The Better Mood Recovery Program, Week 6

LEARNING TO THINK LIKE AN OPTIMIST

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

—Abraham Lincoln

Sixth Week Overview

In this week you will learn specific ways of thinking that will hellp you to think more positively.

How do you respond when something goes wrong in your life? Do you imagine the worst and see your problem as permanent and insurmountable? Or, do put things in perspective and view your difficulty as a temporary challenge that can be overcome?

People who fall in the first category are typically called pessimists; those in the second category are known as “optimists.” Whether you are a pessimist or optimist can have a significant impact on the state of your mental and physical health. Hundreds of studies show that pessimists give up more easily and become depressed more often. Optimists, on the other hand, do much better in school, in work and on the playing field. Their health is generally good, and they age with fewer physical complaints than the rest of us. When optimists they run for office, they are more likely to win than pessimists.

Like myself, if you suffer from depression and anxiety, your temperament and brain chemistry most likely predispose you to think pessimistically. Nonetheless, researchers have demonstrated that a pessimistic mindset can be modified or significantly altered through learning new mental habits. In this week's lesson, we will learn a new set of cognitive skills that can help any pessimistic person to think more like an optimist. As a born pessimist who has practiced these techniques for years, I can assure you that they work.

The Key to Optimism: Shifting Your Mental Focus

In our lesson on cognitive therapy, we learned there are always two aspects to any event or situation in our lives.

A) The situation itself.

B) Our interpretation of the situation.

Psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Victor Frankl called this ability to choose our attitude in any given circumstance “the last of the human freedoms.”

The reason we have this freedom is that situations are never totally black or white (See the yin yang symbol on the facing page). Life is a mixture of light and dark, positive and negative. Or as they say in the martial arts, every situation has both an inherent advantage and an inherent disadvantage. If this is true, then why not choose to focus on what is advantageous? This is precisely what the person with an optimistic mindset is able to do. Let's explore some tools that make this possible.

Optimist's Tool #1: An Attitude of Gratitude

“Count you blessings, not your crosses,
Count your gains, not your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes,
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Covet your health, not your wealth.”

—Proverb

What if you began each day by asking the following questions? “What are the positive aspects of my life right now? What can I be grateful for? What is working to support me in my health and healing?” If you thought long enough you would probably uncover a blessing or two—e.g., “the sun is shining, I have a roof over my head, I have a loving friendships, I am not in physical pain, I can see and hear, I have enough to eat, I feel love for my child, etc.” Focusing on what is working in your life instead of what is not actually changes brain chemistry and allows you to counteract the negative thinking that is the hallmark of depression.1

 

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The yin yang symbol is an ancient Chinese image that portrays the universe as an interplay of opposites—light and dark, night and day, positive and negative, etc. Note that within the dark side of the circle lies a small circle of light. Hence even that which we consider painful contains the seed of something redemptive.

 

Expressing gratitude does not mean denying pain or uncomfortable feelings. It doesn't mean pretending something is wonderful when it clearly isn't. But when we focus exclusively on those dark and painful places, we close ourselves to the gifts that the universe brings.

As you spend time each day to count your blessings and give thanks, you will learn to see the good wherever you look. This is how the great Zen master Banzan achieved enlightenment. One day, while walking in the marketplace he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.”

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.

“Every piece of meat I have is the best,” the butcher replied. “There is no piece of meat here that is not the best.”

Upon hearing this, Banzan became enlightened—i.e., he realized that every moment in life, like every piece of meat, contained something to be grateful for.2

Optimist's Tool #2: Reframing

While most of us find it easy to be grateful during when life is going well, what about the bad times? Finding the good can be accomplished even during challenging situations through the practice of reframing—the art of taking a difficult situation and putting a new frame around it so that you focus on the inherent advantage. An example of reframing occurred in the life of actor Christopher Reeve. The actor who played Superman, is bravely trying to accomplish the superhuman feat of learning to walk after being paralyzed by a spinal chord injury. During his treadmill therapy Reeve unexpectedly broke his left leg. He had developed osteoporosis from a lack of calcium, and the strain of the exercise caused his femur to snap. Although the injury was discouraging, Reeve was quick to reframe the situation. “If I hadn't known to up my calcium, I would have been in trouble when I tried to walk,” he said. My legs would have turned to powder. I'm lucky that this happened now.”3

My favorite reframing story concerns the optimistic and pessimistic brothers, Davey and Joey. The parents were tired of seeing Davey always cheerful and Joey always gloomy, so they arranged a unique experiment for their birthdays (the boys were born only a few days apart). For Joey they purchased a Shetland pony; for Davey a room full of horse manure. They left the boys alone with their new presents and checked back with them an hour later. True to form, Joey was whining away, “The horse isn't the right color, the saddle is too big,” he moaned.” It seemed that nothing could satisfy him.

Then the parents turned their attention to Davey, expecting him to be in the same melancholic state. Instead, they found him enthusiastically diving into and playing with the manure.

 

What Is Your Explanatory Style?

According to Martin Seligman, author of the groundbreaking book Learned Optimism, optimists and pessimists have two very different methods of explaining misfortune. Seligman has found that:

1) Pessimists see difficult times as permanent and enduring, while optimists know that “this, too shall pass.”

2) Optimists see their troubles as specific to the situation: pessimists generalize their misfortune to see it as occurring everywhere. For example, the optimist who had a bad math teacher might say, “Mr. Jones is unfair,” while the pessimist would say “All math teachers are unfair.”

3) Pessimists see misfortune as their faults while the optimist is more likely to blame the circumstances. For example, the pessimist who went hitless in a baseball game might say, “It's my fault we lost ,” while the optimist would conclude, “That pitcher was just too good.”4

While normally it is a sign of mental health to assume responsibility for what happens to us and not to blame the other fellow or fate, depressed people often take too much responsibility for their painful situation. In such cases, assigning cause to outer circumstances can be a healthy thing.

If you identify with the pessimistic explanatory style, you can use the principles of cognitive restructuring from last week as well as the techniques you learn in this week to interpret your world more like optimist. Remember, you have the ability to choose your point of view.

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What's going on?” they inquired. “How can you be happy with such a yucky birthday present?”

“Don't you see?” Davey replied? “With all of this horse poop around, there must be a pony hiding somewhere?”

Optimist's Tool #3: The Blessing in Disguise Principle

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”

—Richard Bach

In searching for his pony, little Davey was affirming his belief in the “blessing in disguise principle”—i.e., that good things can arise out of difficult (or even tragic) circumstances. For example American cyclist Lance Armstrong, winner of three consecutive Tour de France bicycle races, credits his current success with getting testicular cancer. “Before I faced cancer I was on cruise control,” Armstrong recalls. “Cancer taught me to fight and to persevere. Without those lessons, I would not have become a champion.” Ironically, the cancer gave Armstrong a second gift by taking thirty pounds off his upper body, His lighter weight and the reduction in his wind resistance made him a faster rider.5

Another example of the blessing in disguise principle occurred in the life of Morrie Schwartz, a wise and loving psychology professor at Brandeis University. In his mid-seventies the healthy Schwartz was stricken with Lou Gherig's Disease which led to his agonizing death. Because of his illness, an old student Mitch Albom tracked him down and wrote about his professor's last days in a bestselling book, Tuesday's With Morrie. If Schwartz had not contracted this terrible disease, his wisdom and life-changing philosophy would have remained hidden from the world.

Examples of the blessing in disguise principle abound if we choose to look for them. Take a moment and see if you can find an example from your own life. You will have the opportunity to write about your experience at the end of the chapter

 

David's Story: What Happens When You Can't be Grateful?

What do you do when you are so down and discouraged about being depressed that you are angry at God and the universe for playing such an awful trick on you? What if none of the medications or treatments are working and no one has found any decent alternatives? How do you find gratitude when you are in the black hole of despair and there's no relief in sight?

This is how I felt at the depth of my depression. Many people tried to be get me to focus on the positive, but such encouragement only made me angry. Although they were well meaning, these folks had no idea how hopeless the situation was. Who were they to tell me to count my blessings when all I could see was hell that surrounded me?

After I recovered and looked back on my ordeal, I could see positive things that I couldn't see at the time. I was not homeless. I had a dedicated therapist, loving friends, and my physical health remained intact. These were all supports that helped get me through. I'm glad that I did hang on. As a survivor, I feel stonger now than before my breakdown.

 

Optimism: A Habit of Thinking

Learning to think optimistically is as simple as shifting one's perspective. But choosing to look at life differently does not occur overnight. As David's story reminds us, a person who is experiencing an episode of major depression cannot cannot will himself to think positively. In such cases, the brain's extreme biochemical imbalance makes it virtually impossible to hold a positive thought for any length of time. This is where physiological interventions such as medications and ECT can work wonders. It is also essential to have others around you who can “keep the faith” even when you cannot.

Once you are stabilized, however, you can consciously practice optimistic ways of thinking until they become a mental habit. Remember, every thought has a neurochemical equivalent. Changing one's thinking has been shown to rebalance the neurotransmitters in the brain as well as antidepressants. Cultivating an optimistic attitude will reap benefits both in your current mood and in helping to prevent a future depressive downturn.

Week 6: Goals/Assignments

1. You are now midway through the 12-week program. Congratulations for having come this far! Look back over the goals for yourself that you wrote during week one (page 155). How close are you to meeting them? Write down any progress you have made as well as any obstacles that you still face.

2. Fill out the “Assessing My Optimism Inventory” on the next page.

3. Begin a gratitude journal. At the end of each day, write down in a notebook or journal an example of something that you are grateful for. This could be either:

Ongoing Self-Care Activities

 

Assessing My Optimism Inventory

Please take a few moments to answer the following questions as a way of assessing the quality of your thinking habits. You can write in the space provided or in your Better Mood Journal.

1. When I face a challenging situation, do I try to find the inherent advantage in the circumstance?

2. Am I in the habit of counting my blessings—i.e. focusing on what is working in my life?

3. Try this reframing exercise: Look back at your life and find an event or circumstance where something painful occurred that afterwards led to something good or positive. First write about the event and then the positive outcome that occurred afterwards (e.g. you lost one job only to find a better one).

If you couldn't think of anything to say right now, let it be okay. I believe, however, that if you search your heart, you can find an example of the blessing in disguise principle, even if it is something very small.

 

 

My Goal Sheet for Week 6

This week's starting date_____________My coach/buddy ____________________

Date/time we will connect _____________________________

Goal or Goals _______________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

Benefits of attaining this goal____________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

Action plan _________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

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Ongoing goals (check off the ones as you accomplish them)

______ Read my vision statement daily (upon awakening or before bed)

______ Chart my moods in the Monthy Mood Diary

______ This was my average mood on the better mood scale.

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How was my mood this week?

Record your moods below for each day of the week.

  Day Mood    Comments
  Mon    
  Tue      
  Wed    
  Thu    
  Fri      
  Sat    
  Sun    

 

1 If you are extremely depressed and can't see anything positive in your life, try not to get down on yourself. Your imbalanced brain is distorting your perception of reality. See if you can find others around you who can reflect back to you what is working even if you can't perceive it yourself.

2 I am indebted to Eckhart Tolle for sharing this story on pg. 161 of his remarkable book, The Power of Now.

3 Russell Scott Smith, “Man of Steel Resolve,” Us Weekly, November 20, 2000, pg. 78.

4 Ironically, when good events occur, the explanatory styles of optimist and pessimist reverse. The optimist sees the good situation as enduring and brought on by their own good works; the pessimist sees a positive circumstance as temporary and caused by external factors.

5 From an interview with Charlie Rose on PBS television, August 3, 2001