Warwick Life Strategies

**Reposting as requested**

In last week's blog post, we discussed making the conscious decision to be more positive and how that can be achieved in a world where we are bombarded by negativity (economic recession, health crises, environmental concerns etc). Specifically, I referred to external negative influences. Today, I want to turn the focus inward to look at our own internal voices.

The "noise" isn't always outside, we battle internal demons as well. Our "inner critic" is crafty. It rears its ugly head when we're feeling low, afraid, or lacking in confidence. Unchecked, this can lead to disastrous consequences. The author of Power Up (www.alive.com), Barb Langlois (as mentioned in the previous blog post) suggests 3 steps to battling this internal monster. Firstly, acknowledge its appearance. Be able to recognize the negative voice in your head. Secondly, once you're aware of its presence, take action. Tell it where to go! Even saying "Stop! This is enough" may be sufficient to quiet the noise. Lastly, move forward using self-affirmations. These will be different for everyone as each of us needs to use affirmations that resonate with us. They should not feel forced, "canned" or phony. Create ones that work for you. Use them...and believe in them.

Another important point in the discussion of positive vs. negative thinking, is the potentially damaging effects of over generalization. Make an effort not to globalize or overgeneralize your thinking. The world isn't black or white...there's a lot of grey in the mix too. Be conscious of the use of the words "always" and "never" (such as: "I always fail when I try to cook this" or "I'm not going to try this activity because I'll never succeed"). Can you work on those statements to frame them more positively? Constantly overgeneralizing can create a vicious cycle. Negative expectations are fuelled by negative thoughts. Negative thoughts create negative energy, negative attitudes and negative behaviours....thus creating a negative outcome....not surprising. So try to change your perspective and look for positives in a situation and experience gratitude, because things could always be worse.

Take a look at your focus. Both good and bad things happen to us over the course of a day/week/year, so to what are you giving the most energy? Is it the 'negative drama'? If so, try to highlight the positive. Look for good in the world and feel optimistic about your future. Look for what made you happy, excited, energized, proud, etc. and talk about these things instead. Just like negativity, positive energy is highly contagious. What you put out into the world you tend to receive, so try passing along a happy bug (which, unlike the flu bug, people will be glad to catch along with you).

Moving you forward, WLS