Accentuate the Positive!

Think positive! Stay in the vortex! Every day is a beautiful day! And so on. We are bombarded with messages and movements encouraging us to "get in the groove","have an attitude of gratitude", and I am sure you can come up with many others. I have now seen about four decades' worth of this advice in one format or another, popularized by a new round of leaders every decade. It's the same message over and over, like the universe keeps beating us over the head about it and we still are not getting it.

I like this "think positive" approach to life as long as it allows room for all emotions and thoughts and provides a way to deal with the entirety of life. I had not really thought about the physical implications of thinking positive; I just knew that I thought it was a good way to live, and lord knows it has gotten me through some tough times.

Until a couple of weeks ago. When I was running, my mind wandering hither and yon. I was going along, letting thoughts run through my head. A of a sudden I lost my energetic edge, enough that I stopped to walk. Then I was curious--why did I stop? What made my energy suddenly take a nosedive?

My thoughts! Could it really be? Do your thoughts really have that much of an effect on your energy? That fast? I ran along some more, changing thoughts, feeling my body speed up and slow down accordingly. Amazing! The scientist in me wanted to keep doing this all day and run me ragged, but I overcame its enthusiasm and got back to completing the task at hand. I tried it again the next day. Same effect. It was instantaneous, depending on my thoughts.

It occurred to me that I go through my days not paying a lot of attention to how my thoughts make my body feel, knowing there are times when I have no energy, but not really examining why.

I am working on checking in with my body periodically throughout the day now, especially when I feel low on energy. I am wondering if I can spend 10 minutes in the afternoon doing a sort of meditative pep talk instead of coffee. I will keep you posted.