EMPOWERMENT
Switch to amore positive perspective on your path to a ‘soberish’ lifestyle, and choose language that encourages you to flourish and grow,
Have you ever thought about the way you see and speak to yourself, and noticed how this shapes the world around you? Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a tendency to take a pessimistic outlook on life, and I used to see the bad in everything. I’msure I’mnot alone in this feeling. Psychological research suggests that humans in general suffer froma negativity bias, which simply means we have a tendency to focus on the negative stimuli in our lives and dwell on past negative experiences.
Another explanation formy pessimismcan be attributed to the fact I have ‘negative affectivity’,meaning a genetic tendency to experiencemore negative emotions. I read about this concept in TheHappinessHypothesis by JonathanHaidt (Cornerstone, £10.99), while onmy quest to acquire amore positivemindset. I realised that while by nature Imay be predisposed to a more negative outlook – especially as someone who has endured adversity – I can ultimately choosemy own mindset through hard work and learned emotional intelligence.
For a long time I was stuck in the vicious cycle of suffering, shame and self-loathing. I couldn’t understand why somany horrible things were happening inmy life. I had a narrow viewof the world andwas poorly prepared to deal with any degree of grief or trauma. It was nowonder I turned to pills and alcohol at a young age to try to regulatemy emotions.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that turning to things such as alcohol, men and purging (you name it) was only pushingme further into the black hole I was trying to digmyself out of.
I constantly flipped back and forth between the narrative of ‘poorme’ and ‘wow, I’mdisgusting’. And trying to get out of that distorted thinking was impossible – or so I thought.
Play on words
There is a famous quote fromthe Persian poetHafiz that goes: ‘The words we speak become the house we live in.’Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to changing your relationship with alcohol and finding the soberish lifestyle that suits you.
Having a positive perspective on a soberish lifestyle will not onlymake changing your relationship with alcohol easier, but it willmake the experience empowering. When I first went into treatment in 2015, there really wasn’t much available in the way of positive programmes or support groups. I was taught my drinking was a life or death situation, and that I needed to be anonymous in my journey. While that may be true for some, it wasn’t the message I needed to hear, and it most definitely didn’t help me quit. While I did get sober through the 12-Step programmes, it wasn’t their fear tactics that helped me build a foundation; it was
