What Positive Thinking
Really Means
"Think positive — you'll see, it'll be fine!" Most of us have heard these words from friends more than once. But does "positive thinking" mean repeating "it'll be fine" to yourself? What if we kept telling ourselves it would be fine, and things turned out badly? Does that mean "positive thinking" let us down? Definitely not! The art of positive thinking is a way of looking at reality. Of seeing it in a way that lets us stay calm even in the hardest situations. How do you learn it?
Don't be afraid to dream
During the healing sessions I run, I very often ask the people I work with what they dream about. An awkward silence follows. Because of the difficult situations we go through, we often forget what we dreamed about years ago. We try to get from one day to the next, to survive. That's a mistake!
Dreams are like a soft little cloud that wraps around us when we're feeling bad. They help us get through hard times; thanks to them, we have something to live for. But let's keep our dreams at least a little realistic. Let's dream of a better version of the reality we live in, not a completely different life.
The end isn't a catastrophe
The end of something doesn't always have to be a catastrophe. A failure makes us build the darkest scenarios in our heads: if it didn't work out — maybe again — it'll never work out.
Sometimes things don't work out because they're not for us. Sometimes because their time hasn't come yet. It's worth knowing when to be stubborn and when to simply let go. The future is an endless ocean of possibilities — remember that!
The future is an endless ocean of possibilities — remember that!
Failure can be a springboard
How many times has losing a job motivated someone to start their own company, which years later turned out to be a spectacular success? A divorce or a break-up made someone realize what they really needed and didn't have in that relationship.
We can only judge the events of our life years later, with hindsight. Often it's we who give meaning and emotion to events that simply happen, that simply are. And in the vast majority of cases, something that ended or fell apart had been bothering us inside for some time.
Nothing lasts forever
Nothing in life lasts forever. For most of us that thought is terrifying — and it definitely shouldn't be! Because hidden in it is the remedy for hard times. Yes! What's bad also ends.
The end of something is always the beginning of something new — and it's often up to us what that new thing will be. If we give up and abandon our dreams, we ourselves create another negative scenario.
What positive thinking really is
Positive thinking isn't lying to yourself or convincing yourself that "it'll be fine." It's a way of understanding and accepting reality as it is. Positive thinking is the awareness that life goes on and that how it unfolds depends on us.
It's the ability to stay calm when there's a storm in our life. Above all, positive thinking is hope in the heart that sooner or later things will fall into place the way we want them to.