If you have a battery connected the wrong way, things may work, but not well, and only for a
short time. For optimum results, your positive and negative have to be in the
right places. If you haven't read my post, Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk (http://ow.ly/90OcH), it's a good place
to start. Go ahead. I'll just refill my cuppa while you're there.
Things go wrong. Bad things happen. Negativity exists and
you're certainly allowed to feel bad, sad, angry, frustrated, hurt, guilty,
distrustful, or whatever, as long as your negative response is in context. AKA,
don't over-dramatize. Acknowledging your (appropriate) negative feelings is
healthy.
In other words, it's the nature of milk to spill. And it's
perfectly okay to not like it. It's reasonable to prepare for the potential of
spillage and not tap dance while carrying a full glass. You're on the diva side
when - wonder of wonders - the milk actually spills and you let it ruin your
day.
But wait, there's more:
As it turns out, negativity is a more intense experience.
It's about twice as strong as positivity. If you have positivity in a 2:1
ratio, you're living with mediocrity and a LOT of dissatisfaction. There's as much positive as negative in your world. That's an
average person.
We need positivity in a 3:1 ration to really thrive and
succeed and feel good about anything.* That makes sense; at 3:1, positive finally
outweighs negative.
How do we get there? One very concrete way is to
intentionally track the 3:1. Acknowledge the positives and negatives, even if
some days it seems like you have to get creative and spin an event. You know
how we say that if you look for something bad, you'll find it? The reverse is
also true.
Practicing looking for and acknowledging good stuff is good
for you. First, it reduces your negativity bias. That makes the negatives in
your life weaker, which means you can get by with the occasional 2:1 day and
still be happy. Second, it increases your awareness of a wider range of
thoughts and actions. You aren't jumping to conclusions and automatically seeing (and judging) things as
good or bad, so you have more choices about what you think or how you
feel.
(And just as a
sidenote, jumping to conclusions isn't a great thing. It's handy, sometimes, to
be able to make quick judgments - like in heavy traffic, for example. But in
human interaction, it's not so useful. Leaping ahead without all the facts
prevents you from paying attention so others feel unheard. It forces you to
make assumptions ... and we all know what happens when you assume. And, in the
human context, it's kind of an addicting behavior, which means you're
increasingly likely to be wrong.)
Keep a journal or a tally sheet if it makes you happy. Or
just take a half-second to allow yourself to think "yes, that was a good
thing," when a positive happens. At the same time, work on reframing
neutral events:
"Oh
no! There's milk all over the counter, what a mess, what a waste! I'm such a
clutz, no one will ever want me and I'm going to die, sad and alone. And
milk-less!"
becomes
"Well,
milk spills," (event neutralized)
"but I've got a towel right here," (acknowledging positive aspect) "so it's no big deal."
And you can go on with your life, without making the jump to connect your love life, your eventual
demise, or your grocery list. Because that's just weird.
This is NOT to say that things won't go wrong, or that you
can never allow yourself to feel bad. It's only a recommendation to keep things
in perspective, lest you lose it.
* Frederickson, B.L. (2009). Positivity. New York , NY
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