This week we are talking about how to change those thousands of thoughts we have during a day from negative to positive. What we see in others we strengthen in ourselves. So by seeing kindness, acceptance and love in others we strengthen that in ourselves. What a gift!
Things I referenced in this week’s episode:
Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline. The 7 Basic Skills For Turning Conflict Into Cooperation ~Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D.
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Episode Transcript:
Hi, happy people. Welcome back.
Well I don’t know about you, but I actually missed being alone with you in the podcast booth. So grab your cup of tea, head out on your walk. However you listen to the podcast, but just know that I’m happy to be back with you. And I’m excited to share what we’re talking about this week.
This week, we’re talking about how to shift from negative to positive The experts say that we have around 77,000 thoughts a day going through our mind.
And if we’re honest with ourselves, most of those are negative and self-critical and judging and shaming.
And when I read this book that I want to talk about today, something jumped out at me as a practical tool that we can put in our toolbox to help us switch more of those thoughts from negative to positive. And wouldn’t that feel amazing? The book I’m referencing today is called Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline. The seven basic skills for turning conflict into cooperation. And the author is PhD. Becky A. Bailey.
It’s actually a parenting book. This book has so much life skills in it that I just really got excited about it and really dove into it. She talks about the seven powers of self-control. And the one I want to talk about today is the power of love.
The power of love is seeing the best in one another.
So what you offer to others, you experience within yourself. Or what you see in others, you strengthen in yourself. Doesn’t that sound powerful? The ability to be more forgiving, more accepting, more kind and more loving towards others, but also towards yourself. So the more you see it in other people, you’re going to strengthen that inside of yourself.
And that, to me just sounds like such a powerful skill that we can all work on. And I think the more positive we have in our life, the happier we’re going to be. She says that when you choose to attribute positive intentions, you’re going to feel more peaceful inside. And let’s be honest who doesn’t want that?
When we’re determined to find faults in other people, it usually means that we’re unwilling to change something in ourselves.
And I was thinking about this and looking at myself and it can be pretty humbling when you turn around and look at yourself like that. And I was remembering when our son was younger, and he was probably about four or five riding in the backseat of the car, and somebody cut me off or whatever happened. I had to slam on my brakes.
And this little four or five-year-old pipes up from the backseat and says, “Whoa, what a jerk! Right Mom?” And, ahh, in that moment I realized, or I remembered that more is caught than taught. And basically, I’m one of those chatterboxes as I’m driving, I make comments on what other drivers do.
I know I’m totally alone. None of you do this.
It’s just me. But I realized that I had handed this down to him and it’s always the other person’s fault and they’re always a jerk. And I realized in that moment that there are better things that I could have taught our son that sometimes we ourselves are in a hurry, or we just don’t notice the other person at the stop sign and we go, and it’s not really our turn.
Looking at it, from this perspective, what we offer to others, we give to ourselves. It means that, you can be more forgiving of yourself that time where you have to wave at the other driver and go, I’m so sorry. That was not malicious intent. It was totally an honest mistake.
More Is Caught Than Taught
And again, thinking about more is caught than taught. What have I given our son? Everybody else is a jerk and judgment and blame. And that is not something that I want to pass on.
I was talking to my husband about this and just saying how I love this concept, that by offering it to others, we build it in ourselves.
The more we can do that in our lives, the better we’ll feel and happier and more peaceful we’ll feel!
And so we were talking about, you know, we were trying to come up with ideas of when else we’ve done this in our lives. And recently, we decided to go on vacation with friends and so we decided to go away and rent an Airbnb on the Oceanside.
Then what happened was we decided if we’re going to go, we were going to go for three nights. So we booked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we were very excited about this.
I love being on the ocean side It’s one of those things that really makes my soul sing.
So, we were very excited. But what was happening is that ended up being this crazy busy week for us. And we finally had to make the call and, we reached out to our friends and said, would it be okay if we don’t come up Friday after work and we just get up and go early Saturday morning?
We’re just both completely swamped with work and the thought of having to pack, Thursday night after working all day and we’re just not ready.
Knowing that we don’t have to pack Thursday night, we can work Thursday and Friday and then just take a relaxing Friday, pack our bags, and get up and go first thing Saturday morning. And our friends were very gracious about it. We still paid for the Friday night, but just letting those friends down in the sense that we had planned on having three nights together.
They were so generous about it and just said, “absolutely, it’s a holiday, do whatever works best for you guys.”
And we got there, got up and went early Saturday morning, fully rested, excited to be on holiday instead of being stressed and rushing to be on holiday. And we get there, and our friends welcomed us and had lunch made for us when we got there. My husband and I said to each other, I hope that we offer that same thing to our friends.
I hope that we show that same generosity of spirit or that same kindness towards our friends.
So if those friends are listening, thank you. We appreciate it and love you guys. And it ended up being an absolutely fantastic weekend and we had memories that we’ll keep forever. I think part of it, it started off with just them allowing us to say, we can’t do this. And them not being upset about it and just saying, get here when you get here and we’ll have fun when you guys arrive. And isn’t that a great attitude with life?
Norm and I were talking about this, it was pretty funny because we were trying to come up with ideas and I know how have we applied this to our life? And my husband used the word re-framing, and we had talked about that in another episode where I finally had to re-frame the fact that nobody else in my house shuts off lights after they leave a room (.
I was raised that when you leave a room, you shut off the lights. And so I could really let this get me upset, or I could re-frame it and say, thank goodness I live with two other people. And I always know they’re here because there’s lights on all the time.
So when he said re framing, I thought is that interesting? Because this whole concept of what I offer to others I give to myself, means that I accept that this is not done with malicious intent. They do not leave lights on in rooms because they know it upsets me. They leave lights on in rooms because it just doesn’t even occur to them to shut it off.
I am still working on this.
Lovingly trying to get them to shut lights off. I can get upset about it. And I do, I look at it and think, I live with two of my favorite people in the world. I love them so much and they leave lights on around the house to remind me that they’re here. But also realizing they’re not doing it maliciously.
That’s what, Dr. Bailey means by this is seeing the best in one another, is there’s no malicious intent meant when somebody cuts you off in traffic. Okay maybe sometimes there is, but if you always re-frame it or look at it and go, wow, I hope that person makes it home in time to mitigate the emergency. Or I hope they make it to the hospital on time, or I hope everyone’s okay in that vehicle. Obviously they’re in a rush and they got to go! So, looking at things like that and giving it positive intent, as opposed to the negative.
Switching our thoughts from negative to more positive
So, how do I think moving forward, we can apply this concept into our life and switch our thoughts from more negative, to more positive? And so if we can change the percentage of those approximately 77,000 thoughts that we have in a day to be more positive than negative, I think there’s no way we can’t be happier in life.
So look for the best in people and attribute positive intentions to what other people are doing.
Or at least assume that they’re doing the best they can with what they have. In the book, Dr. Bailey suggests that wish people well and this silently from your heart when you’re doing things such as driving, standing in line at the grocery store, even passing people on the street. And just notice how you feel when you do this. And putting that positive intent out into the world and wishing people well, it’s like gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more happiness you have in your life.
Being grateful for things adds positivity into your life, but also wishing people well.
And just standing in the grocery line and just wishing the person ahead of you, silently to yourself, I hope you have a great day. I hope your family is healthy and you are safe and all your problems are manageable.
That’s really it, I love it concept and I was really excited to share it with you. Because what you offer to others, you give to yourself! And on those days when we’re finding we’re more negative than positive, if we start offering goodwill to the world and wishing people well, and assuming positive intent. We can’t not have a better day. I remembered when I started on the journey of trying to learn to love and accept myself for who I am right now.
I realized that as I did this for myself, I did less judging of other people and I found I was more accepting.
Realizing that I could be kind to myself, allowed me to be more kind to others. And so the more we can work on this, the less insecure and negative that we’ll be.
I find that as I learned to love and accept the real me, I am more loving and accepting of everyone around me. And I’m hoping, that by using this tool yourself, you’re going to be able to do the same for the people around you. And the more we can add loving kindness into the world, the happier and a better place we’re going to make the world.
All right. Happy people. This week’s quote actually is something from Dr. Bailey’s book. And it says,
“Find something intangible that you feel you lack in life, (hope, enthusiasm, courage) give it to others, and you will possess it yourself. Giving and receiving are one. The first step to resolving a problem is to give away your solution.”
I love that quote. I such a great book. I highly recommended, even if you’re not a parent, I think there is huge skills in there for dealing with conflict and learning self-control.
Remember if you want to join the community of people seeking their happier, we have our Facebook group, The Happier You Podcast and we’d love it if you would share your thoughts and feelings about the episode and different posts. If you want the podcast delivered to your inbox, you can sign up for our newsletter and we will send you the podcast as well as the mid week motivator just to help keep your happiness top of mind. That’s it Happy People, that’s it for this week, have a good one and go get your happy on.