Are YOU Positive? Are Ya Positive?

None of us thinks of ourselves as being really negative BUT: We can’t feel anything negative- upset, overwhelmed, exhausted, annoyed, frustrated, unappreciated, neglected helpless, hopeless… anything negative- without first having a negative thought. So, how often do you feel upset, overwhelmed, exhausted, annoyed, frustrated, unappreciated, neglected, helpless, hopeless…?

Many of us are everyone else’s greatest cheerleader: Our kids, their friends, our friends, our students, employees, partners: They may even have told you:

“I love coming to you. You always cheer me up. You are always so supportive. You always know exactly the right thing to say to make me feel better.”

Are you able to say the above paragraph to yourself and mean it?

Where does our negative thinking come from? Negative thinking comes from a lot of places: The environment we grew up in, the news, social media. For many of us, we have no idea we’re thinking negatively. It’s just become a bad habit we’ve been practicing for years and years. The good news is: Changing the way we think NOW, is so much more powerful than all of those other things.

“I can’t help what thoughts come into my head!”

It’s not about preventing negative thoughts from coming into our heads or out of our mouths. It IS about recognizing them and knowing what to do with them when they do.

TETHERING Infects Our Day—And Everyone Else’s Too

Imagine you had this really long piece of elastic. The first negative thought came in bed: “Oh no! The alarm didn’t go off! I’m late!”. If you don’t just let that thought go, you’ll bring it into the bathroom with you and then there’s no hot water in the shower and then, just like that elastic, those problems keep growing and stretching and you take them into the kitchen and the kids are acting nuts and there’s juice everywhere and you realize there’s no coffee and then you stretch all of those problems into the car with you and you sit in traffic with them and then stretch them all the way to work and they keep growing and stretching and that important meeting with that new client fell through, and then that project you’ve been working on for months looks like it might fall apart, and then you order lunch and it’s cold and they got your order wrong and then you head home and there’s a detour, and then you realize you forgot to pick up ingredients for dinner and you get home and say to your family: “Just stay away from me! I’ve had the worst day eeeever!”

We have unintentionally infected everyone around us with our negativity all day long. Could you imagine if, instead of words, we coughed all day? In the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the kitchen with the kids, in the car, at the meeting…

Shower Inventory: Know Your Parts!

We’re often soooo busy running from place to place, task to task, person to person, (crisis to crisis?), that we forget to check in with ourselves to see how we’re doing. This simple self-evaluation done once a week in the shower (more often might become stressful) keeps us in touch with how we really are thinking and feeling. I’ll bet many of your answers will surprise you!

1. “Divide” yourself into 4 parts:

Body, Mind, Heart, & Soul (If you’d prefer: Quiet Core, True Self)

2. Swiftly rate each one- 1-10 -how you’re feeling that day, at that moment. Don’t overthink and remember… each day, each category might change its meaning for example:

Body could mean: “Do I feel fat? Bloated? Hungry? Tired? Healthy? Strong? Young? Old? (And don’t underestimate any achievement: Feeling tired and sore because you went to the gym yesterday is not the same as feeling tired and sore because you stayed up drinking last night and fell out of bed.)

Mind: “Am I feeling calm? in charge? frazzled?”

Heart: It could be romantic love or a sibling or child. Every day it can change. “Am I feeling loved? Adored? Rejected? Neglected?”

Soul / Quiet Core / True Self: “Is this part of me being nourished? Do I feel fulfilled in my passion? Have I felt kindness or generosity today?”

And a shower is an ideal place to do this self-inventory because:

  1. It’s one of the few places we can be totally alone

  2. The sound and feel of the shower are calming and therapeutic

  3. The sound of the shower drowns out our chatter so we can feel we can speak aloud more freely

  4. We are not encumbered by any type of clothing, so our evaluations are not influenced by any of our daily roles: no uniform, heels, yoga pants, business suits— It’s just us talking to us.