Issue 13 - Spring 2020
Using positive language more and more in our everyday lives has long been shown by Psychologists to be responsible for a change in our brains leading to more productivity and greater success. Choosing positive words over their more negative counterparts, strengthens areas of the brain’s frontal lobes, and promotes cognitive function. This edition we explore the best way to do this, helping you feel great—physically, mentally and emotionally.
One of the most popular (celebrity endorsed) topics in this area is the use of positive affirmations: positive statements that can supposedly help you to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts. If you’ve tried using positive affirmations, you know that it can be a difficult habit to maintain. It may only take you 5 or 10 minutes to recite your favourite, but what happens for the rest of the day when the mind is occupied elsewhere, drifting back to old, repetitive thoughts resulting in those deeply embedded behaviours creeping back. ;
Positive affirmations only operate at the surface level of conscious thinking and do nothing to contend with the subconscious mind where limiting beliefs really live. If you command yourself to think “I am successful”, yet your deeply held core belief is that you are unworthy of your success, your brain will be quick to pick up on this, with your subconscious reminding you of the many times you’ve embarrassed yourself or made a mistake.
While we all know that focussing on negative emotions can be toxic; but whitewashing our fears with positive thinking is merely a sticking plaster and can, for those prone to anxiety and depression, lead to further complications.
So if positive affirmations can be ineffective and in some cases even detrimental to our wellbeing, how can we to take control?
Start with articulating and acknowledging thoughts weighing you down and once identified, try using what the professionals call ‘releasing statements’, such as, "It's okay for me to be angry" to free up emotional resources.
If you spend less time beating yourself up and more time being kind to yourself, you can redirect that energy into other pursuits and tasks.
Research shows asking questions rather than issuing commands is a much more effective way to create change within ourselves. When you catch yourself being inwardly critical, just stop and think how you can turn this statement into a question in order to open up exploration and possibility.
Examples such as “What if [worse case scenario] happens?” or “How can I …?” help us to ignite the problem-solving areas of the brain, greeting what were initially negative thoughts with curiosity instead of fear.
To effectively re-frame your thinking, consider who you are becoming on both a cognitive and emotional level. Self-talk such as "I am a work in progress, and that’s OK." Is realistic, achievable and helps you move in the direction of positive growth.
We can all be prone to negative self-talk and the thought of starting on a journey of positive affirmations (that don’t work) for many is a little too ‘hippy-dippy’. However, if you can just try one of these re-framing techniques, you may start to notice major changes in your mind set and an uplift in your productivity and success.
You can also help make a change by starting to track the words or phrases you use most frequently on a daily basis, pulling out and swapping negative ones for their more positive, empowering counterparts. Some people go as far as to ban certain words from their vocabulary such as Problem, No and Should.
