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Today's
quotation:
Gradually, the repeated triggering of negative thoughts and moods
can begin wearing grooves in the mind; over time, these become
deeper and deeper, making it easier to set off negative, self-critical
thoughts and low or panicky moods— and more difficult to shake
them off. After a while, prolonged periods of fragility can be
triggered by the most innocuous of things, such as a momentary
dip in mood or the slightest flux in energy levels. These triggers
can be so small that you might not even be aware of them.
Mark Williams
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan
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Today's
Meditation:
It's very
hard to avoid negative thoughts. After all, so many
difficult things happen to us that it's almost inevitable
that such thoughts are going to enter our minds. And
when they do, they tend to hang around for a while,
pushing out the positive thoughts and ideas and taking up
residence in the forefront of our minds. When that
happens to me, it takes great effort to push them out and
let back in the positive thoughts--and it often takes me a
while to recognize what's going on, so I spend more time
than I want with the negative thoughts and moods.
We
have to be aware that the longer we allow these thoughts
to control us and keep us hostage, the more used to them
we become and the more damage they can do. As Mark
says, the more fragile we become, the easier it is to drop
into negative states at the drop of the hat, at the
slightest provocation. If we don't want this to
happen, we have to be mindful of our current state and our
current thoughts so that we can get rid of the negativity
once it shows up and not allow it to dig itself in and
make itself at home.
The
truth is that the more we focus on the negative, the more
likely we are to be affected by the negative, much more
often. It's up to us to shift that focus as soon as
we recognize it, and to do our best to focus on the
positive instead. It's definitely not always easy,
especially when life seems to be doing its best to get us
down, but this is the part that we can actually control--
what we choose to focus on.
Of
course, there is no magic potion to drink to help us to
focus on the positive. And sometimes we have to work
with people who trigger almost exclusively negative
thoughts and feelings, so there's no real escape unless we
actually leave the job, which isn't always possible.
But even through such trials, we have the ability to make
our choices about what we're going to think about certain
situations, and our choice always should be to focus on
the positive and do our best to make the positive even
better, and to let the negative be what it is, and not
allow it to bring us down.
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