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Positive Thinking-Self Esteem
Positive Thinking-Self Esteem
http://nordy.hubpages.com/hub/balancedthinking
Over the last three or so decades, there has been a huge amount of self-help literature dedicated to the art of positive thinking. I like to think of it as an art, because not only is it something a very small percentage of the population are masterful at, but like art it is also requires constant practice in order for it to flourish. In other words its something only a chosen few with great discipline are good at.
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05/21/2012 02:01 PM
http://nordy.hubpages.com/hub/balancedthinking
It doesnt mean that it is impossible for Bob to change his perspective though. In fact, many would argue (and rightfully), that at least some of Bobs misfortunes were It is a capital mistake to theorize before you self-fulfilling prophecies. Because he believed he was a have all the evidence. It biases the judgment." A loser, he acted in ways that would in fact validate those Study in Scarlet (1888) beliefs. This is (at least partially) the truth, but the truth is also a double-edged sword. Bob is only likely to start believing in himself once he has more positive experiences to lay down the foundation, yet those positive experiences are unlikely to occur whilst his mental compass is broken and forever leaning to the negative. Moreover, he is unlikely to take into account any positive things he has already done or that have happened when conducting a mental inventory of his life, which also reinforces his negative view of himself.
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05/21/2012 02:01 PM
http://nordy.hubpages.com/hub/balancedthinking
them! view, then maybe positivity will be possible. Like heating a kettle, the cold water becomes warm before it turns hot. You see, the real problem lies not in the negative experiences we have, nor even in the negative thoughts themselves. Given no credence, our thoughts can easily be changed. The real problem lies in our interpretations the way we construe our experiences and consequentially construct our underlying beliefs.
Bob first believed he must be a loser when his mom left him. Suzies mom also left her, but Suzie thinks that her mom is the loser. When Janies mom left, she believed that her mother must have been mentally unwell and felt sorry for her. Each experienced the exact same problem but had three different ways of looking at it. None of the three were right, and none were wrong. It was what it was. But which point of view was the most balanced, and in turn, the most useful for the person? Bobs certainly served him only to bring him down. Suzies viewpoint could have been useful to her, or might have turned her bitter or put her off becoming a mother herself one day. Janies interpretation was the most useful insofar as she was able to maintain a compassionate view of her mother whilst also preserving her own worth and dignity. Who was right? Maybe all and maybe none but does it really matter when in the end, whats done is done?
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http://nordy.hubpages.com/hub/balancedthinking
is a wonderful thing if you can achieve it. But the path to achieving it might involve a pit stop somewhere in the middle at balanced thinking. Itll take a little more legwork than simply changing the thoughts themselves if you want your mind to truly accept and endorse the positive thoughts in the long run. Achieving balanced thinking involves the reinterpreting of information; the dissection of old ways of thinking before turning them into something different. This act of critical analysis satisfies the human brains need for logic and reason. Simply switching negative thoughts to positive thoughts, as implied by positive thinking, leaves the critical part of the mind feeling unsatisfied. Somehow it cant help but feel as if it were trying to make reality out of a fairy story, and that as nice as positive thoughts sound, they just arent real. But through critical analysis, the mind achieves balanced thinking not necessarily glowingly positive thoughts, but helpful thoughts. More importantly, it learns that the negative thoughts are all a fantasy. And only then will it be able to truly let it go of negative thoughts and beliefs and adopt something more positive and useful.
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