Liz: The Glass Half Empty Syndrome

The other day I knew I would be spending alot of time in the car.  I thought it would be the perfect time to practice not only the impeccable spoken word but the impeccable thought.  Often in the day to day I have noticed the white lies, the pessimism or the small cruelties slipping out of my mouth before I can stop them.  I wanted to get to the root of those statements and see if I could head them off at the pass before thought turned to un-impeccable speech.

This exercise proved most illuminating.  I discovered that my mind turned to negative thoughts more easily than positive, on anything from what the woman at the gas pump was wearing "ooh, that hemline really does not make her legs look good" to the person who was driving slow in the fast line "Selfish IDIOT!" to the weather "why does it have to go from cold to hot in the space of a week in this godforsaken state!?"  Yes, these are the type of thoughts that were going through my mind.  Negative, pessimistic, mean.

What is truly remarkable about this is that I was not in a particularly bad mood, in fact on the surface of things I was feeling good about the day and the work I had to do.  I had enjoyed a good conversation with a friend and was looking forward to what was happening that evening.  So why all the negative Nellie going on in my head?  And could I turn it around and make it positive if I really thought about it?

As for "why?" I believe it has simply become a habit to think cynically, to tear down instead of build up.   I have noticed over the years that there are some friendships whose conversations are fueled by this type of negative discourse.  We all know these people--the friends with whom we feel we must use a biting wit, and with whom we are embarrassed to say something uplifting because we fear it will sound lame and naive.  While driving along I wondered:  am I becoming one of these people?

  So I decided that I would listen to my mind, and when a negative thought popped in I'd say, out loud, something positive to counteract it.  At first it really did feel dorky, saying things like, "oh that guy in the car up there must be in a big hurry.  But in the long run what he's doing doesn't affect me at all..."  But it did get easier as the drive went along, and by the time I was ready to pick the kids up from school, an activity I dread because you never know what mood they might be in, I was saying out loud, "the kids might be in a bad mood, but I don't have to be.  I feel glad to see them because they're mine no matter what mood they are in."

My daughter was indeed in her daily rotten mood, but since I chose not to go there with her and be angry with the world, she got over herself and we were laughing about something silly in about 5 minutes.

Since that day I've been trying to do more of this, and have noticed the ugly thoughts slowly but surely being replaced by beautiful ones, or at least neutral ones.  And speaking these thoughts out loud really does have power that just thinking them does not.  God spoke the world into being, it only follows that we can speak our own mood into being, and perhaps change the course of our future one dorky happy thought at a time.