May 28

May 28 The power of positive looking

Looking for the positive is a great way of bringing joy. And making you look a bit deranged

You know that brilliant anthem to positivity and the absurdity of existence - Always Look On The Bright Side of Life (you can remind yourself of the wonderfully witty, more than slightly bonkers lyrics here)? Well, I think composer Edic Idle, was on to more than just one hilariously memorable message in his Life of Brian song.

Positive thinking and the power it has to affect your outlook and overall wellbeing, is a well-trodden psychological path. But let me invite you to join me (and Mr Idle) on a bit of a detour down a less visited side turning. The one sign-posted ‘positive looking’

The power of positive looking

Because I think being actively on the look out for the good stuff - whether that’s actual, tangible stuff, or the more intangible, emotional moments, has just as much potential to influence your attitude in a positive way.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean.

My first example

A few years ago, I was going through a really rough time personally. An awful lot seemed to be, well no, it actually was, going not very well at all. I’ve always been a pretty upbeat, glass-half-full sort of person, but it was getting harder and harder to view the contents of the glass in my normal bouyant way.

I can’t remember what gave me the idea, but I decided to write a daily blog. Completely privately. For no-one’s eyes but mine.

I vowed that each day I would enter in it one thing that had made me smile or laugh. Anything, no matter how small or momentary, that had cheered me up. Something I’d seen or heard as I went about my day. Something I’d seen or read on-line. Anything at all.

How would it work?

When I started, I wasn’t sure a) whether I’d actually manage to find an entry for every day, b) whether I’d keep it up, or c) whether it would be helpful. Or whether I’d just find it an irritating or burdensome extra thing to try and squeeze into my already challenging, full-on days.

Well whaddyouknow? Not only did I continue as I started, with an entry every day - for nearly a year in the end. But I also found, to my surprise, that the simple imperative of being aware of finding something cheering, being on the lookout for it, made me realise that no day, no matter how bad things were, was ever entirely awful. That there was a chink of light, however small and fleeting, even in the darkest time.

There was more too

What’s more, accumulating those cheering flashes of light, which included everything from encountering an oopmah band playing under a railway arch on my walk from my office to the station, to a pant-wettingly funny video of someone falling into a fountain in a shopping mall because they were so engrossed in their phone ( I remember those two especially all these years later), created an invaluable record of the uplifting joys that had presented themselves to me just when I’d needed them most.

My second example

My other example is something much more recent, and what prompted me to write this.

One of my mental-health life saviours during this time of lockdown have been the walks that I’ve been able to do in the woods not far from my house.

The area is a glorious feast of nature and beauty. A place of birdsong and greenery, trees, plants, streams and quiet contemplation. The journey to get to them…..is not. In order to reach the restorative woods, most of the roads I have to walk along look like this.

Not exactly the prettiest of places, right?

I think we can all agree there doesn’t appear to be much beauty to be seen in that most urban of environments.

Or is there?

Setting out for my woodland haven a couple of weeks ago, my eye was caught by the glorious flowers of a beautiful clematis, furled around the netting edging the neglected driveway of an empty house. I was captivated by their fabulously showy explosion of petals, which were in such stark contrast to their concrete, weed-strewn surroundings.

Might there, I wondered, be more beauty - and joy - to be discovered along those grey, urban streets than I had noticed as I walked with my mind and attention purely on the woods in the distance?

What do you think?

It turned out there was beauty to be found all over the place

It honestly wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that tuning my sights and attention to looking out for, and at, the little pockets of prettiness that have turned out to be far more numerous than I had realised, has transformed my journey to the woods from something to be plodded through, to something I look forward to almost as much (let’s not get too carried away here) as the destination it leads to.

Here’s the thing

My clumsily made point here, is that positivity can be found in all manner of places if you look for it.

And with that simple act of looking, you are encouraging your powerful brain to take a more positive, hopeful, happier view of the world. Which in turn helps you to feel better and more positive, even for the briefest of moments (but hopefully for longer than that). And that is something we can all do with as much as possible, especially now.

What have you seen that has made you feel uplifted and positive?