Trying to Think Positive? Consider This...

My coaching clients often tell me they know they should be thinking positive about having gastroparesis, but they just can't seem to get there. That's not a surprise to me!

In this video, I'm sharing why I no longer encourage "positive thinking" and what I've found to be *much more* helpful when it comes to truly living WELL with gastroparesis.

Do you think that you should be thinking more positively? Do you find yourself saying, "I know I shouldn't think this way?" If so, this discussion is for you and I think you might be surprised by what I have to say.

First of all, when we talk about trying to think more positively, it assumes that we can control our thinking. That somehow, we are in charge of the thoughts that come into our head. And I don't know if that's true. Just as a really simple example, have you ever had an odd thought pop into your head and you wonder, "where did that come from?! I don't think that!" I certainly have.

What's more, the people who study thoughts and thinking tell us that we're only aware of a small minority of the thoughts that we have every day. Something like 5 percent! So if it were possible to somehow control which thoughts come into your head, I don't really know how you do that when you're not even aware of 95% of them.

The idea of "positive thinking" and "negative thinking" in the first place is kind of interesting. A thought is just a thought. We label them as "positive" or "negative," "good" or "bad," but a thought that comes into our head is just a thought that comes into our head.

We can do all kinds of things with those thoughts, of course. We can get really invested in them. We can pay a lot of attention to them. We can take them very, very seriously. We can act on them. We can engage in habits or behaviors to try to get rid of them.

Or, we can not do any of those things. We might instead ignore them or let them just come and go. Or not even notice them at all, which is true for the majority of our thoughts.

But I think where so many of us get stuck, where I got stuck for a really long time, is thinking that the content of the thinking is the important part. I used to think that if I could just change the content of thinking that, I would be all set. If I could think more positively, I'd have more peace around gastroparesis and everything else in my life that felt hard.

First, as I said, I don't really know how to do that. But more importantly, there's a far simpler way to find a lot more freedom and ease around all of this. Rather than trying to manipulate the content of the thinking that shows up in our head... we can simply get a better understanding of thinking itself. Not positive thinking or negative thinking. Just thinking. Once we understand what thinking is and how it works, the content automatically becomes much less important.

One of my favorite analogies to use when it comes to thinking is a snow globe. When you shake up a snow globe and the "snow" and glitter is obscuring the picture, how do you get it to settle? You leave it alone, right? If you keep picking it up and shaking it around, it's never going to settle.

Our thinking is like that. If we keep getting in there and digging around and trying to change the content and make it more positive and get rid of certain thoughts and argue with others... it's as if we keep shaking up the snow globe in our mind. But just like the "snow," our thoughts will settle all on their own if we just leave them alone. That's the design.

Another analogy we can use to better understand the nature of thought is weather. If we think of the blue sky as our natural well-being, the peace we feel when we're at ease, then our thoughts are like the day-to-day weather. Sometimes it's cloudy. Sometimes it's raining. Sometimes it's thunder storming. Sometimes there's a hurricane. But we never doubt that there is a still a blue sky underneath.

When the weather passes, the blue sky is still there... just like your natural state of peace under all of that thinking. Weather doesn't last forever; the skies always clear. That's exactly the way it goes with our moods, our feelings, and our thoughts. And just like the weather can't damage the sky, our thoughts can't damage our natural well-being underneath.

I think looking in that direction makes it easier to see through that idea that we have to manipulate the kinds of thoughts that show up in our heads. Rather than analyzing what we're thinking, we can look toward the fact that we are thinking. Period. The content doesn't really matter.

For example, if you're feeling that sense of overwhelm, anxiety, or desperation that is common to so many of us who have been diagnosed with gastroparesis, that uncomfortable feeling is showing you that you are thinking. Period.

That feeling means your snow globe is all shook up. But you don't have to get in there and analyze every little snowflake and judge whether it's positive or negative, true or untrue. Instead, you just set that snow globe down and let it all settle. When it does, you'll feel better. Every time!

I also think that this idea that we should all be thinking positively, can sometimes make us feel even worse. In a situation where we already have a lot of swirling thoughts and we're trying really hard to think different thoughts... we're just shaking up that snow globe. And it points us away from our true nature, that well-being underneath, and the fact that we don't need to do anything to feel better. We can simply let the weather pass rather than trying to control exactly what kind of weather shows up. (Forgive the mixed metaphors!)

Another aspect to this discussion that I think is particularly unhelpful is the idea that if you have an on-going physical illness like gastroparesis and you are not getting well or healing, it's due to the content of your thinking. That if only you could think "better" thoughts, you wouldn't be ill.

While there is most certainly a mind-body connection, certainly in digestive conditions like gastroparesis where our state of mind brings about changes in the state of our gut, this adds another completely unnecessary layer of thinking. Now you're worried about your worries, stressing about being stressed, etc. You're (innocently, of course) constantly stirring up your thoughts in an effort to change them.

Instead, the more I look toward how thinking works, the more I'm able to just let all kinds of thoughts come and go. Worried ones, stressed ones, scared ones, angry ones. They're just temporary weather. And overall, I find myself in that blue sky state much more frequently and I find that the "weather" passes more quickly. Which is all we really want.

Because it's not that the human body was never meant to feel stressed, or angry, or worried. That's all a natural part of being human! The problem, if we're going to call it a problem, is that we get ourselves really wrapped up in those feelings and the thoughts that precipitate them. We analyze them and dissect them and try not to have them or do things to get rid of them. And then we end up staying in those states much longer as a result.

This is what I talk about with my clients in pretty much all of our sessions at this point. We look toward what thinking is, what it's made of, what it means, and the fact that it's not personal or even important. The less seriously we take it, the less oppressive it becomes.

And above all, we talk about how it's all OK. When clients say to me, "I know I shouldn't be thinking this," well, I disagree. You're thinking whatever you're thinking. Whatever shows up in your head in a moment. I'm not sure you have much of a say in what that is.

But when we understand the nature of a thought, we react to it differently. When we react differently, our experience is different. And then our physicality is different, and at some point, we end up in a place with a lot more ease and freedom than one where we're trying to control every thought that pops into our head.

I hope this was helpful. If it was, please share it with somebody else who might find it helpful.