The Power of Optimism

Management Of Emotions And Gratitude as Fuel For A Virtuous Mental Cycle

Constant happiness does not exist. Often we do not even know how to define it, but we can increase our moments of happiness, of satisfaction and of contentment. Training new ways of thinking and, consequently, of feeling by better understanding how we can manage our thoughts and be grateful is undoubtedly the path to be followed to be much happier.

• Someone once told me that optimism is the brother of hope and that this is a very serious thing. I always say that, if we take hope away from the young, we destroy a nation. If I were to be asked what the greatest secret for a successful life is, I would say it is always having a sense of optimism during our life's journeys, regardless of the circumstances 
• Optimism has an evolutionary power to generate a cycle of positive thoughts which, in turn, has an immense driving force for catapulting us towards success. Being optimistic makes us overcome difficulties better by transforming our outlook on the world. It makes us create the best of realities. Others look and ask, "Can't you see reality? It's worse than you think!" And you reflect and reply, "I know it in all its stark rawness. I simply react with a look that perceives where I can reap fruit from land that only appears to sprout thorns. 
• We know that our thoughts can become our actions. We understand, through careful analysis of our past and of what has happened to us, that our actions can become habits which build our destiny for good or for evil. Having good, positive thoughts, policing them, and training our minds to cultivate a virtuous cycle which generates noble, resilient, planned actions in the pursuit of our goals and dreams is the way to substantially increase our happy moments, improve our emotional states and, consequently, our well-being. 
• The way we see the things of the world and feed our thoughts will give the colour and the tone to the situations that surround us. By doing so, we create a script where we see either dreadful monsters always lurking behind the trees of the marshy landscape or flower-covered fields and cottages of landsmen always willing to help us. Much of the stress we experience lies in the way we view situations. There are different ways of facing reality, and our way of thinking influences all of this. 
• We know that we all have experienced wearisome and even terrible situations in our lives, but we have to work our minds to become aware that we can, at least, look at them in a more positive way. Whether through our own efforts or, for example, with the help of a specialist coach, we must start a process of developing new beliefs which aim to make us feel secure in ourselves, to have more confidence in the future, and thus to generate an indispensable feeling for the pursuit of our goals, namely, optimism! 
• Albert Einstein once said, "I prefer to be optimistic and wrong, to being pessimistic and right." The power of optimism lies mainly in focussing on the good things that can happen in our lives, viewing them through the prism of solutions and success, and not dwelling on the magnitude of problems and failures. 
• For many, these themes which talk about optimism, positive thinking, self-motivation, a cycle of virtuous thoughts which forms a good mental model for life, emotional intelligence, and coaching are subjects that cast light on exaggerated and na?ve feelings. These people think that it is enough just to strive hard and to fulfill their role in life in best possible way, and that, to be a winner, there is no need for this business of optimism and positivism.
• I allow myself to disagree with this view of the world, for all of this becomes so important, not only for improving our potential in the art of relationships, a skill so important for one to live a better life, but also to help us through the most difficult times of our lives, when we need a mindset which values the building of resilience through optimism, which will transform our tempests into gentler winds, making us see more quickly the rainbow that soon thereafter emerges. 
• Our process of decision-making and executing our plans becomes richer and more efficient the more confidence and optimism we have in ourselves. The certainty of a positive experience, even if we are not successful at first, feeds this cycle of positive thinking, because when we succeed we will become more confident for the next challenges. Even when we fail, we shall know that the experience will be making us stronger through the lesson learnt, which itself will guide us better on the way forward. This, in itself, is good food for thought for the strengthening of optimism.
• The history of the world and of men, in all fields of activity, is cyclical, made of peaks and troughs. When we are strong, when we succeed, we are more susceptible to decline and fail. When we are weak, going through difficulties or not achieving what we want, we begin our process of strengthening towards success. When we reach the apex of good results in our professional and personal fields, we can feel invincible, thus lowering our guard, giving way to decline. 
• But it is precisely in decline, in failure and in difficulties where we can re-learn and get back to the top, because we shall be more attentive, humble and open to change and new knowledge. Thinking in this way, we can create a mental model which understands that in both success and failure we must be optimistic. 
• We can use some emotional pain to strengthen ourselves, instead of letting that pain destroy us. We can be attentive in times of stress, in times that leave us irritated, dissatisfied and, instead of developing premature reactions, with the resultant emotional upheaval, it is possible for us to seek resilience, enhancing our ability to expand self-control through the ability to think before reacting, anmd in addition, preventing the most diverse forms of social violence, contributing by maintaining a positive outlook on the situations that surround us.
• The renowned psychiatrist Dr. Augusto Cury shows us, in his Academy for the Management of Emotions (AME) course, various tools for us to change our history as human beings in a world increasingly dominated by "having" and not by "being", by the prisons of status and social appearances. He teaches us, through the secrets of how not to become a predator of the people we love nor a prey to the people who cause us stress, how emotional pain should build us and not destroy us.
• He teaches us that the strong understand, the weak condemn, the strong recognise mistakes, the weak hide them. He teaches us that noone is worthy of success, if they do not make use of their defeats and their saddest days. The strong acknowledge their mistakes, the weak hide them under the guise of their titles and status. Professor Cury teaches us that, in any stressful situation, we must refuse to enter into further discussion. He teaches us to delve into ourselves, to not turn ouselves into predators of the ones we love.
• The power of optimism conveys, mainly, the recognition of who you are, of how special and unique your person is. At this point, it is extremely important to recognise your qualities, your strengths as a person. We know that our brain acts all too frequently without our being in control, drawing on pain, losses, frustrations, and traumas filed away in our subconscious, generating "killer windows" and letting emotional pain destroy us. This process can trigger phobias, exhaustion of the brain, can develop psychosomatic symptoms, becoming like an animal that reacts to outbreaks of stress. In other words, we become the victims of people who hurt us, an agitated, hypersensitive, and worried human being. 
• Dr. Cury teaches us that "in the poison is the antidote". He, intelligently and wisely, tells us that it is not possible to erase the past, but rather just to re-edit it or construct parallel windows as a base for the building of a new vision of the world and of things. "Killer windows" can transform a cockroach into a monster (simple phobia), a lift into an "airless cubicle" (claustrophobia), a public meeting into torment (social phobia). 
• I had the opportunity to attend the Academy for the Management of Emotions (AME) with Dr. Augusto Cury, and I was able to strengthen my awareness of the power of optimism in our lives. In the "most challenging situations" we have ever experienced, lie the greatest lessons to be learnt and the greatest opportunities of our lives. I have strengthened my thinking as a coach, by recognising that we must doubt and criticise troubling ideas and define new ideas which we wish to adopt. All this has to do with the power of optimism, through which, when we give another meaning to situations, we begin to view the world in a more pleasant, profitable and efficient manner. 

A shortcut to happiness - Gratitude 

• Want to be happy? Be grateful. If there is one thing that puts all of us on an equal footing in terms of purpose in life, it is wanting to be happy. But the topic here is gratitude. So what is the relationship between happiness and gratitude? And what does it have to do with the "power of optimism"? 
• Here I share some concepts about the power of gratitude, which I heard once from Dom David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk known for his active participation in inter-religion dialogue and his work on interaction with spirituality and Science. 
• Many people will say that when you are happy, you are grateful. But think again. There are many people who have everything to be happy, yet they are not. They are always wanting something more. On the other hand, we know some people who pass through various adversities and are extremely happy, they radiate a high degree of happiness. We are surprised by this and ask ourselves the reason why and how these people are grateful. 
• However, it is not happiness that brings gratitude. It is gratitude that makes us happy. But we may wonder how this works. Gratitude is something that is given to us freely and is extremely valuable to our lives. I shall repeat these two requirements for understanding what is really understood about what it is, namely, to be valuable to us and to be given freely! 
• Every new moment in our lives is a new opportunity for us to live, to love, to reconcile, to seek what we have lost, to rise up from pain, to aim for and to plan a new goal to reach. Hence, gratitude grows spontaneously in our hearts together with happiness.
• However, the key to all of this is continuity. We cannot be grateful and, therefore, happy only once in a while. If we think about it, this brings to us to the logical conclusion that each new moment is a new opportunity for our lives. To be grateful, we cannot be really happy just once in a while. Each new moment is a new gift. Opportunity is the gift within the gift. We have to say that we cannot afford to lose the opportunities that are generated for us, but think about it, new and ever newer moments generating new and ever newer opportunities arise with every new moment. They may well not be the same opportunities, but they will certainly be new moments with other pportunities, which may be even more valuable than the previous ones.
• Can we be grateful for all the moments? Certainly not. We know that we cannot be grateful for wars, oppression, violence, exploitation. On a personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for someone's unfaithfulness, for so many other things. But we have new opportunities, even at these moments, to learn the lessons of patience, to fight for our convictions, to be resilient and to know how to face life and strengthen ourselves, as human beings, for new journeys. The non-linearity of the events of our journey through life and the learning opportunities presented to us is precisely the greatest wealth in life.
• Certainly, being optimistic is also directly linked to being grateful, because the outlook we have to have for our lives and the thoughts we must generate in our brains when we want to be optimistic are the same as when we are grateful for all the new moments and new opportunities. 
• As Friar David says, "Stop, look and go forward." 
• We all should have moments of reflection and pay attention to all the details and situations of our lives, look at and be thankful for everything, remain optimistic and strong for the wonderful existence that we have.