Dear First name / friend

 

I'm very good at being negative. Unless I'm reminded not to, I will focus on all the things that are not going well and somehow, miraculously, forget the myriad other things that are actually going very well. 

 

This, of course, is a natural human trait that once aided our survival: why look up to notice the beauty of a cloudless blue sky on a summer's day when there's predators lurking at your feet?

 

I suppose that's why the practice of gratitude is helpful, because it forces us to look at the good things when perhaps we're not in the habit of doing so. 

 

I'm not going to break the internet with my novel approach to advise you to focus on the good stuff - (although I do believe the best advice is often the most obvious and most simple) - but I think it's worth a moment of our time.

 

I'm not going to bore you with the details, but suffice to say 2023 so far has handed me a rather tumultuous and chaotic card. Plans have repeatedly been thwarted and upended (Saturn return, anyone?). My brain greedily wants to tell you all the things that haven't gone right; making myself focus on the positives feels like forcing a five year-old to eat vegetables. 

 

Mindful moment: This is your reminder to focus on all the things that are going well in your life right now. That's it. I want nothing more from you. I just want you to notice where you're doing a great job. The path of least resistance is negative thinking, so we have to herd our thoughts like reluctant sheep into their positive pen- but know that once they're there, they'll love it.

 

James Clear

 

Mindful moment: Just as it feels difficult to switch our thoughts to positive thinking from negative, it can feel difficult to start anything that's “good” for us. But it's true that once we start doing something, it's much easier to continue. Generally, once we overcome the ‘activation energy’ required to begin, the thing itself is far less difficult than we thought. So, whatever you're thinking about doing, just start. The rest will follow. 

 

In the words of one of my patients:

“The mind is a beautiful thing if you use it well”.

 

Mindful moment: How do you use your mind? Does it work for you, or against you? Does it uplift you with its capacity for creativity and its propensity to focus on the positives, or does it beat you down with its constant criticism and need to be liked?