Positivity

Positivity
By Anthony Botrus, LMFT

What does it mean to be “positive?” We often think of the idea of being positive in terms of it’s antonym, “negative.” To be negative is to focus on the worst aspects of a particular person, situation, or even life itself. People often have a tendency to gravitate towards a negative bias, and that can cause problems. We can become undesirable to those around us and drain the energy out of a room by constantly pointing out the bad and neglecting to recognize the good. We can also create a detrimental pattern of negative thinking that obscures how we analyze the world around us and makes us less happy.

Since we often think of positivity as the opposite of negativity, we can rethink how we see and experience the world by getting into the habit of doing the exact opposite of the natural tendency of leaning toward a negativity bias. We can teach ourselves to correct the errors in our thinking by practicing pointing out the best, rather than the worst, of our situation.

This doesn’t mean we can ignore every bad experience and pretend that life is perfect—It definitely isn’t—however it does mean that we can start to be more realistic in our appraisals of the world around us and less likely to catastrophize or discount the things that we should be appreciating. After all, negative experiences are important. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to learn from them, grow and mature, or appreciate the good.


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