Positivity

I’m sometimes surprised at the way people respond to other people. We see a guy do something fabulous and we react in one of two ways:

a) we’re blown away by what we’ve seen (or read) and motivated to so something wonderful ourselves, or

b) we’re resentful of that person’s ability to do what we wish we could do.

 

If you take another’s work as inspiration, you can use it to propel yourself to achieve something wonderful. That’s taking a positive step. If you take it as a slap in the face, as a light shone on your own inadequacies or insignificance, what could inspire you turns to mockery and bitterness. You’ve stepped onto Negativity Road. How you chose to react to the fabulous things you witness in your life is your choice.

We’re naturally attracted to positive people. Like flowers turning to the sun, we want to bathe in the warmth and light that shines from people who are positive. And when we let ourselves revel in the positive, banishing negativity, we not only become stronger we become more creative.

Positivity opens us. It lets us see more roads, entertain more options. Research on positivity has shown that when people are put in a positive frame of mind, their outlook expands and they can see the big picture. When they’re first made to experience something neutral or negative, their peripheral vision (yes, their actual peripheral vision) shrinks.

You may have heard that by smiling you can actually change the chemistry in your brain. It’s true. Find something to smile about, or force yourself to smile, and you’ll change your orientation (at least temporarily) from negative to positive. That can start a cascade of positivity that can help you deal with whatever crap has hit the fan.

An experiment done by a bunch of very cunning psychologists proved that a physical smile changes how we feel about things. Their cover story: the psychologists wanted to study how hard it was for people without the use of their hands or arms to accomplish certain tasks. The set-up: participants were asked to hold a pen in one of three ways:

1. Between their upper lip and their nose which used the same muscles as we use when frowning

2. Between the teeth horizontally which used the same muscles as we use when smiling,

3. In their non-dominant hand.

 

Everyone had to fill out a questionnaire rating of the funniness of a cartoon. The folks who were holding the pencil between their teeth so their face was using it’s smiling muscles all thought the cartoons were funnier.

The next time you catch yourself frowning, make yourself smile. If you feel anger rising in your gut, stop for a moment, excuse yourself and go make yourself smile for a few minutes. Want to just kill that idiot who cut you off, was rude to you, or made your baby cry? Pause. Smile. You’ll feel better.