Think Happy Thoughts…

It’s true what they say, that when it rains, it pours.

You get some bad news and the trickle down effect begins: you get into a fight with your friend, then you have a shitty day at work, a massive bill arrives you hadn’t anticipated on, your car breaks down, and so on and so on. It’s so easy to get sucked down into an emotional black hole when you’re going through stuff. You wake up grumpy, and that ends up setting the tone for the whole day if you can’t shake your funk.

Have you ever noticed though how the reverse is also true when things are going well? One great thing happens and then all of the sudden, as if by coincidence, more and more great things things start to happen until you just can’t believe your luck and it feels like you’re having the best day/week/month you can remember. This is because everything is connected. It really, really is.

Most people aren’t aware of how much control they actually have over their current situations – negative or positive. But when you start to figure out how much power you really have over your own emotional well-being, it changes everything. It’s not always easy to tell yourself to be happy or upbeat when you’re not feeling it, but I can assure you, that making a conscious effort to do so is the first tiny step in the right direction. And it does work.

The domino effect of life’s happenings is the proof behind this theory.

When I was a teenager, if someone had told me I actually had the ability to control how I reacted to things, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. The notion that even though you can’t control the things that life throws at you, but you can control how you react to them, is something that would’ve been completely lost on me in my emotional teenage years. But it’s true, it just takes practice to learn how.

Positivity is my current focus. I know that outwardly I’m generally a pretty positive, happy, bubbly person, but it has taken a lifetime of practice to learn how to be (mostly) positive all the time. And it’s not always easy. Over the course of the month I’ve been struggling to write this blog, I’ve had to battle through a number of things that definitely did not make me smile. It’s as though the universe was testing me as I wrote this, like, How good are you really at this whole positivity thing?

I don’t think many people realise how much they play the victim in their own lives. I’ve started to really listen to the people around me. This can be both eye opening and a slightly depressing exercise. So many people complain about their current circumstances constantly. What they don’t realise though, is that by continually discussing negative things and mulling over what’s gone wrong or whatever is upsetting them, they are actually just perpetuating the problem and inadvertently creating more problems for themselves.

For me, although 2018 was a welcome beginning to a new year, and a much needed close to 2017, it brought with it new challenges and frustrations. Life has a way of doing that, constantly presenting us with new problems and situations for us to learn and grow from as we evolve in our lives.

You might wish for something and work incredibly hard to achieve it for years and years, and then you get it, and it is accompanied by a whole new set of challenges you didn’t anticipate when you originally wished for it. This is what life does and how it teaches us to grow. The only thing that is certain in life is change. Everything is constantly evolving, including our problems.

This year started somewhat blissfully for me. I slipped into the warm embrace of a new year and felt so happy to put 2017 behind me. January was one of the happiest months I can remember in a long time. The positive domino effect was in full force as all areas of my life suddenly seemed to be amazing and I was incredibly happy. I naively deluded myself into thinking that’s what the rest of the year would be like. But that’s what life does, it’s full of these tricky little tests and bumps in the road. Just when you get comfortable, just when you feel safe and strong, it will throw you a curve ball to keep you awake and make sure you keep evolving. It won’t let you stay in the safety of happiness for too long before it yanks you out of your comfort nest and drops you back into the icy river of change and growth. Life is never dull.

February and March did not bring with them the the warm comforting feelings that I experienced in January. Quite the opposite in fact. The domino effect shifted in the opposite direction. And by the end of March, I felt exhausted, completely drained and I knew I needed to make some changes. One of the first things I realised when I stopped to reflect on my constant state of feeling overly-emotional and incredibly fatigued (other then the never-ending winter us Londoners were all enduring), was that that I wasn’t putting myself in a very good place mentally to handle the challenges I was facing.

I work in events. It’s busy and hectic and I’m more or less always around alcohol and food (and not very healthy food). This has been a balancing act for me for years now as I’m also a strict daily meditator, a yogi and slight exercise fanatic. But when the going gets tough and stressful times start to take over, one of the first things to go for me is usually sleep followed closely by diet and exercise. When I’m in a place where my energy is low, I’m making poor diet decisions, having one or more glasses of wine too many, staying up too late and missing my morning run or yoga, then I’m not a very happy version of myself.

I think where any kind of indulgence is concerned, be it food, alcohol, recreational drugs (if that’s your thing), or anything that makes you ‘feel good’, all of these things should be enjoyed from a place of good health, both mentally and physically, and preferably in moderation. If you’re really stressed about work or school, you’ve just gone through a break-up, are dealing with any kind of loss or grief, if your job is destroying you, if you’re having family problems – none of those are good mental places to be in where over-indulging on things is concerned.

Though it’s the social norm for your mates to take you out and get you absolutely smashed when life hands you something particularly upsetting to deal with, it is just not a good idea. Navigating through a break-up, the loss of a loved one, getting sacked, or just generally having the rug ripped out from underneath you is hard and it will happen to all of us at one point or another. But to be in an emotionally shattered state as it is, and to then wake up with a raging hangover or comedown (or both) is a terrible idea. Hangovers and comedowns are unpleasant enough without a side dish of emotional anguish to accompany them.

So, right now and going forward, I’m committed to only doing things that make me feel good – at least in the areas of my life that I can control. I’m only spending time with people who inspire me and uplift me. I’ve made a very conscious effort to avoid petty gossip and drama, especially at work (which is not easy where I work). I’m practicing yoga every day, getting out of the city more, staying clear of big nights out, focusing on diet, sleep and meditation. Writing. Long walks, long runs, and general soul food. I’m not giving any of my attention to things that make me feel sad, angry, stressed out or any other negative emotion. If I feel myself starting to shift my focus towards unhappy thoughts, I will make a conscious effort to redirect them.

So, tell yourself, positive vibes only.

Negativity, when focused on, begets more negativity. I really and truly believe that whatever you focus on is what you will get more of. There is an ancient Cherokee Indian proverb about two wolves that explains this perfectly. In the proverb, a wise old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. He tells his grandson that inside of him, and inside every other person in the world, there are two wolves fighting. One of the wolves is evil and the other is good. The evil wolf represents pain, anger, hatred, stress, anguish and all the negative things in life, and the good wolf represents happiness, love, peace, kindness and all of the wonderful and beautiful things in life. The grandson asks his grandfather which wolf will win the fight? And the grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”

I’ve heard that proverb many times throughout my life and every time I hear it it resonates with me more and more. I truly believe that everything is connected in this life. All of the choices you make and actions you take, the thoughts you think and the people you spend your time with are all interconnected. The work you do, the attitude you have, even the food you eat, are all choices you make that contribute to your well-being and overall happiness. To consciously start to make good, happy, positive decisions is to start to change your entire life for the better.

Yes, bad things will happen to you. Your heart will break. People will lie to you and let you down. People will take advantage of you and disappoint you. But it is your choice how you deal with these experiences. Will you let the bad experiences take over your life? You can focus on these upsetting things, obsess over them, talk about them incessantly and develop a bunch of really negative and unhealthy ways to handle them and numb yourself to the pain. You can grow bitter and angry and full of fear and resentment. Develop addictions and negative thought patterns. And then do you know what will happen? The negative things will start to cascade off of one another and you will attract more bad things. Things cannot improve for the better if you are stuck in a negative mindset, feeding your demons.

As soon as you feel yourself switch into a negative mindset or thought pattern, try to deliberately switch out of it. Focus on positive things and constantly express gratitude for what’s going well in your life, even if it’s just the tiniest little thing. This takes practice, but I believe that with a positive mindset and deliberate positive choices, the positive things that happen to you will gradually grow and just keep growing. I really believe that. Be mindful of your thoughts. You really can control them. Happiness is a choice.

One of my favourite stories when I was a little girl was Peter Pan. I have no idea how many hundreds of times I’m sure I watched the movie and made my dad read and re-read it to me as my bedtime story. There’s still something so magical about it to me. I always used to cry at end thinking about how the kids were going to have to grow up and how they would never get to see Peter again.

I think the most beautiful lesson to be learned from Peter Pan is not to take life and all of its heaviness too seriously. Have fun. Laugh and play more and you will (metaphorically) learn ‘how to fly’. Understand that when negative thoughts start to take over, it ends positive upward movement. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” When Peter is teaching Wendy, Michael and John how to fly, his instructions are simple, “Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”.