. It has both a subjective dimension (whether or not we feel in control of our thoughts) and an objective dimension (whether or not our society pegs us as having a mental disorder). Because of the stigma associated with the latter, which has persisted even into a modern era that otherwise embraces diversity, many of us are reluctant to describe ourselves as needing to be restored to sanity. And considering how much negativity our culture deems acceptable and normal in the mass media and other places, going through life with gloomy thoughts does not, in itself, fall outside the range of what is currently regarded as normal.

Put another way, having negative thoughts burdening our minds probably is not going to result in being diagnosed with a mental disorder, unless we become overwhelmed with so much depression and anxiety that it interferes with our daily functioning. But even if we don’t reach that point, negative patterns of thinking can leave us feeling out of control. So I would say that taking action to banish such thoughts is likely to improve our sanity, regardless of whether anything in our thought patterns might amount to a clinically diagnosable condition.

 

Click here to read Recovering from Negativity, Step Three.

Mindfulness always has been a challenge for me because I tend to get easily distracted by drama of one sort or another. Drama is fine for creative writing, but not so good when it gets into one’s personal life and occupies way too much brain space. So I’ve tried reminding myself to just be here—to focus on where I am. That never seemed to work quite right for me, though, because (especially when I was at home) I couldn’t manage to unbundle the word “here” from all of my place-memories and associated thoughts. Instead of centering me in the present, the word “here” evoked images of a gallery filled with Ghosts of Here Past.

I recently tried another focusing phrase, “what is now,” and to my surprise, I felt immediately calmer and more centered. Even though the words don’t look all that different when written down, they feel much more concrete to me, stripping away the usual mental chatter and leaving only simple objects and physical sensations. In the future I’ll keep in mind that because we all process language differently and have so many personal connotations attached to each word, finding the right phrase to set forth a thought can take some time and perseverance. So instead of being impatient when something isn’t quite right, we should be gentler and more forgiving toward ourselves and others, in recognition of the fact that we are all works in progress.

Even though it is still cold and icy here in Ohio, I’ve heard birds chirping cheerfully for the past few days, as if they can feel that spring is on its way. I took this photograph of ice on bare bushes yesterday; the branches seem just a bit brighter than they had been, and the afternoon sunlight stronger, as if sending a quiet message that the seasons are changing as they always do.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”  Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

When people talk about addiction, they’re usually referring to alcohol and drugs; but negative patterns of thinking also can become a self-sabotaging habit. Often we don’t even realize when that happens to us because there are so many negative influences in today’s world—sensational news programs, gory movies and TV shows, overblown political rhetoric, and nasty gossip of both the real-life and cyber varieties. If we start believing that’s just how the world is, then we get mistrustful and anxious. That can go on for years, without it ever occurring to us that we could simply change the channel and find a more pleasant group of friends. Before we know it, there’s a huge heap of persistent negative thought loops stuck on auto-replay in the back of our consciousness, and we have no idea how to turn them off.

I have to admit I’ve got some of my own negative thought loops that I haven’t been able to banish. Even though I consciously know they’re a total waste of brain space and are harmful to both mood and health, they just keep popping up anyway. So, instead of making excuses and telling myself everybody has a few negative thoughts and it’s no big deal, I’ve decided to treat them like the damaging addiction they are. This post is the first in what will be a monthly series of virtual 12-step meetings for recovering negativoholics. Every month I’ll reflect on the next step in the series and how it relates to negative thinking. Let’s get started with the first:

(What to do? Well, introduce myself, right?) Hi everybody, I’m Meg and I am a negativoholic.

(People smile and wave to me) Hi Meg!

(I look around, feeling reassured by all the friendly faces) I’m here today for the purpose of being honest with myself. The first step in the traditional Alcoholics Anonymous program is, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” These are strong words, and that’s the whole point—they don’t leave any space for pretending that maybe it’s not much of a problem after all. Admitting that these words really do fit isn’t easy. Powerless and unmanageable, hey, that can’t be me, can it?

Well, yeah. Negative thinking can seriously mess with a person’s mind. Like alcohol or drugs, it’s an escape from reality. When we ruminate about all the bad things other people did to us, then we don’t have to think about whether we might have done something wrong ourselves. And we don’t have to take responsibility for fixing the situation either; we can just decide that the other person (or political faction, or whatever) is so evil and ignorant that there’s nothing constructive to be done. That leaves us free to yell at them or, at the least, to daydream about how we’d like to vanquish the wicked enemy, thus getting our regular fix of melodrama.

And as with substance abuse, negative thought loops become less pleasant as time goes on. At first it may be satisfying to fantasize about what we’d like to tell a bully or jerk; but if we’re halfway sensible, then we know it would only make matters worse. So either we stew in silence, or we whine to our friends and play the poor mistreated victim role to get their sympathy. If the latter, our friends will surely get sick of hearing about it. Either way, we end up with a pointless thought loop that degenerates into nothing more than our inner child repeatedly having a tantrum, along the lines of “So-and-So was mean to me 10 years ago. Wah.” By then, maybe it has become too embarrassing to even mention to anyone, but it still won’t go away.

Another consequence of becoming addicted to negative thinking is that—again, like substance abuse—there are many ways it can damage our mental and physical health. Frequent negative thinking can easily lead to depression and anxiety, which in turn are likely to cause physical symptoms such as headaches, sleeping poorly, and many other health problems we may not even realize are associated with our high stress levels. The modern world already has far too many sources of unavoidable stress; we certainly don’t need to pile on more of it by letting negativity fester.

In short, when persistent patterns of negative thinking develop, they really are a serious problem and shouldn’t be dismissed as just something that happens.

 

Click here to read Recovering from Negativity, Step Two.

Since embarking on my personal kindness challenge to visit and comment on a positive blog every day of 2014, I’ve noticed more people being kind to me. For example, when I went to do my grocery shopping Monday afternoon, another driver smiled and waved me into a good space in the parking lot, even though I didn’t get there first. I often park farther away and do more walking because it’s healthier; but Monday was dark and dreary, in a month that has been full of dreary days, and I hadn’t slept well the night before—so a parking space near the door was especially welcome.

Some would say that by being more focused on kindness over the past few weeks, I have been attracting kindness by way of good vibes. Or perhaps those around me were just as kind before, but I didn’t pay enough attention. It’s also possible that I have made small changes to my behavior, without noticing them, which leave other people feeling more cheerful and more inclined toward kindness in my presence. Maybe all three are true! Anyway, I’ve written this post as an expression of my gratitude for having so many kind people in my life, and as a reflection on how kindness multiplies.

Back in December, when I first thought about commenting on a different blog every day for an entire year, the idea seemed pretty intimidating. I worried that I might not find enough up-to-date positive blogs, or that it would feel like an enormous chore after a few weeks, or that it would take so much time I’d never be able to write my own blog posts or get anything else done. I finally went ahead and wrote a post publicly committing myself to do it as a New Year’s resolution, so as to give myself enough accountability that I wouldn’t back out.

Thankfully, none of my overly dramatic worries came to pass. Instead, having regular positive reading material has improved my mood and has left me feeling more confident, both generally and with regard to blogging. With more mental energy, I found myself writing posts more quickly, and I didn’t feel as if either writing or reading took up much of my time. As for finding new blogs to visit, when I mentioned that I was looking for positive sites, other bloggers were glad to help out by recommending some of their favorites. Although I know that most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January, I’m feeling good about mine so far, and I’d like to thank the kind bloggers I have met so far. You all rock!

One of the ways we shape our lives is with self-talk. Because the subconscious mind is very suggestible, what we say to ourselves on a regular basis ends up becoming part of the world as we perceive it. By affirming that we are capable of dealing with life’s challenges, we gain more determination to slog on through the hard times.

But like anything else, affirmations can be taken to excess and can have unforeseen consequences. Several years ago, when I wanted to reassure myself that I could cope with difficult situations, I started saying to myself, “I am tough.” I liked how the word sounded—strong, determined, a fearless warrior kicking the world’s butt. I acted like things didn’t bother me, and I got compliments on my toughness. What I didn’t take into account was that by being “tough,” I was building a hard, weighty shell like an emotional suit of armor, which rarely came off but stayed with me wherever I went. Clank, clank.

The word “tough” has many connotations that can be less than ideal when describing oneself. Tough meat, tough as old shoe leather, tough as nails, a tough old bird. Even the way the word comes off the tongue sounds almost like spitting. The idea of toughness, in Western culture, sets up an adversarial relationship—one strong person fighting heroically against the big bad world. It creates a mindset that’s primed to see conflict and drama regardless of whether there is any reason for it.

Even in the natural world, toughness isn’t necessarily best for survival. Large trees such as oaks have tough, hard trunks and branches that don’t move much in the wind. Other trees with slim, flexible branches such as willows get whipped all around by a storm, while an oak might just drop a few acorns. But in extreme weather, a willow has a better chance of survival. A powerful windstorm a few years ago blew down oaks and other strong trees all over my neighborhood, leaving willows intact.

So I’ve decided that from now on, I am going to be resilient like a willow, instead of tough. Resilient is a soft word, sibilant, gentle, whispering like a breeze through tall grass at dawn. A resilient person is one who finds constructive ways to deal with a challenging situation, looking upon it as an opportunity for growth and discovery, rather than as a foe to be conquered. Back when I was determined to be tough, I wouldn’t have written a blog post like this because I’d have felt uncomfortable showing that I had vulnerability. In the depths of my mind, I’d have worried that an enemy might be lurking out there in cyberspace, waiting to pounce as soon as I let something about myself slip. Put another way, being tough made me fearful. So I’m through with it.

Sometimes I still catch myself saying, just by rote, that I am tough. When that happens, I take a moment to shift my train of thought and instead tell myself that I am resilient. After a while—maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or two—this affirmation will become a habit and will feel natural. To reinforce the idea of growth and resilience, I bought a green sweater in the after-Christmas sales. It’s soft and bright like new spring grass. I cleaned out my closet and gave some old sweaters, which had been washed so much that the cotton felt stiff, to a thrift store. No more hard armor for me.

When I woke up this morning, there was a howling arctic wind making the house rattle. The temperature, already bitterly cold, was forecast to drop all through the day. Every now and again there was a sudden CRASH! out on the deck as the wind shook some icicles loose.

I opened the shades to let in the morning light as I usually do, but there wasn’t much of it to be seen. In fact, it was so dark that it didn’t even look like morning. If there hadn’t been multiple clocks in the house to confirm the time, I might easily have thought that I got up a few hours before dawn by mistake. But nope, it really was morning, and time to get about my workday.

My husband, on his way to the office after a two-week vacation, told me he couldn’t believe I had opened the shades on a morning like this. Trying to sound cheerful, I said it looked like the sun might be coming out a little, and I pointed to a feeble little ray that had almost made its way through the thick clouds. He just shook his head, got his coffee, and headed out to work.

I have a suncatcher in the window of my study—an angel with a crystal teardrop hanging beneath it. On sunny days it fills the room with tiny rainbows. On a day like this, however, the poor little angel couldn’t do much but sit there reflecting the gray sky.

I took a picture with my phone and attached it to a text message to a friend on the West Coast, telling her that the angel looked like it needed some sunlight as much as I did. She sent me a cheerful reply with a smiley at the end, telling me how much she loved the photo and that she’s always happy to see snow because there is so little of it where her family lives.

“You can have as much of mine as you want,” I told her; but by then, I wasn’t really complaining. Her message brought back pleasant memories of visiting my grandparents in Connecticut as a child, and how exciting it was to see snowflakes falling. On this gray day, it was a welcome reminder that how much we enjoy our lives has a lot to do with perspective.

There’s a lot more to changing the world than just pointing to a problem and saying “This is wrong—fix it now!” Yes, identifying the problem is necessary; but it’s generally not sufficient. That is because the existing situation, however unjust or illogical, has (or had) some degree of social utility—otherwise, it never would have happened. So when a particular way of doing things isn’t working well in today’s society, we should first examine how it was meant to work, and then consider how the problem might be solved while still accomplishing the intended goal.

Several years ago, I had a conversation on a forum with a woman who complained about her husband’s inconsiderate behavior. She was a short woman with a mobility impairment, and she couldn’t access the higher shelves in her kitchen cabinets without great difficulty. When she needed something from one of those shelves, she generally asked her husband or one of her children to get it down for her. Of course, it would have been much easier if all the items she regularly used were on the lower shelves; but when her husband did the grocery shopping, he often put some of them on the higher shelves without thinking about it. Although she had reminded him many times, he never paid enough attention to get it right, and there was always something she wanted that was out of reach.

The husband evidently had good intentions—he wanted to take care of his family by bringing home the groceries and putting them away. He probably felt that he was being unfairly criticized because the grocery shopping was enough of a chore in itself, without also being expected to remember what shelves his wife had in mind for everything. He wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but simply couldn’t keep track of all the details of what items she wanted where. Nagging him was counterproductive because it wasn’t likely to improve his memory and would only make him resentful.

I suggested that she reorganize the kitchen, with her children’s help, one day when her husband wasn’t at home. To the extent possible, everything would be moved to the lower shelves. Then the upper shelves could be filled with bulky extra items, such as multiple packs of paper towels and toilet paper bought on sale. That would ensure her husband couldn’t put any groceries there. She would also save money by stocking up on paper products while they were on sale. And because her husband paid so little attention to detail, he probably wouldn’t even notice that anything in the kitchen looked different. From then on, he would always put the groceries on the lower shelves, without even thinking about it, because that’s where all the free space would be.

In the context of changing the behavior of societies, rather than individuals, filling the available space also works well. Prejudiced assumptions and insensitive attitudes can be dealt with by ensuring that the public discourse reflects many different perspectives. This approach often results in more success than yelling at the majority group that they’re a bunch of bigoted jerks who don’t understand how privileged they are. Even if it’s true, they are not going to want to hear it, and they’ll dismiss the criticism as unfair and unreasonable.

But if people going about their everyday business just happen to find other viewpoints taking up the cultural space where the prejudices used to go—well, then it’s not so easy to stuff those big awkward prejudices into a space where they don’t fit anymore. And when there are a lot of diverse perspectives occupying society’s cultural-narrative shelves, there’s probably going to be something that looks more useful. So those outdated prejudices simply end up being set aside, like worn-out clothing or obsolete technologies, because they no longer have a place in today’s world.