The importance of attitude

I received a birthday card this year that I wanted to frame and put on the wall of my office. Pictured on the front is a goldfish swimming in a bowl with a shark fin strapped to its back. Inside it reads: "Attitude is everything."

Cognitive psychologists have known the importance of our thoughts for years. Attitude is also something surgeons pay attention to before a surgery. If the patient has a positive outlook about the surgery, research shows there will be a better outcome. Studies reveal that the physical act of smiling by itself can trigger a positive effect on mood.

How we make sense of our experiences in life relates directly to our happiness or unhappiness. There is power in both positive and negative thinking.

Norman Vincent Peale, in his classic book "The Power of Positive Thinking," writes that "if your mind is obsessed by thoughts of insecurity and inadequacy . . . such thoughts have dominated your thinking over a long period of time" and must be replaced by "a more positive pattern of ideas."

Aaron Beck, MD, one of the founders of cognitive therapy, calls these "automatic thoughts," and they precede the arousal of some kind of emotion. They involve more distortion of reality, such as catastrophizing about the future, than other types of thinking.

A depression-prone person has a tendency to view life in a negative way. He may make extreme, absolute judgments, such as viewing a loss as being irreversible or a friend's indifference as total social rejection.

Changing the focus

People who have a negative view of the world are unable to be resilient in the face of life's challenges. They compare themselves unfavorably to others, and expectations always exceed the reality.

A client of mine is so sensitized to the misfortunes of life that he is hard-pressed to accurately assess the positive events that also occur. His life lens is focused on the raise he didn't get, the boss who is irrational, the home that isn't as large as his friend's, his terrible mother-in-law and on and on. He doesn't "see" his supportive wife of many years, his good health, his beautiful and gifted children or anything that "balances" this miserable outlook.

The psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger said, "Attitudes are more important than facts." The crucial point is that we often take our attitudes to be facts. We don't question where they came from, as if we have Aunt Bertha, the family pessimist, in our head somewhere.

Another client of mine was told repeatedly by her father "You're just like your mother- nothing could make her happy" until she began to believe it. We absorb a great many cognitive distortions in our early developmental experiences.

Peale notes, "Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not as important as our attitude toward that fact."

So how do we work on defeatist or negative attitudes? How do we even become aware that we have them? To answer the second question requires an honest inventory of conscious thought patterns. It is helpful to ask ourselves how we look at challenges or approach something new. If we feel confident and able, we are probably demonstrating thoughts of faith, confidence and security.

Making optimism a habit

It is possible to re-educate the mind if we are lacking in optimism. It is a matter of practice and affirmation, making it a dominating habit.

We need to become aware of and replace negative thoughts with a "rebuttal" thought. We can form a picture in our minds of success rather than failure. It is important to look at past successes and how far we may have come to be where we are now.

We can make a list of what we like about ourselves and continue to add to it. We can decide to not compare ourselves to others. Above all, we need to be aware of how we undermine ourselves in the "stream of consciousness" of everyday thinking.

Alcoholics Anonymous promotes the concept of gratitude, taking a daily inventory of all we have to be thankful for. Anyone who lives in our area can look around and find many things to put on that list.

No matter how negatively we see ourselves, no matter what hardships we may have faced, that is not the whole summary of our lives. There is a positive part if we can but own it.

Many of us lack security and confidence- it is a universal human condition. There is help available, and it starts with us. It can begin from the inside of our minds and, if we practice and exercise mental discipline, become an organizing principle of our identity.

The words of philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson- "They conquer who believe they can"- still ring true.

However, my favorite optimist is Thomas Edison, the inventor, who said, "I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."

Deborah Barber, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Oak Park, (818) 512-7923. She welcomes questions/comments at askDrDB@yahoo.com or visit www.DrDeborahBarber.com for more information.