"By consciously choosing our priorities we can overcome issues, make progress and focus on what really matters".
Dear community,
it's time for a new month, embracing a new season that teaches us to let go.
Some love Fall, some struggle missing the warm Summer days, but for them too there is a chance to enjoy the foliage season, when dark days come: it's a matter of mindset. You don't have to force yourself to like Autumn, nor let yourself be carried away by constant complaint. You can find small things to enjoy and live fully.
Optimistic doesn't mean forcing ourselves to have positive thoughts or feelings, nor chasing away negative ones.
It has long been shown this doesn't really work for our mental health and well-being*
It's more about noticing how the mind tends to go towards what's negative/threatening and gives it its full focus and reiteration, and acknowledge that - even in presence of unpleasant and difficult thoughts and feelings - we can practice making space for appreciation of what is there and what is good.
In a time when unwanted and unexpected changes are on our table on a daily basis, we can practice noticing how we get caught in all the things we can't, and intentionally focus on all the things we can.
And we can make a list:
I can prepare a nice meal
I can choose to take a 5 minutes break
I can see friends online and in presence with a mask
I can practice safe relating because I care
I can read a book
I can play with my pet
I can take a walk in the park
I can watch a funny movie
I can travel around
I can relax on the sofa
I can learn what I love
I can play sports
I can listen to my favourite song ... And now : your list!
* Stephen C. Hayes and other third wavers (third wave of cognitive behavioural therapies) say trying to correct negative thoughts can, paradoxically, intensify them, in the same way that a dieter who keeps telling himself “I really don’t want the pizza” ends up obsessing about … pizza. Rather, Hayes and the roughly 12,000 students and professionals who have been trained in his formal psychotherapy, which is called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), say we can benefit from acknowledging that negative thoughts recur throughout life. Instead of challenging them, Hayes says, we can concentrate on identifying and committing to our values. Cultivating willingness to experience (negative) unpleasant and difficult emotions, he argues, we will find it easier to figure out what life should be about and get on with it. T.J. Borchard - February 2006
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