Having a Positive Mental Attitude

Long for a positive mental attitude? It can be hard work. When you have a lot on your mind, a lot to do and life is feeling tough, you can feel as if the whole world is against you. You might feel that all you are trying to do is survive the hours/weeks/days.

It’s easy for everyone to tell you to ‘cheer up’ or that ‘it will be ok’.  Not so easy to believe it.  

Milla has faith in positive affirmations.  Defined as ‘positive statements that can help you to stop negative thoughts’, these are the things that you tell yourself that might well help you to tackle the difficult things that you have to face, whatever they are.

There is some science that backs up the use of positive affirmations.  Telling yourself that good things can happen and giving yourself some encouragement, can open the neural pathways of your brain. This makes you happier and more positive.  The more that you repeat these, the more your brain will learn to be more positive. It becomes slower to fear those things that come to test us.  

Even if you doubt that this can possibly true, why not try it?  It is just as easy to think a positive thought as a negative one.  Next time you find the voice in your head saying, ‘I can’t do this’, change it.  Here are a few positive statements to get you started.  

I am safe and I am in a safe place.

This is one of Em’s personal favourites.  It is useful to remember that if you are feeling threatened (maybe at work or when finding yourself in a situation that might become confrontational) that you are not about to be eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger.

I can do it – there is always a way!

This is Milla’s own creation!  There is a time in everyone’s life (well mostly everyone) when they tell themselves they can’t do something. This is either because they don’t know how or they find themselves dealing with something that they see no solution to.  By changing this to ‘I can do it – there is always a way’, you are confirming to your brain that whilst you can’t do something now, you will look for the answer.  

I’m grateful for the things I have.

When you are low, struggling, worried and anxious, it is easy to forget the good things that you do have in life.  That can be as simple as your family, your friends, a good book to read, a fiver in your wallet to get you a coffee.  Focus on what you have got, not what you don’t have – yet!

I’m doing a good job.

Work can be overwhelming.  Everyone wants you to do something and everything is urgent.  The focus is always on what you have still got to do.  But what about the things you have done?  Ok, so you have a lot to get through. However, it is really important to remember what you have achieved – and shout about that to yourself!

I’m going to solve this one bit at a time.

Problems that are big and insurmountable can feel impossible to deal with.  The challenge can feel way too much.  Instead, look at how you can break it down, so you can resolve it bit by bit.  Telling yourself that you are going to deal with what’s bothering you in smaller pieces can help to stop the anxiety that you have and make you feel more in control.

You don’t have to follow these; they are just ideas.  Do some research to find more or make up your own.  The important thing is to make them believable, realistic and most importantly to practise them.

Questions that never have an answer

Sunday mornings can be complicated in our house.  Whether I get a lie in depends upon the kid’s schedule.  More often than not, you will find me running about, frazzled and confused again, taking my son off to his rugby match, freezing on the side of the pitch or going to pick up my daughter from her sleep-over.  Sometimes though, I do get a bit of peace.  On those days, I listen to the radio, sing along very badly to it and potter around.  I rather like those days.  I still have jobs to do but I can do them a little more slowly and with a little more thought.

One Sunday, as I prepped the dinner (a joy given that normally it is a race to see what I can get defrosted and throw together), over the radio came the comment ‘…and this week, some questions that never have an answer.’  It got the rusty cogs of my addled and sleep deprived parts of my brain turning.  

The example questions that were put were ‘Why can you never find the TV remote?’, followed by ‘Why does the top of the ketchup bottle always get bunged up’.  I laughed, realising that they are very pertinent.  Our TV remote regularly disappears, even when I am the only person who has been using it.  There can be days (not often) when I have been the only person in the house and still the TV remote will turn up in the most bewildering of places.  As for the ketchup bottle, I regard it as a miracle if it is still functioning after three uses.

A few more simple questions that I would love someone to provide me with answers to are:

• Why does no one ever tell me when they have used the last teabag?
• Why when you are late does every traffic light you come to go red?
• Why is it always my clothes that end up at the bottom of the washing basket and never get washed?

And finally:

Why do I do the same things over and over again and desperately hope for a different outcome?  Even though it never does.  And I know that it won’t.

Then there are the bigger questions in life; the complicated, philosophical questions that if you think about too hard just end up giving you a headache:

• Why are we here?
• What were we born to do?
• Why do we die?
• Does grass feel pain if you step on it? (I got that one after searching Google.  I know that I will now wonder how the grass is feeling every time I wander across the lawn).

Recently, we tried to do the perfect parent thing by giving the kids an inexpensive experience.  This was to show them that doing enjoyable stuff should not cost an outrageous amount of money and can be fun.  We took the kids out to a forest for a walk.  We thought it would be good to amble along, pointing out the trees and the birds, whilst feeling the peace and the harmony of living things being as one together.  I wanted to be mindful and feel that I was in the moment.  I didn’t want to be reminded of the things that I had left at home, the emails to return, the problems to solve and the work to be done.  

Whilst there, I asked my daughter to consider what I think is one of the greatest philosophical questions – if a tree falls in a forest but there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?  I’ve often considered this one.  I don’t know the answer.  Is sound only sound because you can hear it?  Will the tree only be real because you can see it?  Is there a difference between the way that something looks and how it appears?  If you are not there, does the forest really exist at all?  

As my daughter and I walked along, I pondered all of this again with her and asked her for her opinion.  I thought that maybe she would have some insight that I was missing.  I hoped to hear the genius answer that only the young can provide.  Being 12, she rolled her eyes at me and told me that she hadn’t really heard any of what I had said.  Frankly, she was more concerned that she couldn’t get a phone signal.  

My son (14) grumpily informed me that he really didn’t know.  He couldn’t see the point of the question either.  Instead, he asked me what we were going to have for lunch and when were we leaving to get it.  Feeling completely defeated, tired from trying to stop the bickering between the kids and starting to be rather hungry ourselves, we gave in and headed off for a quarter-pounder and fries.

I recently got asked the ‘why’ question by a friend.  It was in the context of ‘why are you doing this?’  Truthfully, I don’t know.  I feel as if I have been asking why for at least half of my life.  I can’t answer it this time and I’m not sure that I ever could or if I ever will.  Then again though, maybe I shouldn’t concentrate too hard on the why and just do the things that I want to do.  I feel as if the ‘why’ is getting in my way and holding me back.  It’s as if trying to work out the why is putting an obstacle in my way and preventing me from doing.  Why do I need to work out why?  Would it make a difference if I did?  Sometimes this sort of interrogation of my own thoughts is just tiring.

I still want to know what the answer is to the question about the tree.  I suspect though I never will as there are so many responses.  Perhaps that is the thing about questions.  It isn’t that they don’t have any answers; it’s that they have too many of them.

Read our Summer Blogs here

Spring is Nature’s way of saying “Let’s Party!!!”

I am not a winter person.  My struggles with this begin every year, from the end of November to around the beginning of March.  First there is the dark.  I’m not a fan of the dark.  November brings the dark.  It is dark in the morning when you get up and it is dark in the evening when you get home.  Even during what is supposed to be daylight, it’s dark.

Then there is the cold.  I don’t cope well with the cold.  If I’m truthful, I’m horrible when I’m cold.  This year it has been even worse, what with the cost of fuel and energy becoming ridiculous.  I’ve been huddled in a blanket for months, whilst the heating has had to be endlessly rationed.  Whilst we have been turning down the thermostat, we have also been re-discovering the joys of hot water bottles and fluffy socks.  I’ve been permanently wrapped up in a shawl.  Yes, a shawl.  I’ve resembled something out of a Charlotte Bronte novel.

And of course, there is the weather.  Cold, wet and dark.  Or icy.  With snow.  Or worse gales.  We’ve spent a lot of time in recent years holding our fence up.  On occasion, it’s all weather conditions at once and then some clever person at the Met Office goes and gives it a name.  Last year we had Storm Eunice which brought with it wind speeds of up to 122 mph.  I feel for every single Eunice out there, who must have felt complete outrage at the idea that they were akin to a travelling storm.

I find the lack of sun and the lack of warmth arduous.  It feels never ending.  The days are long and the nights are even longer.

I’m sure that there are some great things about the winter (I do promise that in the future I will research this and, for the purposes of balance, publish every wonderful thing about winter) but I find it difficult to find them.  Obviously, there is Christmas.  I do love the sparkly lights.  However, the best day of winter is still 21^st December, when we have the shortest day and I know the nights are starting to draw out once again.

Spring slowly starts to come with the Snowdrops beginning to show.  Then the Crocus begin to arrive.  Bright spots of colour on what are endlessly dreary, cold, grey days.  Sometimes there is even a glimpse of the sun.  With the arrival of March, I always breathe a sigh of relief as I know the end is in sight.

To celebrate the arrival of Spring, I thought it would be good to write about the five best things that this season brings with it – and here they are:

1. Daylight

Suddenly, we have more hours in our day!  Now I do know that we don’t; it’s twenty-four and that is the limit, Spring or Winter.  It feels as if we do though because suddenly the light comes back.  It is no longer dark in the morning when you trudge out of the house and no longer dark when you trudge back in.  You can spend more time outside and a lot more time indoors without the electricity bill costing you a fortune because you can see without turning on the lights.

2. More Sunshine = warmth and Vitamin D

It is a fact that more sunshine or at least more natural light is good for you.  Plus, you get a boost of Vitamin D that makes you feel better.  It helps your bones, your muscles, makes you feel less fatigued, improves your immune system.  The sunshine (though be careful and don’t get burnt) makes your body produce it.  Even without it, I find that having that little bit of sun and warmth just makes me want to smile and makes even the most miserable of jobs to be done that little bit easier.

3. Trees and Flowers

Show me trees that are coming back into leaf and Snowdrops arriving and I am very easily pleased.  Spring brings new growth and new life and it is great to see after months of grey days and shrubs and grass that looks half dead.  You begin to feel that maybe there are new possibilities out there and that it is a new time to start again.

4. Time to go out

I barely go out in the winter.  If I do, I am wrapped up in about ten layers.  Needing somewhere to put your coat (and your hat, scarf, gloves, your three jumpers and your two pairs of socks) becomes something of a chore when you just want to nip out to a restaurant or the cinema.  This year of course I have also become far too attached to my shawl to go anywhere.  With more daylight, more warmth and weather that doesn’t threaten to freeze you or blow you away, going out to do things becomes more tempting.

5. Food

Now I realise that we are not in a great place in terms of food prices and the importation of food into the UK now.  I can also say that, no matter what government ministers say about the situation, I shall not be subbing any of my veg for a turnip or two.  Please do not call me out for being nasty to turnips. I have nothing against them, they just aren’t for me.  

Traditionally, Spring is a time when what we have available to us to eat should improve and we can either buy more fresh food (fingers crossed) or learn about the joys of growing your own.  Getting into the garden (or planting up your window box) is truly joyful thing that you can do.  I still find it fascinating to watch little seeds grow into amazing plants.  I find them even more amazing if they can produce something for us to eat and reduce our shopping bills.

So there you go.  I am sure that there are many more reasons to love the Spring but those are my best ones.  Of course, the real reason to love the Spring is because it gives you the knowledge that the Summer isn’t far behind it.

Want to listen to our podcast? Find our Spring Season here