Half A Glass

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” — Helen Keller

Being positive isn't easy, but as the quote says, being negative won't do much for you. When I was younger, I was quite the optimist, even a bit pollyanna-ish, but sad and bad things happened, my life became much more difficult than I could easily manage, my positivity turned over into negativity, and all I saw were spilled glasses of milk everywhere I looked.

So I tried to at least be practical. Engineer-like practical: there is half a glass of liquid. Or my favorite: that glass is twice as big as it needs to be. But the pessimism remained.

Let's face it: life has kicked me in the face a lot. I don't need to re-enumerate how right now, but my childhood optimism could not stand up to it, and pulling optimism out of the Abyss takes time and concerted effort, as well as energy that I am generally in short supply of. (Yes, I ended the sentence with a preposition. Does that bother you? Did you understand the sentence? If you understood, then the sentence is linguistically just fine and report me to the grammar police if you don't like the way I structured it.)

My friend Julie has made it her job to work on my negativity, to banish it and to train me to be more positive. I appreciate her efforts more than I have articulated to her. (Thanks, Julie!) I am a tough case, I know, and sometimes I actively resist being positive. Why? Lots of reasons, I figure. The Devil you know. Resistance to change. And the one where, every time I started feeling positive and good and upbeat, it seemed some severe catastrophe occurred. Someone I loved died (and I have three very concrete examples of just that scenario). Something I wanted — love, a job, a stable life — fell completely apart. Wants and needs were denied. (Julie will disagree with me on the 'need' part here, but that varies according to belief systems.)

Whatever has occurred in my past, I want to let go of it. I want to learn to be more positive and less negative.  (Do I sound a bit too much like Wednesday in Addam's Family Values after she spent time in the Happy Shack? Don't worry about the oddly strained smile on my face, really! And no, I don't want to be perky.) I want to be realistic and give the good in life at least half a chance to show itself.

There are things I want to do in my life and I need hope and a belief that things will go they way I want, or at least in a good direction, if I want to accomplish them. 

So I'm working on my thinking. I've ordered the SOS Help For Emotions book, which I and Karen the Wonder Therapist will work our way through. Maybe you'll actually see me writing entirely positive posts on this blog on an almost daily basis. We'll see. After all, I can't just say "yes, of course!" when I don't have any evidence of it. Not yet. Sometimes, faith has to be learned. 

Now I have to go fill my glass, because pessimists and optimists can agree when a glass is entirely empty. 

Changing my mind

Warning: This is an exceptionally long post, even tho' I cut and cut and cut. Sorry. You can skip this one if you like.

I've had many world views over my life, and many religious and philosophical beliefs.  When I was in elementary school, and my little brother was in kindergarten, we went to a Mormon afterschool program. it's like Sunday school, but during the week. I learned about God and baptism and heaven and hell. The whole God thing didn't make sense to me. I couldn't accept that He would discard people who hadn't ever heard some version of HIS message or that He would punish babies who hadn't been baptized. So at 11 or 12, sitting in the kitchen with my mom and my little brother, I announced I was an agnostic. 

You would think I'd announced I was an axe murderer and could I start with my little brother. Mom told me if I ever said that again, she'd tell my father. I wondered inside if she thought he'd beat me into believing in God. (For the record, my father spanked us very seldom.)

I had the fairly typical "jesus freak" stage at 15-16. I went to church with my best friend and her family. I went to Youth Group. i went to Bible studies. I wanted more than anything to fit in, and those groups claimed to love everyone. My parents weren't any more thrilled by my evangelistic Christianity than with my agnosticism. Once away from that environment, my belief faded and was entirely gone by the time I entered college.

Positive thinking --- what do I want?

The owner of a blog today gave us a topic to discuss and apply to our own lives.

"Think positively – and by positively, I mean simply “I want this,” instead of “I don’t want this,” – about one specific thing you want for one week. Then, next week, we’ll check in, and see what kind of progress has been made.?

I considered this and realized I was up against two of my issues: being positive, and asking for what I want.

When it comes to being positive, I've come to a place where what I think and say tends to be a negative: I don't want to run out of money, I don't want to be unemployed, I don't want to be depressed. It's like saying "don't forget your keys:" your mind skips the "don't" and hears "forget your keys." Kids do the same thing, so it's recommended that you start statements to them in the positive: "remember your coat."

As for asking for what I want, I run into a couple of difficulties. First, if I ask for something big, like enough money that I don't have to work if I don't want to (such as by winning the lottery), I then tell myself that many other people need it as badly as or worse than I do, so what makes me so special, what makes me think I deserve that? The other main issue is thinking maybe the Universe doesn't want me to have what I want. I am a non-diest and I don't believe in a pre-planned life or destiny/fate.  Yet, I am having problems because I think the Universe is playing against me, which then makes me feel that it is hopeless even to try, to want, to wish — impossible to win.

I've spent the day not being able to state my want for the week. Plus, there are SO many things I want; however, most of them require me to do something, and I will cover under a different experiment.

Here is one want that has to come from outside of me. I want to be offered work within the next week, where I can work at least part-time from home often, and that pays me my preferred rate.

I've written this and sent it out to the quantum particles of the universe. I'll come back in a week and let you know how it goes.

Faith?

I'm not very good at faith. I have a scientific mind. However, I used to be a "true believer" type: faeries, Santa, good government, UFOs, true love, and unicorns. These two aspects do create a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Life has rather kicked the faith right out of me. When I encounter others who believe in things, whether it's a deity or true love, part of me is sure that person is deluded. The other part of me is envious. I guess that makes me Fox Mulder: I want to believe. Blind faith, however, has never suited me.

Given that information, you may be surprised to hear that I think I am feeling better. I have very limited, subjective evidence, and many adjectives: kind of, maybe, a little bit, perhaps. But I felt good after therapy the other day; I felt like myself. Actually, it was a little weird. I walked like I used to walk, long swinging steps, head held high. I felt light. There was something different physically. (It didn't last long, but that's a different story.)

Add to that anecdotal evidence is that fact that I seem to be less depressed. I think I've gotten off the couch more today. When off the couch, I made movements that one might interpret as dancing. Just a little. Maybe. Kind of.

It's possible that I'm turning the corner, with my new therapy and my higher dosages of medication. But I have no actual proof, yet. Maybe if I believe, perhaps, I'll get better because I believe.

That would be really great because then I could stop taking the medications, right?