Thinking Positively Different

Have you ever wondered what is the first thing that comes to our mind when something negative happens? Negative thoughts, negative emotions and even negative reactions which comes to us naturally. To think positively takes a lot of mental energy. For instance, let us say somebody hurt us either by their words, behavior or actions. It is very difficult for us to think something like..."Perhaps she had a bad day and was not her own self." or even "Perhaps they are having a tough time themselves". Sometimes we may get irrationally angry with somebody just because they did not do, act or behave according to our expectations. If we take a moment to analyze our emotions, we will see that many of those are baseless. We actually can choose to deal with them more positively by being rational.

To deal with our emotions positively we need to be consciously aware of what we are going to choose. We can either fall prey to our emotions and let our thought process run non-stop and even go to the extent of making decisions based on our emotions. Or we can first choose to calm down our emotions by rationalizing i.e diverting our thought process to a different perspective, a positive perspective. The more we think positively or differently than our natural way of thinking, the more our emotions are kept at bay. Keeping emotions at bay does not mean that we are ignoring our negative emotions or push them down to our sub-consciousness. However, it means that we first acknowledge that we feel hurt and are feeling awful with the whole thing and then stop with that. We take the next step, the most important step by rationalizing our thoughts. Instead of saying "What a snub she is to have ignored me?" We can choose to say "Perhaps she didn't do that intentionally". This kind of thinking is good for us as it will help us calm down. First we are being non-judgmental and giving the other person or scenario a benefit of doubt. Second, we are not falling prey to our negative emotions and negative thought process.

Thinking differently and positively does not come naturally for most of us are not made that way. Our brains are wired in a way where we react quickly to our emotions. However, with practice we can change our natural ways of thinking and become more positive differently...