Opposite Thinking

"Count your blessings — but not everyday. Sonja Lyubomirsky, an experimental psychologist at UC Riverside, found that people who once a week wrote down five things they were grateful for were happier than those who did it three times a week. "It's an issue of timing or frequency," says Lyubomirsky, "When people do anything too often it loses the freshness and meaning. You need to have optimal timing." Lyubomirsky added that it has to feel right. She tried to count her blessings and hated it. "I found it hokey. It didn't work for me. Just like a diet program, what you do has to fit your lifestyle, personality and goals." In essence, gratitude might not be for everyone. But if it is, another exercise is to think of a person who has been kind to you that you've wanted to thank — a teacher, mentor or parent — and write a letter, once a week to different individuals over two months. You don't even have to send it to feel happier." - Excerpt from an Article called "20 Ways to Get and Stay Happy"

Since the Christmas, I started to write journal, I do find it hard to always talk about happy things, at first I wrote whatever comes to my mind - negative mostly. But soon, after reading and listening some books/tapes, I learned that by "forcing myself" to write things down in a positive way (like thinking things from opposite direction of what you normally negatively put), it helps to make me feel better.

Am I over doing it? Not sure. All I know is I now tend to think in opposite now- meaning, positive (cos I used to think many things in negative). It's a funny feeling, it feels like I step back away from "myself" and look at "this person's" situation, I can help "her" the best I can like how I can help others, I can advise "her" from what "I see" now. I see more, I feel calm and I feel I can help/fix/do everything for "this person" (myself)!

IMHO, Being grateful or too grateful (like the above article mentioned) doesn't matter, as long as it work for you. It works for me to think everything grateful because I need this much needed positive perspective that I lack. I feel that I have to fill myself up fully with this flow for me to break the old habit.