What you resist persists, the old saying goes. This is true on many levels in the world of positive thinking too. Sometimes conscious negativity can help you get some momentum to stay on the positive thinking track.

Imagine that you are wearing imaginary thinking hats, one yellow (positive) and one black (negative). Put the black thinking hat on first, then look at your surroundings and life situation and tell yourself a negative story. Do this for about a minute, describing all the “horrible” things in your life. Recognize how you feel after this task.

Now put on the imaginary yellow thinking hat. Look at your surroundings and situation and tell yourself a positive story about your life. Recognize how difficult or easy this is, and notice how you feel after the session.

What I have found from my own experience of performing this exercise,

1. I find this exercise refreshing, I get to freely say and accept all the “bad” things that are true in my life without reservation
2. I more fully recognize the neutrality of my physical surroundings and my life situation
3. I find that telling either a positive story or a negative story is equally easy
4. When I perform this exercise for the one minute duration, my moods or feelings to not change much. I am too focused on the task at hand.  

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.