It's hard to watch the news. It seems like everything's going wrong. How do you
stay positive when everything's going wrong? Let's take that on. We're all about
positivity here on the channel and it's a legitimate question. When everything is
going wrong in this world, how do you stay positive? I've written up a summary
in Portable Positivity. Some of you already have this little mini book. If
you don't, click in the description on the link there that will give you a free
digital copy. This gives you the model behind most of what I'm going to talk
about today. So rather than repeating all of that, you can get it in the mini book.
Let's go to 5 specific things that you can do to increase your positivity
when everything's going wrong. First of all, let's take a look at that. Things are
going wrong? What do we mean by that? Notice that we take that position
sometimes because we have an expectation. And our expectation of how things should
go is violated. And that's how we know that things are going wrong. I love that
I get to illuminate the obvious in my job. Because the process is in our mind
are obvious once they're called to your attention but you don't even notice them
until they're called to your attention. So notice that you're judging this to be
wrong. One of my clients recently sat down on the couch in my office and said,
"Dr. Paul, this just is not the way that it should be." What he meant was, "This
isn't the way I expected my life to turn out." My wife and I were watching a movie
years ago it's called Dan In Real Life. And one of the quotes from that movie
that has stuck with me all of these years is that we should teach our kids
to expect to be surprised. What if we expected to
be surprised? Then we won't get all tipped over when things don't happen the
way that we want them to happen or the way we think they should happen. Expect
to be surprised. This isn't bad news. It's just the way that we roll here. Notice
that it happens. Realizing that you are judging your circumstances and
determining that this is bad it's not the way that it should be. Let's go to
the next tip that I have for you. This is going to be hard. I'll give you that
disclaimer right up front. Don't worry about the fact that it's hard. Just try
it. Practice saying this is good. Or some variation of that. Well this is perfect
for me. This is exactly how it should be. You're going to practice saying that
because your mind is saying something else. This isn't the way it should be.
This is bad. Okay, the truth of the matter is it is what it is. We put a judgment on
it and then we say that it's good or bad. Painful is not necessarily bad. I'm
playing basketball one morning. I do this about 3 times a week. It's for my
health including my mental health. My wife laughs at me because most of our
emergency room bills are from my basketball activities. I'm doing it for
my health. I was playing basketball one morning when I came down on top of
someone's foot and I turned my ankle. I heard the pop I felt the excruciating
pain racing up my leg and I knew that I had sprained my ankle. Oh, this hurts. If
you've experienced this before you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I
slumped to the floor. And as I'm riding on the floor, grabbing at my ankle, I hear
myself say these words, "This is perfect!" I wasn't being sarcastic. "Oh,
this is perfect." I said, "This is perfect."
Through my pain. I'm in tears. It's really hard. I had practiced saying this. Now,
here's what it did for me. It didn't fix my ankle. Although I'm convinced that if
we take this approach, this positive approach, it assists our body to heal
from the stuff that's going on there too. And I think it did help me to heal
quicker. But here's what it did for me. It changed my mind. And I had practiced it
enough that in a moment of pain, I could say with sincerity, "This is perfect." Folks,
I didn't even know why or how it was perfect at the time. I just knew that I
wanted to take that position. And that from that position, I'd be able to create
something. Now, you're probably thinking, "Oh wow, Dr. Paul is really off of his
rocker now." What I experienced with that was in a increase in my joy. And I'm all
about joy, okay? Thinking about it in that way allowed me to experience joy in the
moment. Enjoying pain sometimes come together. You ask any mom, she knows. It is
extremely painful to go through childbirth. And as those children come
into the world, in the midst of that pain is intense joy. Let's separate the 2 in
our mind. Pain and bad are not the same thing. You can experience the joy. Take
the position. "This is good. This is perfect.
I'm right on schedule." Choose it on purpose and then practice it. The next
tip comes from a friend an associate of mine. I like to call her a friend. She's
really one of my heroes. Jeanne Robertson is one of the funniest
g-rated, family-friendly comedians on the planet. She's 6 foot 2. Thick southern
accent and hilarious. If you get a chance to look her up, you're going to have some
fun. Jeanne has a motto. And I'm going to use that as our next tip. It is, "Find the
funny." Find the funny. There are hilarious things happening all around us in this
world that we sometimes interpret as negative. What if we were to look for and
find the funny? Would that help us to stay positive in a negative situation?
Absolutely. In fact, some of the most painful things that can happen to us
after a period of healing can be looked back on as some of the funniest things
that have happened to us. I think of spraining my ankle and how
ridiculous I must have looked down there on that gym floor. I think of how the
other people that were there with me that morning must have been thinking I
was completely off my rocker. And they didn't know which part of the hospital
to take me to. The emergency room or the psych ward.
I don't know. Finding the funny gives you stories and it adds richness to your
life. I'm thinking of my good friend Bob Kittell. Bob, thank you for sharing this
story with me. He was in Mexico speaking for a big convention. He got into an
accident where the car he was in rolled several times. He was injured but it
retained his sense of humor. And I'm glad that he did because he took some selfies,
he got some pictures of what happened afterwards. When when they were wheeling
him into the hospital, he's got a picture of himself looking up and pointing
toward the sky. There were 2 vultures circling overhead as he's being wheeled
into the hospital. That's funny. He took the time to find the funny. And I
think it accelerated his healing. At the very least, it creates a much more
enjoyable experience in life. One of the tools that I'm a strong advocate for, it
can become our next tip. And that is to think about your thinking. Metacognition
is the term that we use for this. And that's a fancy term I know. It's one of
the ones we make up in psychology. Because it makes us feel smart to make
up words. If you break it down, cognition means thinking. If we put that at this
level, metacognition is a higher level. It's thinking about thinking. Notice that
you can do this. Metacognition is powerful because it creates a space. And
in that space, is where choice exists. Until we see it as a choice, it's not. The
world is going to go on and do whatever the world does. And there will be crimes
committed and there will be natural disasters that occur. It's part of our
experience here. Thinking about our thinking allows us to go higher than
what we would normally think. "Oh, this is bad. we live in a terrible world." And we
don't we live in an amazing blessed world. And we can see that when we think
about our thinking. And notice how we're doing the 2 processes that I explained
in the book. Again, if you want to connect to that mini book, I'll give you a free
digital copy of it. Just click on the link down there in the description. And
you can get a free digital copy of that. You'll see exactly what I'm talking
about. 2 processes. Evaluation and creation. And you can't turn either one
of them off. I'm not trying to tell you how to think. I honestly don't have that
kind of authority. I want you to see that you are thinking. And take some
responsibility for how you're operating the equipment here.
That's why metacognition, thinking about your thingking
is so important. It puts you back in control. And it gives you some element of
choice. That's going to change the game for you. As you do that, you're going to
make some realizations. Some of them are going to be kind of painful. Because when
you think about your thinking, you'll see very quickly that we all (You included.)
fall into a paradigm. A worldview. A way of thinking. And there's only 2
basically. All of the self-help books, all of the personal development, all of the
psychology I've read supports this idea. There are 2 determinants paradigms. I
label them noxious negativity or the victim paradigm versus pathological
positivity or the agent paradigm. I've set them up that way. The negative victim
paradigm has us blaming and saying, "Why me?" And complaining and belly aching
about this terrible life that we have. And it creates captivity and stuckness.
The positivity paradigm on this side, the agent paradigm is the exact opposite and
it creates for us freedom. We're instead of blame, we take responsibility. And
instead of saying, "Why me?" We say, "Why not me?" I had a powerful experience with one
of my clients. 17-year old David comes into my office. He's in tears. Little
context. I'd seen David 10 years earlier when he was seven. When he was 7 his
parents brought him. 7-year olds don't make appointments with me. He was
being abused by 2 older boys in the neighborhood. Now, I hate abuse. Don't get
me started. That's probably another video. But you can see why his parents were
concerned. I worked with him to understand something. What kinds
of kids get abused? How would you answer that? Well, we got David to the right
answer which is, "It's the kind who are available to an abuser." No fault of their
own. It's not the kids who deserve it, is it?
No. All kids who are available to an abuser are at risk. Whether through
relationship or vulnerability or whatever it is. Well, he got it. He had
supportive parents and we were able to work through it. And pretty soon, he's on
his way. Well, he's back at age 17. Guess what? It's
happening again. Except this time it's the high school volleyball coach that's
abusing him. Wow. Again, I hate abuse. Don't get me started.
But here's David crying. And he's asking, "Why me? Why me Dr. Paul? I've been through
this before. Why is this happening again? Why me? Why? Why? Why?" Okay, that is a victim
paradigm. Without making any arguments for the abuser and his poor choices,
let's focus on David. I listened for a while. I'm empathic, I'm a psychologist.
I was listening. At some point, I stopped him. I said, "David, why not you?" He almost
comes out of the chair. He's like, "Shut up." Right? He's 17. I said, "No, think about it.
Seriously. Why not you?" What kind of kids get abused? Oh, yeah. It's the kind that
are available to an abuser. He knew that. "Well then David, which of your friends
would you pick to take your place?" Name somebody. Who do you want to be abused
instead of you? Well he didn't wish that on his worst enemy. "And besides, David, who
better than you? The fact that you've been through this before means you have
skills and tools and resources. You got parents who are supportive. You've got a
counselor you can already talk to. Who better than you to
take this on? You got this man." He started to straighten up in that chair and he
said, "You know what Dr. Paul? You're right." I love it when people say that. But
anyway. "You're right Dr. Paul. I can handle this, huh?" "Yes you can." "Why not me?
I got this." It changed everything. Folks, it did not change the fact that he was
abused, did it? No. What did it changed? Changed his mind. It put him in a
position where now he gets to be in control of this thing. Not as evil abuser.
We give them way too much power in the victim paradigm. Choose an agent paradigm
and move forward with power. You're never wrong about how you feel. How you feel is
100% consistent with the way your mind is doing the processes that we talked
about in the mini book. And how are you supposed to feel when you're in pain?
Well you're supposed to feel pain. If you're being abused or if you sprain
your ankle or if somebody divorces you or if you go bankrupt. Whatever it is,
you've got this. And you can stay positive. You guys get me fired up about
this stuff. Because I know that you can do it. You can stay positive no matter
what. Remember to connect with that mini book that I told you about. It's in the
description down below. It's called Portable Positivity. And I'll give you a
free digital copy, just go connect through that link.