I learned something in a professional development class today that really has me thinking. The understanding share was that negative thoughts are self-sustaing, while positive thoughts require intentional direction. In other words, when the mind has a negative thought, that negative state has the potential to continue, grow, and spread to other thoughts. Positive thoughts, however, are born out of intentionally optomistic metacognition. The thinker actually has to decide "I'm going to look at this from a perspective of possibility".
The upside here is that the positive emotional state having to do with those thoughts, neurologically speaking, exists for five to seven days after that positive thought was generated. While negativity regenerates independently, positivity has longevity. While it might plum the depths of our thinking without a splash, it can stay there for a relatively long duration. Maybe it's more permanent. Positive attitude is then, perhaps, a habit of mind. It's an important, powerful, and good habit of mind.
So, what are the possibilities? This question asks the thinker to look for options. It opens the mind, and presupposes possibilities, or solutions, exist. This will be my strategy in the coming days, to examine any potentially difficult situation from the perspective of possibilities. This passes my personal litmus test for dediding whether or not something is a good idea, because it focusses on choice. Whenever choice is involved, the situation feels healthy and safe. Looking for possibilities feels healthy and safe to me. And the good news is, the positive effects should last over a week!
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