Have today’s circumstances made positive thinking impossible?
By Rand O’Leary, FACHE
The work of healthcare professionals, though important and rewarding, is challenging even at the best of times. But three years of a pandemic has exacerbated the problems that existed even before its arrival. Now, it seems that anger is simmering under the surface of every interaction, whether between fellow staff members or patients and providers. It’s as though negativity is in the air we breathe.
After the demands and exhaustion of the past several years, this way of thinking is engrained. Our brains often tend to be drawn to the negative. We personalize things and blame others. We might feel we are right and have a hard time hearing another opinion, and we put our emotions in the driver’s seat. With what seems like so much going against us, the battle feels real. Even though the harmful effects of all this negativity on our personal health and the people and environments around us are obvious, it feels overwhelming and exhausting even to begin to think about changing our mindset. At this point, is it impossible to think more positively?
Throughout my life, I have seen that it is true that your thoughts become your words, and your words become your actions. I wonder if it is possible to reverse-engineer this adage, using our actions and words to impact our thoughts. As another old adage says: whatever you feed will grow. How do we feed positive thinking? Through kindness and gratitude in word and deed.
Just be kind.
With all we are up against, a solution as simple as “showing kindness” can feel trite, nowhere near big enough to address our problems. But for most of us, our own actions and words are one of the few things we can control in this environment of frustration and anger.
I sincerely believe that many struggles and so much negativity in the world today could be solved with small acts of kindness. We must consider for ourselves:
What does it mean to be kind to our families, to our teams at work, to our patients, and most importantly to ourselves?
What will it cost me to be kind, and is it worth it to me to pay that price? Why or why not?
Am I showing and giving kindness as often as I can and should?
These are questions I ask myself and I invite you to ask as well. I wonder what a difference you’d see in your own mind and the world around you if you committed to doing even just one random act of kindness each day.
Show gratitude.
The practice of showing gratitude has been meaningful to me personally. Life is difficult, and life is also full of goodness. One truth does not negate the other. We have so much to be thankful for, but it often gets overshadowed under the mounds of stress that we must navigate in our lives.
Research shows that developing a practice of daily gratitude will yield higher levels of optimism, happiness, joy, and pleasure—things we all need more of. Voicing that gratitude aloud is powerful. Similar to a random act of kindness each day, if you see something that gives you joy, happiness, or that warm feeling of friendship when interacting with someone, say it out loud to the other person. You will feel better and so will they.
Providing care for our communities is deeply difficult right now, and reasons for negativity are all around. We may not be able to manufacture positive thinking by willpower alone, but we can allow our kind and grateful actions and words to feed our thinking in hopes that, slowly but surely, positive thoughts will grow. Let’s consider how we can support each other in this work.