The Power of a Positive Perspective

Stuart Smalley always made me laugh.  He tries to use positive self-talk and the 12 steps of Overeaters Anonymous to facilitate positive change.  Life has a way of challenging Stuart every chance it gets.  Today, I decided to apply a little Stuart and tell myself I was going to have a good day.

For years, I resisted the simple, "fake it until you make it" idea.  I was certain it wouldn't work.  Finally, in desperation, hating how I felt about so much of my life, I decided to give this simple-minded idea a try.  To my utter surprise, it often worked.  My inner old crone was not pleased to be proven wrong.

This morning, the alarm rang.  The day stretched out before in in a crooked line that I didn't want to walk.  Sleep, warm and comfortable called me back but I made the decision to get up and have a good day.  The fact that I didn't feel like participating in this "carnival of the positive" made this decision even more important.

Recently, I stumbled across a speech by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. on TED.http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
A Harvard-trained, brain scientist, Jill experienced a massive stroke when only 37 years old.  Eight long years passed before Jill felt she'd recovered.  Her positive attitude and the positive reinforcement from the people around her, were huge factors in her recovery.  In her book, My Stroke of Insight, she states simply,

"Before the stroke, I believed I was the product of this brain and that I had minimal say about how I felt or what I thought.  Since the hemorrhage, my eyes have been opened to how much choice I actually have about what goes on between my ears" (Bolte Taylor 122)

Who am I to argue with a stroke victim/brain scientist?  If Jill Bolte Taylor applied this thinking to recovering from a severe brain trauma how could I not try and apply this to the challenge of losing weight or having a good Tuesday?  Perspective may not be everything but it really does determine a great deal.

No where is this wisdom more obvious than within my son.  My son is my "personal Pope of Pessimism."  His glass isn't half empty.  It's empty and broken with a jagged edge waiting to cut him to ribbons.  He can approach the most basic tasks with such deadly dread.  He has revealed to me that a negative attitude is only one way of seeing.  The opposite can exist at the same time.  If the positive remains the focus, a task can be easily achieved.  So often his wall of negative energy creates an artificial barrier that doesn't have to exist.  This grumpy old man, sometimes disguised by the body of my 10-year-old, has been an amazing blessing.  That is exactly what I have to keep telling myself or dealing with him becomes can become an exhausting chore.  When I chose to believe that we have so much to teach each other, I open myself to the realm of the possible.  Problems become opportunities.

Now to assemble the bits and pieces that have been raining down this day and apply it to the challenge of becoming healthier i.e. losing weight, exercising more and taking better care of my physical and mental self.
The lesson is simple.  If, I focus on how I'm failing, how far from the goal I am, I have little energy left to even try.  Focusing on my successes remains the obvious winning strategy.

On this rainy Tuesday, I made great food choices for breakfast and lunch.  I woke up more rested because I went to bed earlier and I deliberately choose not to worry last night.  All these things are small steps in the right direction.  I took a bigger step when I decided not to write about fighting inertia and went with this topic instead.  Just thinking about inertia was making me feel hopelessly unmotivated.  Writing about the power of a positive perspective has made all the difference.  Today was a good day.  It could just as easily have been a bad one.