What is optimism? Is it natural or developmental? For some fortunate individuals who were naturally born happy, carefree, and jolly, it is easy to be optimistic at all times. But there are a lot more individuals who see a lot more negativity. Feeling negative almost all the time is not entirely abnormal either and oftentimes these people have a greater potential inside them that only need more effort to unlock.

Optimism from a personal point of view is an attitude by which negative emotions such as fear, sadness, and insecurity are replaced by the exact opposite emotions. In this way people begin finding a positive aspect out of these negative tendencies and the result can be monumentally astounding. One book entitled Kundalini; The Evolutionary Power in Man, documents such an occurrence which takes place in the author of this book. Having pursued various techniques of meditation and yoga, this author was able to unlock this very potential in himself and begin to
see his life completely transform over a period of just a few short months.

In our everyday lives, negative emotions are inevitable. We cannot control when they will attack us. This world is such a complex dimension with so many different forces in it, it is almost impossible to eliminate all the negative emotions that present themselves. A beginners effort, however, coupled with an ongoing perseverance, can make a slight change which can eventually transform into something quite amazing.

The importance of learned optimism is related to ethics and the relationship that we have with other people. We are extremely complex organisms who, by our very nature, must typically live with others in order to survive. As human beings, it is our responsibility to live harmoniously with each other and oftentimes this means being exposed to these negative emotions. With an increased level of positive energy, however, many people enjoy extended periods of time in seclusion and have practiced prolonged periods of meditation and yoga which result in very profound changes to their being. Optimism can be learned!

There are strategies available for practice to enhance the development and learning of optimism. These include relaxations therapies, behavioral therapies to increase the rate of pleasant activity, cognitive therapies to teach optimism and coping strategies to find positive meaning in even the most negative of circumstances. These are strategies which optimize the change in us and lead us to greater power and happiness.

In our daily living, we can practice these strategies on our own even without the assistance of a professional therapist. The thing is, we only have ourselves to observe and thereby overcome our emotions. Psychologist suggest that when you feel angry and about to explode, try counting from 1 to 10 and you will notice your anger subside as you feel more relaxed. After this, try to find a positive observation aside from the anger you have felt and make that your motivation to replace your anger with the total opposite emotion. This is how learned optimism is exercised. Though difficult, you can always keep in mind that you are walking a path which will lead to amazing new discoveries that you never thought possible.

Learned optimism is a precious possession and, just like education, no one can take it away from you once you have it. You will be the one controlling your thoughts, your actions and your emotions. By our own optimism, we can touch other people’s lives and we can be their inspiration that they require! This can be priceless. Just remember the slogan, “It’s all in your mind” as this may be extremely effective in helping you to learn more optimism. Your mind is a powerful tool in handling your emotions and the counting method helps you to become more relaxed. Either of these two methods can make a world of difference and be extremely effective in helping you to learn more optimism.

In this fast changing, struggle-filled world, there are two kinds of people; those who see only the bad and those who see a whole lot more.  Which person are you?  It’s easy to see the bad and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know there are problems out there.  It’s harder to see beyond the bad and into a world of promise and a better life. What it basically boils down to is, are you a pessimist or an optimist? You can be one or the other but you can’t be both.

Why can’t you be both?  Well, which one of you is going to decide that for you?  It’s one of the two because, overall, your life is either going to get better or worse.  It’s not going to stay the same!  Everything changes and, depending on your inner intention, a pessimist is the kind of person who doesn’t see life with all its beauty and blessings but instead becomes filled with a lot of negative ideas. They easily give up and they lose hope which makes them feel left-out a lot of the time. They have the tendency to hate themselves and often feel that they are really doing nothing.  They blame themselves but also the others around them. The world is a terrible place, they say, and everybody is to blame. These are the individuals who commonly don’t succeed. They remain second best because they never try to be the best they can be. There’s always an excuse that somebody else is to blame for.  They are pretty much satisfied to stay right where they are and to keep on complaining from this day on.

While there are those who succeed and live a more happy life, it’s not because they have more than the rest.  They may still have a nice luxurious car, a big house with a pool or a million and one dollars.  Still, they are happy and satisfied with life because they actually choose to be.  They decided to make their life as worthwhile as possible. They realized that this is the only way to be happy and they don’t want to waste time “sourgraping” over the not-so-good things in life.  They focus on the “good things” even if it’s commonly unnoticed. They love to live life to the fullest and they do anything they can to enjoy every minute of it. They don’t get tired easily.  They just keep on going.

Optimists are believers in life!  They recognize the many unseen things that life holds for them and they seek those things out each day. They give 100% to everything that they do and they simply love it.  Sourgrapers can   go on and on about all the negative “truths” that they think they see and gloat when someone is having a bad day.  Still, the optimist always picks up their chin and moves on no matter how hard and tiring something is. They are magically boosted with so much energy that they have a zest for many new and more challenging things. That’s what optimists are.  They are always on the go and always ready to see what’s over the next horizon.

Now think again.  Which one of these people are you?  Sure, all of us would want to belong with the optimists and to have a better outlook on life.   A lot of good things can be gained by having an optimistic heart. It gives you a better chance for a healthy and longer life. It gives you a better disposition in life and causes you to be more productive and more successful. Even if you fail, you don’t really care because you know you did your best and that is all that can be expected. If you are truly an optimist, then you probably recognize your own weaknesses and have already been working to try and make yourself a better person.  You will always stand up and try until you finally succeed. Failures make an optimist work even harder.  Failures are the inspiration and the motive to reach higher and an optimist knows they will eventually succeed and that they already are succeeding just by getting up and trying again.

There’s a bit of an optimist in all of us but sometimes that seed has to be watered and given some sunlight.  It takes courage and willingness and the perseverance to continue each day. How you deal with your setbacks is the most important thing. Are you going to choose to hide and run away from your problem or be brave enough to face them with arms wide open. Whatever way you want it, it’s only up to you. Have the heart of an optimist and someday you’ll be the kind of person who appreciates life 110%!

Being optimistic is a very difficult task for all of us, especially when our human emotions are more inclined to move toward the negative. Optimism, however, can be learned, developed or created and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to achieve this.  Creating an optimistic approach to life just means exerting some regular effort at observing your thoughts and emotions and finding ways to be able to look at the positive side of even the worst things in life.

As human beings, feeling angry, sad, insecure, or depressed are all natural things.  This doesn’t mean, however, that they are inevitable.  Feeling nothing at all is indeed unnatural but feeling continuous joy and happiness in life is also a possibility although it may be relatively rare for most people. Inner joy is a very real energy that is locked deep inside of us and which is rarely experienced except in very special circumstances like the birth of a child or when we first fall in love.  These powerful emotions are reserved only for special occasions and our ego allows them to come forward just for a few hours or days before we eventually tuck them back into our hearts for another day. This, however, is not the necessary way of living.  These powerful emotions are something that come from inside us and, therefore, they can be accessed by us at any time we choose if only we had the correct keys to unlock them all the time.

Creating optimism depends on our own efforts.  We can not count on other people such as our spouses, parents, or close friends to make this positive attitude well up inside us. If we do that, we are turning our lives over to others and putting our own happiness at the mercy of someone else. Creating optimism means learning to look inside ourselves for that joyful energy that we have only allowed ourselves to experience once in a while. It means learning how to access that without having to wait for a wedding or a new promotion or a lucky lottery ticket.  We make the decision to become the creators of our own happiness by directly accessing the source of that happiness that lies inside of each of us. This only becomes possible, however, by first looking at the negative thoughts and feeling that are blocking this energy from coming to the surface.  The more we examine our own thoughts and emotions, the more we begin to see how our minds function and we slowly become the experts at accessing the joy within.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest blocks to experience happiness and joy all the time are the other people in our lives who absolutely refuse to think this way.  How do we get around all these negative people?  This is the first big challenge that we need to commit ourselves to overcoming.  In order to achieve the space we need to get to that optimistic energy hidden deep inside of all of us, we first need the physical space in our lives to achieve some peace and tranquility.  We may need to exert a serious amount of effort at achieving a limited amount of success first in the outside world before we can achieve the inner success that we seek in our own hearts.  You can’t find peace in your heart when someone is screaming at your face every day!  You need to get yourself out of the negative relationships you are in first before you can achieve some inner peace later on.  This is sometimes the biggest challenge for people trying to create their own optimism.

Optimism requires discipline and a concerted effort in everything we do.  It requires a commitment to make our lives better and to work for the opportunity to achieve some peace in our lives.  If we want to become optimistic, we have to first start acting optimistic. Then, when we are able to find a quiet space of our own with positive people who will help us in what we are trying to do, we can move on to discover the many practices and techniques that can unlock our greatest inner potential.  Optimism begins within you because you are the only one who can watch your thoughts, your actions, and your feelings.  Make a commitment to day for a better attitude and you will soon become the optimistic source for others to follow as well.

Most people don’t believe that their lives are the result of their own actions.  They see themselves as victims, having been accidentally thrown into a life that they didn’t choose.  They didn’t “choose” their parents or the country they were born in.  They didn’t “choose” to be born without money or without the prettiest face on the block.  Life seems unfair to them and full of bad people who are always looking to cheat and take advantage of everyone else.  Does this attitude sound familiar to you?  It should sound familiar because it is an extremely common attitude and probably makes up the majority of the way people think.  For you, however, it doesn’t have to be this way.  There is another way to think and it is called optimism.

Some people choose to believe that everything happens for a reason.  They don’t believe that life is full of accidents and that everything is “unfair”.  They choose to believe that even bad things happen for a reason and they accept what has been given to them.  They know that there is a greater plan underneath what seems to be a lot of confusion and tragedy.  They have made a decision to “choose” to see life as part of a bigger plan. This, for them, is the beginning of a great adventure.  It is an adventure that can teach you about the infinite power of optimism.

It’s not very often that we get to be with a person who is optimistic about most of their life.  That would be a person with a smile on their face that almost seems to be permanent.  It would be a person who thinks that life is a blessing and sees more good things to life than bad. They would be the person who feels less troubled on a bad day than many of us feel on one of our best days.  In fact, they would feel blessed even if they had nothing at all.  A person like that would have full control of themselves almost every minute and would be completely in charge of every situation with an open heart and mind. “Is this even possible?” we might ask.  The answer is yes!  With the power of optimism you can change your entire life and retrain your heart and your mind to think like a winner.  You can train yourself to see opportunity when others see failure.  You can learn to see the good in anything that happens and feel grateful to be alive each day. Optimism is truly an incredible power.

Optimists are believers in themselves.  They believe that they can do anything and everything and they never get tired as they continuously aspire to do more. Failures don’t stop them because this is the thing that actually gives them more reason to go on.  They see failure or disruptions as a challenge to do more and everything appears to them as part of a larger plan. Optimists see a silver lining in even the worst situations and always find a way to be happy with what they have.  They see great beauty in the many simple things that life presents to them all around. Even in times when they have nothing at all, they still feel grateful and content.

Optimists are also risk takers.  Taking a risk is what makes life more interesting and fun!  They are not afraid of the changes and challenges because the problems that may present themselves will only make life more interesting for their eager spirit to tackle. The problems and challenges are what keeps them just going and going. Optimists know that life is never without problems.  Who would expect such a ridiculous thing as to have no problems?  What optimists expect is that they will face the problems with an eager smile and enjoy the chance to overcome the problem and move on to the next. They see problems as part of a larger plan, given to us as so that we can find a way out of it. After we do so, we are stronger and happier than before and we get to enjoy even more things than we ever though possible.  Optimists truly have the key to life and they work very hard to turn that key every day and make their lives into something outstanding.  They see life with so much promise that they never imagine staying on the ground whenever they may fall.  A fall is just something to look at with an interesting glance and to get up from and move on.  They always face the world with a head up high.

There’s no better way to become an optimist than to do it right now. Choose to put every effort you have into planning your life for greatness and you will surely begin on a great road that will lead you to places you never thought you were capable of going.  When we put our minds to it and choose to do everything we are truly capable of, we literally astound ourselves!  That is what the power of optimism can do for you.

Life has always been a mystery.  Negative emotions such as loneliness can sometimes lead to fear, hatred and even violent actions a lot of the time.  On the other hand, positive emotions such as love can lead to contentment, happiness and helping other people.  If you weren’t born into it, as most people weren’t, learned optimism is the best method to success.  In fact, learned optimism can change your mental state and your life if you truly want top get out of the negative place you are in and into a better life.

Many experts have developed intervening strategies which can actually cultivate positive emotions in the same way that we cultivate plants and animals in the agricultural sciences.  You can both prevent and treat problems which are rooted in negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, and stress.  These can all be driven out of your life and replaced by the principle of optimism.

Are you optimistic?  Are you one of those who are fortunate to have the ability to turn a negative emotion into a positive one?  Not too many people can because it actually requires a reservoir of energy inside you that few people have.  When something goes wrong, most people are consumed by the grief and negativity that an accident or a mistake will often bring about.  It’s just too difficult to get right back up and start again isn’t it?  We may think that this is not normal but actually it is quite normal as we are just human beings and not robots.  We often need to give ourselves time to grieve over a bad thing that may have happened to us in the past.  Nevertheless, these patterns that cause us to get down over something negative or to spend extensive amounts of feeling down, are not necessary to our survival or for us to remain compassionate, functioning individuals.  These patterns can be replaced with better patterns of thinking and feeling which eventually give us more energy and the ability to accomplish more of the things that we want in life.

Emotions are sometimes very hard to handle.  Psychologists have proven, however, that everything actually originates in the mind even if our thinking and our emotions are intimately linked to outside events.  Actions, emotions and words can be controlled by our will to some small degree and initial changes that we make can eventually be built upon over a long period of time to create new patterns of thinking and feeling. This is how learned optimism comes about. It can be developed over time and can eventually change your mind and your life.

Many researchers and medical practitioners now work extensively with people who have undergone profound changes in their bodies brain chemistry due to the sudden onset of an energy process known as the Kundalini process.  As a result of prolonged work on a person’s mental and emotional state, many people report a profound change that takes place inside their nervous system wherein a flow of energy can be felt coming up from inside their central nervous system into their chest and neck and eventually filling their brain.  This energy has been reported and discussed extensively in one famous book entitled Kundalini; the Transformative Energy in Man. With the onset of this new energy that thousands of patients have reported and been tested with, an actual change in brain chemistry has been shown to take place wherein a persons thoughts and emotions begin to change drastically over a period of several years.  Patients report a renewed sense of energy and happiness in their lives that was not previously experienced.

According to Barbara L. Frederickson of the University of Michigan, all negative emotions like fear, sadness, and anger narrow a person’s thought-action activity towards a specific action of promoting survival.  Contrary to this, positive emotions such as joy, interest and contentment, broaden a person’s thought-action activity towards a specific action of promoting happiness and contentment to others. By broadening the thought-action activity of a person, positive emotions loosen the negative emotions which had dominated the person’s body and mind.  Studies have also shown that contentment and joy speed the recovery of a patient after illnesses and the onset of certain diseases. Given these examples, psychologists are establishing the principle of optimism as a vital part in the development of a human being’s mental state.  Whether it be mental or emotional, the fact is that optimism changes our lives for the better and is something you could benefit by pursuing more of it in the future.

Too often, people live lives that don’t satisfy them. They work at jobs they hate, stay in relationships that make them miserable, and do things that are self destructive. They fail to realize that they can change all of it, and live the life that they want to live, simply by having a positive attitude. (more…)