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Original poster

is it possible to change from being "glass half empty" to "glass half full" - if so HOW?

31 replies

jeangenie · 25/04/2007 08:47

Have recently come to the opinion that I am a ?glass half empty? kind of person. I?d like to try to change this, as much so that my kids don?t end up like this as for any other reason.Though I must admit I quite like the idea of having a more positive approach to life (believe it or not it can be a bit miserable being negative and grumpy the whole time), just no real clue how to manage it.
So, any failsafe tips or advice?
Any good books (can you learn this type of thing from a book?)?
Other routes to ?glass half full?-ness that are tried and tested?
Or is it an impossible task which I should forget all about immediately, peg as another no-hope notion of mine and get back to my cup of tea (which will surely have gone cold by now)?

OP posts:
Original poster
jeangenie · 25/04/2007 08:49

sorry about the ?s instead of quotes. Was trying to do this surreptitiously at work and so typed the message in word first and cut/pasted in. I'm guessing that's what happened anyway. That'll teach me...

OP posts:
Rosylily · 25/04/2007 08:53

Paul Mckenna?s ?How to change your life in 7 days?

emankcin · 25/04/2007 08:54

Guilt helps this process enormously. I think you should convert to Catholicism. This way no matter how rubbish life gets "there's always someone worse off than you" Therefore the guilt around self pity is huge becuase there are children in South America who couldn't sleep last night or any night for fear of being raped and sleep on the line in the middle of the road during the day becuase they believe it is safer.

See! the worlds atrocities are astounding. How lucky we are.

Pruni · 25/04/2007 08:59

Message withdrawn

Original poster
jeangenie · 25/04/2007 09:00

unfortunately I was brought up Catholic but have now "left the faith". I suppose I could consider rejoining just for a guilt top up. But thinking about it I already have quite a bit of residual low lying guilt about pretty much everything and that hasn't had a positive effect on me so far. I think about the people less well off (quite often actually, in between pitying myself and my lot of course) and just start to wallow in feelings of the pointlessness of it all...

Thanks for the Paul Mc Kenna tip but the thought of him makes me shudder, I suppose I may need to get over this if I really want to change things..

OP posts:
Original poster
jeangenie · 25/04/2007 09:02

tried hypnotheraphy before birth of first child and found it not very helpful. Relaxing, but not very helpful...

see, I do have it bad, knocking off your suggestions one by one as they come...

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fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:03

I think it starts with valuing yourself as a person - not with thinking how fantastic life ought to be because you're not starving and sleeping on the streets.

Try to see yourself as others see you - probably a great mum - already you've said that the reason you want to be more positive is to benefit your children. You have the great advantage that you have a ready-made fan club - your kids don't see your failings, they love you despite what you see as your faults.

Take it a step at a time - people think they should be 'happy'. What's happy? Surely only a mad person would be happy all the time? The trick is to be content with what you have, whilst always aspiring to a little more than you have. Very rich people are apparently usually less happy than the general population, because human beings are programmed to aspire to things, which you can't do if you've got it all already.

Maybe divide your life into several different 'cups'...

Appearance, relationships, children, work, money - anything you like. Then you can work at 'filling each cup' a little at a time. Most importantly, don't fret that they're never quite full - you need to be able to look forward to improving each aspect of your life.

Chandra · 25/04/2007 09:07

You can control your feelings by controlling your thoughts, you may not choose what to feel but you can actually take a conscious descision to devote less time thinking about the negative issues. Obviously, life long habits wont change in a few days, you may need to do little steps with this.

Neuro Linguistic Programming may help to speed up the process. I have never been able to finish a Paul Mckenna's book but I saw a therapist about a life long problem and it was gone within a week. So... something to consider.

Rosylily · 25/04/2007 09:13

Yeah you can choose to say/think the positive, at first it may take a while to think of a positive...it takes practise...I am doing this too by the way. And so far it is working a treat...I still moan but the I balance it with a good point.

SSShakeTheChi · 25/04/2007 09:14

I think you have to be careful who you spend a lot of time with too. One of the mums I always chat to after school is SO negative. I hadn't really picked up on it before but after getting back from holiday I noticed that whatever you say, she'll insist on seeing the negative in everything. Found it a bit much yesterday.

ipanemagirl · 25/04/2007 09:21

there's quite a lot on positive thinking on the internet although I'm not sure about the quality of much of it! I think positive thinking is a brilliant aspiration which I share and only patchily achieve.
And it's definitely true that some people have a negative effect on your state of mind - best to ration time spent with them.
I've spent a lot of my life shedding really negative relationships and I'm much happier for it!

Original poster
jeangenie · 25/04/2007 09:26

god, I am probably one of those moaners you are all desperate to avoid!

great suggestions so far though, thanks I will come back later and mull them all over in more detail. Maybe we can set up a positive thinking support group on here

fortyplus, yours in particular was a very thoughtful response, have you spent a lot of time thnking about this kind of thing or managed a similar mind-shift yourself? (Or are you just naturally "half full"?!)

OP posts:
SSShakeTheChi · 25/04/2007 09:27

well the funny thing about this particular woman is she is always saying that she's a positive person!

fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:30

Things definitely started looking up for me about 7 years ago when a group of girlfriends and I started going away for an occasional weekend together. You start to realise that you're not the only one to feel as you do - in my case lovely husband, 2 great kids, supportive mum & dad only a mile away, nice house, car, holidays etc... Surely I should've been on top of the world? But if you're not then you start to feel guilty and ungrateful...

...takes a while to break the cycle. I was always a positive person (if a bit unsettled) until I had children. Went from full time career woman to sahm with boys only 18 months apart and felt weak for not being able to cope easily.

I took it a step at a time and now I'm back to my old self - the weekends away were definitely the start of being able to relax and enjoy family life without fretting about being a perfect parent.

giddy1 · 25/04/2007 09:30

Message deleted

fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:33

jeangenie - cross posted... I definitely went through a phase of being 'Mrs Angry' - frustrated at just about everything. I didn't like myself at all. I used to rant at my small children, which upset them a good deal - ds1 in particular is quite a sensitive soul and very reactive to others' moods & feelings.

I felt that I was stuck in a rut that I couldn't get out of - and the frustration and guilt was compounded by the fact that I felt that my life should be great - I had everything that most people would aspire to.

fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:37

giddy1 - you are so right about self esteem. It's the same as trying to lose weight - when I was 'Mrs Angry@ I got fatter, because I didn't think I was anice person so I didn't deserve to look nice, either. I can look back now and think how silly the whole thing was - if only I'd started to realise that I'm an ok person then I would've given myself permission to start taking steps to be happier.

fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:38

lol at choking on spag bol

Soapbox · 25/04/2007 09:41

Even if you can't change your thoughts - you can change what you say to your children - and help them become more positive in their outlook thus breaking the chain.

A rough rule of thumb, I believe, is that we should aim to say 5 positive things to people to 1 negative thing (I can see no reason why this wouldn't work with children). I would be ASTONISHED if after a few months of consciously following this mantra, that your thoughts were not more positive too

RubberDuck · 25/04/2007 09:46

When I was going through a very negative phase in my life, I did something very similar to Soapbox. If I caught myself thinking something negative, I forced myself to try and list 10 positive things about the same situation (god, it was hard).

Another thing I would do is a little mantra for how I wanted the day to go. I used to be intimidated by someone at work and I would write out ten times in the morning: "I will be positive and cheerful whenever I speak to X" then repeat it to myself constantly on the journey to work and it did make a huge difference in my reactions to that person and the atmosphere throughout that day.

I do think I have a much more positive outlook on life now - when I find myself slipping back into a spiral of negativity I try and redo those exercises for a little while until I get out of it again.

fortyplus · 25/04/2007 09:48

Hear, hear. Yes - even when I wanted to rant at the children, I started to bite my lip and react in a more positive way - explaining why what they had done wasn't right rather than shouting at them for it. I didn't want my problem to have such a detrimental affect on them. When ds1 was about 4 he said 'I don't like it when you yell, mummy'. No - I bet he didn't. That cut me to the quick and proved the catalyst that let me become a different, nicer, person.

Original poster
jeangenie · 25/04/2007 21:01

that's me - Mrs Angry! always irritated and frustrated with my job, DH, the kids, the house, the fact that we can't work out our long term plans blah blah blah...
I don't want to be like this forever
I tried the saying positives for every negative formula today on way home from school with the DDs and it helped avoid what would otherwise have been a humdinger of a confrontation AND made DD1 feel happier about the afternoon, so that was good
I also started to think that what I need is that feeling of "good enough", rather than "must do better"
I think you are all right, it must be down to the self esteem issue, I never picked that up before
I like fortyplus'idea of the many little cups...I think I will make a list of my cups and how I can add to them little by little...
if there are any other practical suggestions to add to this already great list (SEE!) I'll be grateful, or further experiences of anyone who has managed to do this

OP posts:
fortyplus · 26/04/2007 23:48

Well done - see, you're being positive already! What worked for me was trying to keep the lid on the anger. Once I started managing to do that, the positive vibes started flowing all by themselves.

I'm so easy going now that all my friends think I've gone mad...

...tra la la... skips off into daisies...

Earthymama · 27/04/2007 00:22

Are you affected by your menstrual cycle? I sometimes feel like I'm two different people!
The thing that works is to plan for it, eat really well around that time, and forgive yourself a little.
The advice you've been given is sound and I'm going to think about it myself. Thanks for starting this discission and well done for Wed's positive reaction.
Mind you that Spag Bog can't be so dangerous!1

fortyplus · 27/04/2007 00:25

Not too bad, funnily enough - sometimes a bit snappy for a day or 2 but not much worse than usual

As for spag bol not being dangerous... chilli is! Take a look at the thread I started on FUNNY EMBARRASSING MOMENTS