Goodness Cornucopia, tried that?

Mornings are a delight when I hear birds chirping and the soft breeze on my face as I slide the backyard glass doors. I regularly wake up to these rhythmic sounds, though Melbourne and its unpredictable weather don't assure you of a soft breeze every morning. The fact that Melbourne offers you four kinds of weather in a day is no exaggeration if you know its unique location, wedged between southerly arctic influences and the northerly dry and hot desert winds.

So with the birdsong in my ears, I reach for the journal to pen my early morning thoughts soon after I lift myself off the bed, something that my friend Zara suggested and I sort of picked on that tip straightway. This has been an experiment, and a way to try out new things without judgement as how you start the morning has a huge impact — positively or negatively — on the rest of your day and can increase your productivity, decrease stress, boost happiness and more.

Waking up to a plethora of responsibilities can dictate the flow of the mornings towards a sense of urgency, which is necessary too. Simple but necessary chores to make breakfast, getting ready for work, getting the kids to school and so on. But the truth is, you are well prepared to handle everything on your plate each morning if you start with a good self-care routine. And it doesn't take a lot except daily practice to put it to work for you.

As I have been doing it for a while, this technique has helped me to channelise thoughts that come gushing in and not be caught in parsing out what someone said. If any thought sneaks up to cause an alarm, I accept it with a perspective, it's just a thought and I don't have to make meaning out of everything that shows up in my mind, especially when it feels a bit zany.

I read a scientific study, done at Queen’s University?that reports an average human has 6,200 thoughts per day, and 80% of them are negative!?With the ferocity that thoughts occupy our attention, it is a good idea to keep a track of what they are up to.

Just because we have a thought?(more so, if it's a negative one) doesn’t mean it’s true. That’s why it’s so important to question negative thoughts – to see whether they’re based on facts and reality or not. You don’t have to?worry?about the fact that you have them in the first place. It is all pretty normal and this tiny step of noticing the thought and not believing it is 100% your reality is where the growth lies.?

Michel de Montaigne, one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, said: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened”. It’s easy to think the worst. But things will probably be OK.

We, humans, are wired and fired to look for 'danger' as that was our protective tool as a hunter-gatherer specie from where we evolved. The 'negative thoughts' are our psychological safety absorbers to make us feel in control and prepared for the worse, should that come our way. When we experience pain, our mind locks onto that memory and then does everything to prevent us from facing that 'pain' again. In this melee, we could get addicted to the worst playing scenarios and run into a problem when we develop a pattern of negativity because our brains prefer that pattern. There is an emerging stream of research that is showing that recurring negative thoughts can cause anxiety and depression.

In her book?The Happiness Track, author Emma Seppala, a psychologist at Stanford University, explains why negative thoughts come to mind. “Our perspective is biased toward the negative; as far as our minds are concerned, bad is stronger than good,” she writes.?“We have such a strong propensity to favour negativity that we have a skewed vision of reality.” Seppala cites studies indicating that people generally have three times as many positive experiences as negative ones, but still focus on the negative nonetheless!

Is there an alternative to the irreverence of our thoughts (and those that are negative) that you ask? The answer is a pivot in our thinking to the nearest alternative. It means getting perspective on the negative thought we might be having about ourselves, another person or the situation with the needed grace or the benefit of the doubt. This means being mindful of the term 'assume good intent'.

'Assume good intent' - when dealing with people, or situations you have less control is quite effective. It urges you to start with a belief that what they’ve said or done was probably for a good purpose. Maintaining a suspicious, guarded, or judgmental view will make it nearly impossible to assume good intent.?

Another technique is using the bounce principle. It means substituting or bouncing away negative thoughts and thinking a positive thought instead. It might appear outlandish, but what are the odds? If we can attach to a better alternative that reduces our cortisol and springs us from that drowning feeling to a manageable baseline of normality, we have instantly tossed the odds in our favour. This is not an auto-pilot response and hence would need what is called 'habituation'. “Habituation is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations,” writes?Kendra Cherry of verywell.com.

If we give a chance to evidence around our life, we can only conclude that ‘assuming things will be OK’ is a far more resilient way to live and love.

What if the very situation I interpreted as the worst, is the best thing to happen? What if the diagnosis by the doctor, however painful but at the right time, is likely to save my life and also give me another chance to experience living more healthily? What if the job loss that happened, pushed me to get into a business that I wasn't confident to start? Or what if that relationship getting to its end was a resolution towards a better one waiting in its wings?

When we are capable of playing the 'What if' scenario head-on, making a deliberate shift, things however unfavourable shift for the better. Better, is often the harsh truth that you were escaping from for lack of courage, but now accept it with humility and then move on to make the essential efforts, to get to the milestone of achievement.

It is a blessing to live through this human experience and to make the optimum use of this chance of a lifetime. We know, we are not living out of it, so we might as well live it as the best one each day.

What are your thought experiences that you can think about recently? Please share, I’d love to hear your thoughts...