Positive Words

I remember reading the power of language at a very young age. I not only understood that specific words affect our mental pictures, but positive words are a powerful programming factor in lifelong success.

One particularly interesting event occurred when I was eight. As a kid, I was always climbing trees, poles, and literally hanging around upside down. So, it came to no surprise for my dad to find me at the top of a 30-foot tree swinging back and forth. My little eight-year-old brain didn't realize the tree could break or I could get hurt. I just thought it was fun to be up so high.

My older cousin, was also in the same tree. She was hanging on the first big limb, about ten feet below me. Her mother also noticed us at the exact time my dad did. About that time a huge gust of wind came over the tree. I could hear the leaves start to rattle and the tree begin to sway. I remember my dad's voice over the wind yell, "Hold on tight." So I did. The next thing I know, I heard Tammy screaming at the top of her lungs, laying flat on the ground. She had fallen out of the tree.
I scampered down the tree to safety. My dad later told me why she fell and I did not. Apparently, when Tammy's mother felt the gust of wind, she yelled out, "Be Careful, don't fall!" and she did fall.

My dad then explained to me that the mind has a very difficult time processing a negative image. In fact, people who rely on internal pictures cannot see a negative at all. In order for her to process the command of not falling, her nine-year-old brain had to first imagine falling, then try to tell the brain not to do what it just imagined. Whereas, my eight-year-old brain instantly had an internal image of me hanging on tight.

This concept is especially useful when you are attempting to break a habit or set a goal. You can't visualize not doing something. The only way to properly visualize not doing something is to actually find a word for what you want to do and visualize that. For example, when I was thirteen years old, I played for my high school team. I tried so hard to be good, but I just couldn't get it together at that age. I remember hearing the words run through my head as I was running out for a catch, "Don't drop it!" Naturally, I dropped the ball.

Psychologists claim it takes seventeen positive statements to offset one negative statement. I have no idea if it is true, but the logic holds true. It might take up to seventeen compliments to offset the emotional damage of one harsh criticism.

Ask yourself how many compliments you give daily versus how many criticisms. Heck, I know you are talking to yourself all day long. We all have internal voices that give us direction.
Let's start not only thinking positive, but even talking and acting will help self and people around us to move forward.

Are you Happy......

It’s easy to complain when you’re riddled with anger, when you have so many feelings and so many feelings about those feelings you’re consumed by a maddening confusion. It’s easy when you can wax about disappointment and heartbreak; when you’re overflowing with emotional things to say; It’s easy when you can lay everything out in terms of “existential” and “crisis”

But it’s not so easy to complain when you’re happy. Not because you have less feelings, or because your happy feelings are any less worthy of being shown out in public than your sad feelings, but simply because being happy makes you want to do rather than respond. Being happy makes you want to go out and enjoy your happiness — there’s just no incentive for you to be crouching in half darkness over your notebook or laptop, muttering sinisterly for days on end without showering when you’re happy. Not that I’ve ever done any of that, I mean, I totally shower every day and stuff.

When you’re sad, one of your first instincts will often be analysis — why do I feel this way? What is actually happening here? How can I make myself feel better? Why doesn’t he/ she like me? Why can’t I get that dream job?  OMG DO YOU ACTUALLY EXPECT ME TO GO TO THE SHOP TO BUY MORE ICE CREAM IN THIS STATE I’M IN? And in turn this analysis becomes your fingers tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard, which would eventually endup on social media.

Writing about bad feelings on social media is cathartic. Moreover, going back and reading your rants can often lead you to see JUST HOW SILLY YOU ARE BEING. You can get lots of sympathy from people who feel the same way, which makes you feel less alone and totally justified. Moreover, you are passionate in these moments, foolhardy and reckless with your words.

Whatever it is that’s making you happy, you just want to enjoy it — you certainly don’t want to hole yourself up in a dank, windowless room writing moving things about your feelings, you want to be out FEELING THEM. You don’t want to talk; you want to do. You don’t want to reflect; you want to be. So it’s harder, much harder, to write when you’re happy.

You know people want to read about your happiness, that yes, people will relate, just as they relate to your sadness. And you know that when you’re happy, you’ll rush through whatever it is you’re writing anyway, because you just want to thrust open a window looking down over a busy street and sing out to the crowd before you race down into the throng to embrace whatever it is that is making you so deliriously, distractingly, overwhelmingly happy.

Its not easy to keep happy or unhappy, pleasent or angry moods all around the time. We go through both these emotions and everyday. We will have emotional swings. Speaking up, writing your concerns in life when you are happy makes more sense at the point of time and also in future. The words you choose while being happy will make a lot of difference in the life of the person listening or reading.