Finding Positive Thinking Patterns

Vivienne Greene authored one of my favorite quotes.  It states “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”. To me, this is an important message about finding the positives in all the things in your life, even those that could otherwise be construed as negative.   This is especially important for those who suffer with depression.  Negative thinking can lead to feelings of hopelessness and people with depression tend to get mired in negative thinking.

One technique I teach patients is a form of a pro and con list.  Whenever you begin to feel overwhelmed with everything that seems to be going wrong or seems to be negative in your life, make a list of those things.  Then you draw a line down the center and try to make a list on the opposite side of any positive you can think of about that situation.  For instance, you may say “my son had to have emergency surgery” as the negative thought and the responding positive may be “thankfully he is through the surgery, doing well and will make a full recovery”.  In part, this is acknowledging the old adage of remembering that things could always be worse.  In fact, if you are struggling to come up with the positive in the situation you can always ask yourself how it could be worse.  It will always be a positive that the worse thing didn’t happen!

Over time, this technique can help to change your negative thinking, but I must warn you that it does not work overnight.  It takes practice to rewire the way your brain thinks.  I often have to remind patients that they did not start thinking negatively yesterday and, therefore, thinking positively is not going to take effect overnight either.  Seeing the world in a different light is worth all of the effort involved in getting there and the more you practice the better you will become.  The hope is that eventually you won’t need the list or the negative thoughts to be able to see the positive ones.  They may just naturally occur to you instead.