Welcome to Season 4, Episode 5, which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 5, “Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude.” In this episode, we’ll discuss:
- the benefits of a positive mental attitude
- how making meaning is one of the most powerful skills you have
- how attitude and perspective can transform not only your life but can change the world
Your physical and mental context affect both your physical and mental health: Your physical context powerfully influences your life. Feeling secure, having people around you who lift you up, having food and warmth support your body’s thriving. However, life is hard, and we don’t have all of those things every day. While your mental context is impacted during challenging times, it also can help you survive them.
“The stories you have about yourself build around themes and then form beliefs. For example, if two separate classmates bullied you in 4th and 8th grade, your mind would lump them together around the theme of being a target of bullies. Those two stories, around this theme, garner more significance together than they would separate. You then form the belief that maybe you allowed it somehow or deserved it because you are “a weakling.” You could take the exact words they used to hurt you and start believing those things about yourself. What’s worse is that those beliefs, which were just ideas, soon become the assumed truth about who you are. They are not the truth, but they get to hold a truth status in your mind. And that can last long after the bullies are gone from your life. These constructed stories become a lens through which you understand and make meaning about future experiences. Someone could look at you funny, and it could take you back there.” – Dr. Jodi Aman
Listen to 4-5 Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude:
Resources for 4-5 Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude
Energy Shield Training for Empaths
Teen Courses for Confidence, Intuition, and Relationships
Six Easy and Simple Habits To Keep Your Life In Balance
My Top 6 Time Management Tips- How to Expand Time Even If You’re Exhausted
Ep. 3:7 Activate Your Unique Skills “Anxiety…I’m So Done with You!” Teen Podcast
How to create an altar: “Altar” your attitude!
Get Stuff Done! Maximize Productivity with the Right Confidence, Expectations, and Attitude
Setting Awesome Personal Boundaries
Transcription of the Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude Episode:
Hey, you’re here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of “Anxiety… I’m So Done With You!” This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you’re new here, grab a copy of my book “Anxiety… I’m So Done With You!“ because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we’re finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can’t get rid of anxiety when you’re still being your own worst critic. Most likely, you have been your own worst critic, even though you don’t deserve it. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
Welcome to Chapter 4, Section 5: “Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude”
we’ll discuss:
- the benefits of a positive mental attitude
- how making meaning is one of the most powerful skills you have
- how attitude and perspective can transform not only your life but can change the world
There are two contexts that each affect both your physical and mental health: Your physical and mental context. Your physical context powerfully influences your life. Feeling secure, having people around you who lift you up, having food and warmth support your body’s thriving. However, life is hard, and we don’t have all of those things every day. While your mental context is impacted during challenging times, it also can help you survive them.
Humans are storytellers. We create stories out of our inner and outer life experiences. You have many stories about yourself and your life. Some are benign, like, “I brush my teeth every day.” Others are precious, like, “I am close to my grandmother.” And still, others are quite negative, like, “I am a loser!” These seem like statements, but they are actually stories. A lot of lived experience, evidence, and memories construct each of them. You have countless stories about yourself: you’re a sibling, a musician, a candy lover, a skater, a writer, a student, and more. Do you see how the stories you have about you become your identity? That is good when the stories are ones you approve of and not when they are diminishing of the person you want to be.
Stories to Themes to Beliefs
Unfortunately, stories you have about yourself build around themes and then form beliefs. Say two separate classmates bullied you in 4th and 8th grade, your mind would lump them together around the theme of being a target of bullies. Those two stories, around this theme, garner more significance together than they would separate. You then form the belief that maybe you allowed it somehow or deserved it because you are “a weakling.” You could take the exact words they used to hurt you and start believing those things about yourself. What’s worse is that those beliefs, which were just ideas, soon become the assumed truth about who you are. They are not the truth, but they get to hold a truth status in your mind. And that can last long after the bullies are gone from your life. These constructed stories become a lens through which you understand and make meaning about future experiences. Someone could look at you funny, and it could take you back there.
Also, if many things happen to you, even if many are good, the one experience that matches the story about you being bullied will stand out and can render the good stuff invisible. I mean…you would know the good things happened cognitively, but they wouldn’t stick to you.
Imagine thousands of thoughts going through your mind in a day. It is as if the few that are scary, disturbing, familiar, upsetting, or weird light up. Some are hard to ignore because they are practically flashing neon red. So you pull them into your consciousness. That’s when the monkey starts cooking with gas. The negative thought is causing inner chaos, and you urgently desire to restore order in your mind: This means you must make sense of the thoughts by giving them meaning.
Listen to Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude on YouTube
Remember, this example is about nonsense two bullies said years ago because of those bullies’ misery in their life. And here you are now asking yourself, “Why am I thinking this? There must be a reason I’m thinking this.”
Here are some options you might come up with:
Perhaps, I didn’t heal this.
I can’t believe I am still holding onto that.
I am so broken.
Maybe I deserved it.
I can’t believe I let that happen.
Only crazy people would be thinking of this.
I think I have PTSD.
Maybe I have Dissociative identity disorder.
If one of those ideas about why you are thinking the negative thoughts stick, that becomes part of the overarching story, forming more beliefs about the world and who you are. These beliefs become the lens through which you understand future experiences.
This book section is on having a positive mental attitude, and you may wonder why I gave an example of a negative attitude. I do have a point. I’m interested in your understanding of why and how easily beliefs are constructed and what feds them so that you can shift this process.
Did you hear “The Tale of Two Wolves,” accredited to a Cherokee elder? Here it is…
The Tale of Two Wolves
ONE EVENING, AN ELDERLY
CHEROKEE BRAVE TOLD HIS
GRANDSON ABOUT A BATTLE THAT
GOES ON INSIDE PEOPLE.HE SAID “MY SON, THE BATTLE IS
BETWEEN TWO ‘WOLVES’ INSIDE US ALL.
ONE IS EVIL. IT IS ANGER,
ENVY, JEALOUSY, SORROW,
REGRET, GREED, ARROGANCE,
SELF-PITY, GUILT, RESENTMENT,
INFERIORITY, LIES, FALSE PRIDE,
SUPERIORITY, AND EGO.THE OTHER IS GOOD.
IT IS JOY, PEACE LOVE, HOPE SERENITY,
HUMILITY, KINDNESS, BENEVOLENCE,
EMPATHY, GENEROSITY,
TRUTH, COMPASSION AND FAITH.”THE GRANDSON THOUGH ABOUT
IT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN ASKED
HIS GRANDFATHER:“WHICH WOLF WINS?…”
THE OLD CHEROKEE SIMPLY REPLIED,
“THE ONE THAT YOU FEED”
So how do you feed a positive mental attitude without going into toxic positivity territory?
There are always thousands of thoughts in your mind. The ones with flashing lights are those that you have given meaning to. Maybe this is unconscious at first. It’s your reptilian brain trying to protect you. But then they increase your stress, create efficient neuropathways to this line of thinking and feeling, overflow and upset the people around you, and cause you to isolate yourself. None of these are helpful.
Remember: You have a mammalian brain that can override the reptilian brain. By consciously and repetitively taking yourself in a different direction, you can decrease your stress, enjoy being around people again, change your neuropathways, and ease the view you have of yourself and others.
It seems like a huge challenge to change beliefs as if it is the hardest thing I could tell you to do. But ask yourself, where did you get the idea that it is hard? “Hard” is just a meaning that has been given this process. What if I said changing beliefs is an easy thing to do? Really! This is the thing: You have 100% of control over changing your beliefs. You don’t need to convince anyone else; it is just you that you have to worry about. How many things in your life is that the case for?
When you think something is hard, it is for real hard. When you start to think, “I am not sure if this will be hard or easy, let me experiment with it and see,” you lose up the construction.
I love it being an experiment. When you think of it as an experiment instead of a goal, you cannot fail. “Experimenting” is a sweet spot without the pressure to succeed that you’d rebel against and with enough interest in the results to motivate you.
Pause and reflect
I want to pause a moment here to first remind you, if you are overwhelmed by negativity, get some help. Find an adult that you can trust. Second, I want to let you know that I made a “How to think about your thoughts” animated video that I put in the blog post for this episode. The link is in the show notes. And third, if you are feeling hopeless, the next episode is about finding hope, so please make time to listen to that next.
The benefits of a positive mental attitude are you are in the driver’s seat of your mind. You control your inner sanctum, which will, in turn, affect your life. Yes, things still happen to you, and yes, they do affect you, but you get to make meaning out of them, which affects how much they affect you. Remember the three-step process to dealing with difficulty:
- Have compassion for yourself
- Take a step back
- Decide what to do
This process will take you out of the chaos of the thoughts and give you time to let your mammal brain override the unnecessary negative thoughts. You will be active and feel empowered to affect the outer context of your life with the steps you decide to take. You are not as exhausted and stressed out by chaos on top of the chaos, and you can use that bandwidth to move forward in life in ways you prefer, including taking risks and seizing opportunities.
This positive mental focus minimizes how anyone else holds power over you.
That doesn’t mean it will eliminate injustices in the world, but it will, for example, take away bullies’ power over your life. Plus, with the extra robustness, confidence, and faith the positive mental attitude will bring, your relationships with be sweeter, easier, and closer. This benefits your friends and family as well as yourself. This positivity is contagious and will help them immeasurably. Think about the ripple effect of kindness and compassion. Instead of conflict and people trying to grab power, folks would want to take care of each other.
With the invigoration you’ll feel since you will no longer be bogged down under the weight of negativity, you can join like-minded people and form groups that advocate for justice in your community. This is how your inner landscape changes the landscape of the world.
Thank you for reading
In this episode, you learned the benefits of a positive mental attitude
- the benefits of a positive mental attitude
- how making meaning can take a negative turn, and how to turn it back
- how attitude and perspective can change not only change your life but it can change the world
I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. The next episode will cover Chapter 4, Section 6: Embrace Hope. There’s a trigger warning for that episode because, in the book, I discuss suicide and self-harm. The intention is to help you feel better, but please take care of yourself here. Read or listen to that, and I will see you there.
In the meantime, hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor Jodi.
