33 focusing on the positive

Your mood obviously has a big impact on the way you see things. When you feel happier, you can see the more positive things in your life for what they are. When you’re feeling more down, you tend to focus on the negative. This activity is about taking off those dark glasses and focusing more on the positive things in your life, in spite of how you’re feeling.

For the next two weeks, fill out the chart on the following page, noting at least one positive event that happens every single day and your thoughts and emotions about that event. It could be a feeling you experience; something kind that someone does or says to you (or that you do or say to someone else!); it could be a beautiful sunrise; a good mark you get at school; or a peaceful, relaxing time you have as you sit in your backyard with your dog in the sunshine. It doesn’t matter what it is; what does matter is that you notice that it’s happening.

After you’ve completed your fourteen days of charting, you might find it helpful to make a point of continuing to notice these positive things as they happen.

Being Mindful to Your Emotions

The dark glasses that prevent us from noticing positive events when we’re in a lot of emotional pain can also prevent us from noticing positive emotions that come up. Sometimes this is because the positive emotion is very brief—when you’re feeling depressed, angry, or anxious a lot, it’s easy to miss the small moments when a good feeling pops up. But it’s important to start training yourself to notice when this does happen so you don’t miss out on those times.

Training yourself to be mindful to the positive events that happen throughout your day is one way of doing this—if you’re more aware of a positive event, you’ll be more aware of the positive emotions that come with it. But have you ever noticed what happens when you’ve been feeling down a lot and you do happen to notice a positive emotion? Do you tend to say, “Oh great, this is a nice relief from what I’ve been feeling lately”? Or do you think more along the lines of, “Okay, I’d better not get used to this feeling because it won’t last long”?

When we’ve been experiencing a lot of emotional pain, it’s hard for most of us to just accept whatever the emotional experience is, whether it’s positive or negative. Instead, when what we feel is painful, we want to avoid it or push it away; and when it’s a positive emotion, we want to cling to it and try to stop it from ending. Trying to get rid of or hold on to emotions this way usually makes those same emotions hang around when we don’t want them and disappear when we do want them. Think back to how accepting a situation will help reduce your suffering; the same holds true with your emotions. When you can fully accept that you feel anxious, your anxiety will become more tolerable and gradually fade. When you can fully accept that in this moment you feel content—rather than worrying about when it might end, or trying to figure out a way to continue feeling this way—you will enjoy it more and the feeling will linger.