by Elaine Sihera

Created on: April 15, 2008

Are You Naturally Positive or Naturally Negative?

I am a naturally positive person. I tend to see the positives and the good in everything and everyone until they show me otherwise. In the main, I have always been like this, but I used to dwell on negativity far more a few years ago. Then I realised how fortunate I was in my life, to be given life itself, talents, beauty, abilities and a potential I could discover. I also read a book by Anthony Robbins (Unlimited Power) in which he set a task to try to be positive for a week, and I couldn't even manage and hour! I realised then how much I was taking for granted and decided to be totally positive, to ditch the negative feelings that I carried around with me, and the result has been awesome. Now I really find it hard to be negative.

At the heart of my positivity is gratitude. I never take anything for granted anymore. For example, every time I switch on my computer I treat it like a person and thank it for being there for me when many people can't afford a computer. I do the same with my car and TV and other things. And shall I tell you something really strange: they never break down or give any problems at all. My Mac computer is a dream to run and so is my car, though it's a few years old.

Perhaps because I am so positive, I smile all the time. I find it really difficult to be negative or serious. Yet there was a time when I felt constantly in pain because all I carried around were negative thoughts of the past inside my head. Now I sometimes get the feeling that my smile is lighting up everywhere I go now as I focus on the present because that's all we are guaranteed. Whenever I look back at older pictures of me when I was clearly unhappy with my forced smiles, it makes me so sad.

Our thoughts make us positive or negative. It does not matter what is happening around us, the key is how we personally deal with it. Whether we let it overwhelm us or whether we acknowledge that pain and pleasure are a team in life, and simply pick ourself up, as the song says, brush ourself off and start all over again!:o)

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