See Life as a Glass Half Full

Photo by Joseph Greve on Unsplash

For more than 190 days straight I have stayed the course and meditated every morning.

I do nothing fancy or complicated.

I wake up, stay in bed, click on an app with a babbling brook, close my eyes and listen to my breathing.

From there, I frame my day with one internal thought, “Today is going to be a good day,” and if my mind slips, I pull my attention back to this thought.

The process has been simple. The retraining of my brain has been hard.

I needed to relearn how to think positively because at some point I could only see the world as a glass half empty. Enough trauma will do that. I’d come to believe that pessimism equated to a protective shield against future pain. Yes, I know I had it upside down. But at the time my logic made sense.

My brain had decided if I dared to believe my life would get better and it didn’t, my emotional pain would only become worse. So it was best not to think that way at all. I pushed hope to the side and lived in a dark place.

This faux coat of armor prevented me from healing.

I needed to find a way to view my life as a glass half full, not half empty.

It wasn’t easy resetting those buttons. My brain had become accustomed to thoughts such as: “Oh that’s never going to happen,” or “There is no way I can make that work,” or “I will never find the right job.”

Until one exhausting day, I finally said, “Enough!”

I forced myself to look within and find a way to self-correct this destructive thinking.

Flipping my mental switch

Meditation had worked for me in the past. It had been years. Back then I managed a consistent 30 minutes. I wouldn’t be able to carve out that much time now and stick to it.

I needed to make it as simple as possible.

I wondered if 10 minutes would give me the boost I needed. I had nothing to lose. Ten minutes was manageable.

I needed to frame my day from the moment I awoke. Set that switch to a positive outlook.

In the beginning, 10 minutes felt like an hour.

After two weeks, my mind quieted and I relished turning off my alarm and turning on the babbling brook. The house was quiet. I could focus.

About a month and a half into the process, I added a second component to my opening thought of “Today will be a good day.” I decided to think about one problem I needed to solve. I kept my request simple.

For example, I wanted to find consistent part-time work in the news world. Reporting and editing meaningful stories had been my career. I missed it and wondered if I could step back in part time.

I never let go of that positive thought. I imaged being back in that environment. I also knew I’d have to make an effort for that to happen and recognize the opportunity if it presented itself. It just wasn’t going to drop out of the sky.

I decided to scroll through an aggregation site for journalism jobs, and two news outlets resonated with me. The reporting was local and the mission was to inform and educate readers on various topics. I reached out to the editors and asked if they needed freelancers, sent over a brief bio, and included links to clips. Both said yes.

One, however, took it further and asked if I would consider contracting as an editor. She knew my history of running newsrooms, as well as reporting.

The rapport between us was immediate. We worked out an agreement, and I accepted the position. The flow and environment have been uplifting and positive. I’m certain this opportunity would not have happened if I hadn’t changed the way I saw my life. If I didn’t believe in my self-worth. If I hadn’t changed my thinking from “This will probably never happen,” to “I am going to be open to making this happen.”

Other changes have happened as well. I had written a book and needed an agent. I knew the odds were long but I kept visualizing the possibility and staying positive —250 rejections later I secured a reputable agent.

My life turned around by making the decision to spend 10 minutes each morning believing in a glass half full. Allowing that positive energy to frame my day and flow through my essence.

Anyone can do it

I know it sounds like one of those how-to-improve-your-life stories. I read so many of those articles and books and didn’t believe any of it. My yeah-right attitude was tied to a brain that only saw a glass-half-empty world.

I had to fall deep and hard before I threw up my hands and screamed, “enough!” Then I had to work just as hard to rewire my brain.

There is actually a term for it — neuroplasticity.

“The ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury,” as defined by the Oxford dictionary.

It can help change the behavior of someone with an addiction. Or reteach an individual who has suffered from physical illness like a stroke, or a mental illness like suicide ideation. Or someone like myself who had so many family hardships hit at once, my emotional center and brain turned to black goo.

Yet our amazing malleable brain can relearn and rewire itself if we stick with it. We can wake up to see the world as a glass half full.

My positivity meter is far from perfect. It takes constant effort. I still backslide. The difference now is I recognize it and hit the brakes. I don’t want to live in that negative space anymore. It hurts too much mentally and physically.

I discovered where positive thinking can take me, and I don’t want to go back.