Be grateful for small things

One could say that there are two realities. The one that is, and the one we perceive. Of course, there is only one that really counts, and it's the one we perceive. The problem is that this reality can be distorted by our own thoughts. Let me explain. If you start your day in a negative mindset, we will focus on all the bad events that happen around you, and minimise the good ones. But the opposite is also true. If you start your day with a very positive mindset, chances are that you are not even gonna see negative events. Or at least, you won't get affected by them. But someone suffering from anxiety or depression is programmed to dismiss all the good things going on, and ruminate any bad moment or thing that can happen. But your brain can be re-programmed. It just takes practice. 

As a pessimistic person, you will tend to perceive a negative event as your responsibility and as permanent. Something you can't change, although it's your fault. At the same time, you will interpret good events as temporary and as out of your responsibility. For instance, if you get a new job, you might think "Yes I just got lucky, and when they will realise that I suck, I will lose it." Or on the contrary, if you get fired, you will think "Yeah I deserve that, I suck, it's my fault, and I will never find a new job". 

This is all linked to some deep core beliefs you have inside you. And you use some mechanisms, called cognitive distortions, to twist the reality in order to feed those core beliefs. But the goal here is to turn around this perception and to see a good event as deserved, and permanent. 

One very good exercise for that if to keep a gratitude journal. You have probably heard of gratitude before. It is not an easy exercise, but practice makes perfect. Here's the drill: every night, before sleeping, you can write down three things you have been grateful for during your day. No need to explain why, but those three things should be different (almost) every day. For instance, you cannot write every day "I'm grateful for having a house". You need to dig deeper. At first, especially if you are a negative person, you are going to find this exercise really difficult. But that's the point: knowing that you have to do this exercise, you will start to look for things to be grateful for during your day. And it can be really small things. The smell of your first coffee in the morning, the warmth of the sun during your lunch break, the smile of a person you like, your boss telling you that you did a good job. Whatever little thing happening to you. The point is to start seeing those things. 

By doing so for long enough, you program your brain to spot positive things, and you actually turn into a positive person cause your perception of the reality is shaped around those events, and not around your core beliefs anymore. And you get less and less affected by small things that usually upset you a lot. 

Imagine you order a nice burger, with fries and a coke. But when it arrives, there is a mistake in your delivery, and instead of a coke, you got a bottle of water. But you really wanted a coke. Well you can be upset, try to find a way to complain, get your money back and let your brain ruminates this event for the rest of the evening. Or you can bite this delicious burger and acknowledge that it is indeed delicious, savouring both the burger and the moment. The order mistake will become shallow and irrelevant. The facts are totally the same, but the reality you perceived is not. 

Of course, this is a silly example. But only by training on small things first you can actually achieve greater ones. If you want to back squat a 200 kg barbell, chances are that you will start with 20 first, and then build up. It is the same process with gratefulness. 

Baby steps, change takes time and patience. But you are already on the good path, so be kind to yourself, you deserve it. Cause you are worth.