The Positive Mind

A friend and I were in a busy department store when I spotted a pair of very cool sunglasses. They fit my face well, but when I nodded my head forward they were a little too loose on my nose so I decided not to get them. As we walked out of the store I shrugged and said, “well, at least we don’t have to wait in line.” Knowing how much I had liked the sunglasses, my friend turned to me and said, “Wow, how do you do that? Always so positive.”

A few weeks later, I was taking a train on a blazing hot summer day and an hour into the trip the air conditioner stopped working. I was sitting in a thick, sticky cloud, watching the heat waves, drinking bottled water as warm as soup. Feeling like I was on a train to hell, I thought, “Well, people pay to sit in saunas, here I am detoxing for free.” I caught my reaction at that moment and felt blessed to have positivity as my automatic response. Remembering my friend’s question, I wondered: How do I stay positive? Can I break down my thought process and explain it to someone who wants to see their glass half full? As I’ve seen anxiety levels rise post-pandemic, perhaps I can offer some insight on how to develop a more positive outlook. You cannot change your way of thinking overnight, but you can start to build more positive habits, which compounded over time can change your mindset, and become a way of life.?

First, I’d like to make the distinction between a positive mind and toxic positivity. A positive mind is authentic. It doesn’t ignore emotions, avoid problems, nor pretend to be happy. It sees problems and negative outcomes through a wider, big picture lens, and finds a way to deal with them that fosters learning rather than disappointment in oneself, grace rather than anger, love rather than fear.?

So how does a positive mind tick? How did optimism become my default mode? Here’s what I discerned from digging in my subconscious.

1) OXTR

This one you may already have! *But don’t fret if you don’t.

First, I wondered, could people be genetically predisposed to optimism? Studies done on the correlation between oxytocin and levels of depression found that people with a certain variation of the oxytocin receptor gene, OXTR, are more likely to look on the bright side. While having a sunny disposition may be more innate to some of us than others, oxytocin is also socially contagious so if you can ensure your environment is positive, you can bring a little more light into your day (*see point 7 below).

2) Basic needs

This one will be the easiest.

Eat and sleep enough, and dress optimally for activities so that you’re not grumpy. Sometimes negative thinking has a really easy fix - you could just be thirsty, hungry, cold, or sleepy. It’s amazing how different you can feel if you’re just physically comfortable and well rested. As Maslow said, make sure your immediate physiological needs are met so you can always be in the right frame of mind. And for the well-being of those around you, always have water, a sweater, and emergency snacks handy.

3) Movement

This one will be easy if you like to be outside.

Related to meeting your most basic needs is making sure you’re moving enough during the day. I have listed it as a separate point here because it has the added benefit of clearing your mind and creating endorphins which will energize you for the rest of your day. If you haven’t gotten up out of your chair all day, your thoughts and your energy will become stale. Play a sport, go to the gym or get some fresh air. If you’re tight on time, at the very least take a stretch break or go for a quick walk, but don’t neglect daily movement.

4) Focus

This one will be easier if you’re an introvert.

Shift where you put your focus. Developing any mindset starts with paying attention to your thoughts - you have to catch your negative thoughts in order to change them. Notice the types of situations that bring up negative thoughts or reactions. You can keep a journal if that helps. Next, focus on what you like rather than what you don’t, and on what you have, rather than what you are lacking. Deliberately choose to notice little things in your day that make you smile. An easy way to start is to pay attention to your senses. You can appreciate your first sip of coffee, the crisp morning air, how nice your shirt looks on you, the ease of today’s commute (or if you’re stuck in traffic, your awesome playlist) having a job to go to, the person who held the door open for you… and these are just the first few hours of your day. Once this becomes a habit, your thoughts will continue to drift upward.

5) Patience

This one will be easier if you grew up before cellphones and the interweb.?

Sometimes your impatience is at the root of your bad mood. Impatience can bring anger, negativity and destruction into a situation, which can set off a whole series of unwanted consequences that will ruin your day. Impatience is a spiral. It is both the cause and the effect of multi-tasking too often, worrying too much about too many things at the same time, and consuming too much negative media, today’s leading culprits in stressful situations. Patience is the solution to this stress. Focus only on what you can control and make those decisions carefully. You can often avoid confusion, anger, and resentment if you stop to think of consequences before deciding to take action. Developing patience may be hard at first, but the good news is, it does get easier the more you practice it.

6) Problem Response Time

This one will be easier if you already have stoic traits.

When you have a thorn in your side, how long do you spend moping, crying, and lamenting your problem before trying to think of solutions? This is where you have to keep the big picture lens. Your problem will seem awful at the time. However, when you compare it to other challenges you have already overcome, you probably won’t see it as the worst problem you’ve ever had. Your negative frame of mind may be tricking you into believing things are worse than they actually are, or you may have built the habit of comparing your life to others. Do not waste your time and energy on playing the comparison game - sure things could be much better, but they could also be much worse. A quick search of the top international news stories will instantly put your problem into a more realistic perspective.

Allow yourself to feel frustrated, but do not sit in your frustration all afternoon. The less time you spend in a funk, the better you will feel, and step one towards a solution to your problem is to get into a calm state of mind. Put your focus on logic rather than emotion. Write out possible solutions or talk them out with a friend. If you have trouble with this, I highly recommend Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.?

When one thing goes wrong, let that be the only low point in your day. Don’t let your anger cloud your concentration and affect your performance in the next important thing in your day. Decide on the next thing that you can do right in your day. This will boost your confidence and help you carry on. Once points 4 and 5 become a habit, you will also develop more resilience to negativity, shortening the time it takes you to find a solution. After a while your mind will automatically shift to solution mode when it detects a problem.

7) Social environment

This one may be the hardest.

If you were trying to quit smoking, would you hang out with friends who chain-smoke every weekend? Likewise, if you want to become your best, most positive self, you need to remove negative people from your circle. We all have that negative friend or co-worker who always has a problem, is caught up in drama and never seems to run out of things to complain about, aka the Energy Vampire. If every time you speak with them you feel drained, you need to limit your interactions with them until they become more positive. You can still care for this person from a distance: you can check in on them, give them advice, and empathize, but if they constantly complain, it’s a problem with their mindset, and unless you’re a professional psychologist, you can’t fix that for them. It can be hard to let people go, but you have to prioritize your own mental health and wellbeing. Bad vibes spread like a virus and if you catch them you will impact those around you, in turn becoming someone else’s negative friend! Circling back to point 1, the antidote to stress and anxiety is oxytocin, so spend time with those who bring a buoyant mood into your interactions.

These are the 7 components I found that contribute to keeping my positive mind. Together they work as a shield, bouncing away negative vibes and defusing tension. They make space for calmness to move in and untie the knots in my day.

It’s not always easy to look on the sunny side and having a positive mind doesn’t mean you don’t have bad days. It means you’re equipped with resilience to face them, willingness to learn from them, and hope for a better tomorrow. The positive mind gives you a formula for any set of circumstances and brings lightness to the tranquil moments, exciting moments, and even the mundane ones.

Wishing you a beautiful holiday season and a new year full of positivity!