Positive Vibes Only

Thanks to Social Media and our current love of unicorns and mermaids you are probably very familiar with motivational quotes and cliches. The likes of "Make your dreams come true" and "If you believe in yourself anything is possible" seem to be everywhere; on our news feeds, our walls, our coffee tables, even on our coffee mugs. And as sparkly and pretty as they are to look at, how often are we actually applying them?

How many times a day do we think positive thoughts? Or on the other hand, how many times a day do we think negative thoughts?

Think back to the start of today, how did you feel when you woke up? Were you refreshed and ready to start the day with a big smile on your face or did you snooze 10 times whilst lying their deciding whether or not you actually needed to get up and go to work?

Don't worry if your answer is the latter, we all do it. We sit in traffic on our way to work cursing the road-works or other drivers, we roll our eyes when the barista gets our medium, decaf, skinny latte wrong, we gossip about our boss with our colleagues, we stress about our deadlines, we get home and moan to our partners about the day we've had, we go to sleep dreading tomorrow then we wake up and do it all over again. Fun huh?

But what if we changed our perspective and our thought patterns? What if we took the time sat in traffic to listen to our favourite music or that audible we downloaded but haven't had the time to listen to yet? Or if we smiled and told the barista it wasn't a big deal, or empathised with our bosses because they are under even more pressure than we are? How would it feel to go about our day feeling like the sun was shining rather than gloomy black clouds hanging over us?

By changing the way we think about things and how we handle situations, we can literally change undesirable circumstances into positive experiences, or at the very least turn them into something that we can learn and move on from. There's absolutely no point in dwelling on negativity. We should either change it or if we can't change it, we must accept it and not let it ruin the rest of our day (or lives).

The law of attraction states that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts we can bring positive or negative experiences into our lives.

So if we think negatively we will attract negativity, if we think positively we will attract positivity. It's really that simple.

But does all this new age, spiritual, hippie stuff really work?

I can personally tell you that yes, it really does!

Before I learned about the law of attraction I didn't realise what a negative person I was; I went about my life moaning and whining and wallowing in self pity.

"Why do bad things always happen to me?"

"Why does nothing ever go right?"

"Why me?"

"Why now?" and so on.

Sound familiar?

What I didn't realise was that the more I thought this way, the more unfortunate events I attracted. It wasn't until I changed my thought patterns that I started experiencing crazy shifts in my life. And I don't just mean small things like getting the right coffee, I'm talking huge things like meeting the man of my dreams and getting the job I really wanted.

So how do you do it?

To start changing your thought patterns it's important that you recognise them first, think back to the day you've just had (you might want to grab a pen and paper for this part) make a list like the one below of everything "negative" that happened to you today. I've put an example to get you started.

Really imagine what could have happened if you had changed your thought pattern, if you hadn't let negative thoughts and feelings get in the way. Would you still be dwelling on it now or would you feel lighter and happier because it has been positively resolved? Maybe it was something that you didn't react to but it left you feeling annoyed, how could you have thought about it differently? What can you learn from it?

Be really honest with yourself, no one else will read this, but it will really help you identify when and how often those sneaky negative thoughts creep into our minds. Once you have a clearer view of your negative thought patterns it will be easier to change them into positive thought patterns.

Our brain forms neuronal connections based on what you do repeatedly in your life, both good and bad, therefore the more negatively you think the harder it can be to reprogram yourself to think positively, and unfortunately we tend to pick up on the negative side of things instead of the positive.

Can you remember a time when maybe a teacher or employer wrote a report about you and even though it was filled with lots of great things, you focused solely on the one little bad thing? Yep, there it is, that sneaky little negativity. It's not necessarily a bad thing, constructive criticism can make us focused and want to do better, but if that's the only thing we listen to then it will make us feel worthless and useless.

Fortunately for us though our brains are like plasticine and we can create new positive neuronal connections; the key is practise and perseverance.

Every time a negative thought creeps into your mind, become aware of it and turn it on it's head. Change it from negative to positive, smile to yourself, accept that life won't always go our way but that we can control how we feel and what actions we take. We won't feel 100% positive all day every day but the more we practise positivity the easier it will become.

Keep at it, it might not be easy and it might not be instant but it does work and it really can change your life.

Peace and love

XOXO