Jules Explained Here : The Power of Positive Thinking

I am grateful for my cats!

Ok, my goal for this blog is to tell funny and maybe touching anecdotes. Today, I already need a break to share something that's been on my mind a lot this week.

A friend of mine started a 30 Day Gratitude Challenge on a closed Facebook group last week. She asked us each to post daily something we are grateful for. Have you ever tried this? I highly recommend it! Reading everyone else's posts makes you think of even more things in your life to be thankful for. So, today's post is about all I've learned about the power of being grateful, assuming the best in life, and thinking positively.

"Everything will be okay in the end. If everything is not ok, then it is not the end." I don't know the source of this quote, but I've been using it for the last year. I've found it very helpful when dealing with a difficult situation or person. :)

So, my friends know this about me, I was a teen mom, a single mom. My daughter was born 10 days after I graduated high school. If you have never known a teen mom, it is very difficult for everyone involved. It affects the teen mom's birth family, the teen dad's birth family, and the baby. So I was a teen mom.  We lived with my family for the first two years. It was tough on everyone.  When my daughter was 28 months old we got a subsidized apartment. Then things became financially tough. I was working part time, going to college part time and parenting part time (or so I felt). Because of a lot of factors, I had a lot of negative thinking going on. If something good happened to us, such as getting a random child support check, I became very scared that something bad was going to happen any moment to cancel out the wonderful thing that had happened. This continued for years.
When my daughter was 7 and I had graduated from college, we followed my parents to Ohio, again living with them until I could find a teaching job. It was tough on everyone, again.

Thank goodness we found Kleinman during this time. Dr. Kleinman, that is. By this time I had started teaching at a parochial school. (Yes, they knew I was a former teen mom when they hired me for your legal buffs or conservatives.) Dr. Kleinman is a psychiatrist.  I found him by calling the health insurance company and asking for a referral. God was looking out for me that day! What a gift! He met with my daughter, and he met with me. One of the first lessons he taught me is that we create what we think. Because I had spent years, 8 years at this point, dwelling on the negative and worrying about the negative coming to get me, that's what I was creating in my life. Wow. I did this to myself? Wow.

So, I began stopping myself from doing that. A random worrisome thought would come in, and I would let it pass and argue against it. "No, that won't happen, everything will be just fine. Don't worry." And sure enough, it was fine. Within a year of finding Kleinman, we were in our own apartment. Within another 2 years, I had bought us a condo. Things continued to improve. Thank you, Dr. Kleinman!

Years passed, and I moved to the public schools where I taught a cute little second grade girl who has the same first name as my niece. I had no idea that years later I would become friends with her mom.   She has become one of my very closest friends, SBBFF for short, and one of my positive thinking mentors. What SBBFF taught me is how to look at the positive side of things.  When I got rear ended on my way to yoga class, she was grateful I didn't get hurt. When I got divorced, she went out with me to celebrate my freedom and gifted me with a journal so I had a place to deal with all the feelings. Because of SBBFF when something unpleasant happens, I complain - I am human afterall - and then I look for the positive to help me through. What will I learn from this? Why am I going through this? There is always a positive, no matter how tiny.

I've seen this with the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge. A woman I don't know is in the Facebook Group doing the challenge. She had a bad injury recently. At first she had a tough time being positive. She was in pain, her summer was horribly interupted, she was on pain medicine, unable to do things for herself, and feeling very down. Maybe even angry. Then a week into the challenge she was finding the positive. First she was grateful for neighbors bringing meals and today she posted, "Thankful my daughter continues to check up on me while on vacation. And grateful my PT continues to show improvement. Have a happy sunny day everyone!" Amazing what a different tone!

I've seen the same in my life. The more positive thinking I do. The more I practice this. No, it doesn't just come naturally to me. It might come naturally to some people, but not to me. The more I practice this, the easier it gets. The more positive thinking mentors I meet, the easier it gets. The more I practice, the better my life gets, and the more I grow.

I'm also one of those girls who reads self help books. Some that have really helped me with the power of positive thinking are:   I hope they help you.