Do you spend a lot of time ruminating over past negative experiences? According to an article in Psychology Today, when people are anxious and depressed, most rumination involves feeling inadequate or worthless. And that leads to stress.
Click here to listen to my narration of the post below about the consequences of ruminating over a negative thought, and how sewing seeds of gratitude just might be the perfect antidote and achieve stress reduction.
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If you were planting a garden, would you plant flower seeds or weeds? If you spent most of your time in one room, would you prefer pleasant and happy paintings, or paintings of horrible scenes that caused anxiety or sadness?
When bad things happen, do you briefly recall them and learn from them, or do you relive every detail again and again?
A recent article in the WSJ (February 3/4, 2018) reported that over-discussing and dwelling on a problem does more harm than good. The more adolescents girls co-ruminated with their mothers about dilemmas like “Why didn’t she invite me to her party?” or “Is he about to break up with me?,” the more anxious and depressed they felt and the more likely they were to rehash the unpleasant thought again and again with their friends.
It makes sense; if you plant more weeds than flower seeds, it’s more likely your garden will grow weeds. We all know some weeds grow even when we don’t plant them. So why fill our mental garden with weeds?
And it’s not limited to adolescent girls. I believe it’s true for men and women of all ages. “I can’t have children,” “My joints hurt,” “I wish I made more money,” “I wish, I wish, I wish.”
What if you turned this same weed growing technique into a seed growing technique?
What if every chance you got you planted a seed of gratitude?
Instead of, I can’t have children, you said, “I’m sad that I don’t have children, but I’m so grateful for my wonderful friends and family.” Instead of My joints hurt, you said, “I can’t do everything I used to do, but I’m grateful that I’m such a great cook.” Instead of “I wish I had more money, ” you said, “I don’t have the money I wish I had, but I’m grateful I have my health and enough to live on comfortably.”
Same problem; different perception. “I’m grateful, I’m grateful, I’m grateful.”
What’s growing in your garden? What flower seeds of gratitude can you sow?
