Does being intelligent
make you highly susceptible to psychological and physiological depression? This
was a statement I read in a recent article by Sciencedirect.com. According to
the article, a study was conducted by the American Mensa Society(no less) that those who scored highly or one of the top
in the intelligence tests were examined and found to have the prevalence of
several disorders compared to the general population.
While I am definitely
not saying that happy, gracious people are not capable of being depressed or
having some form of disorder, I am wondering how we can change this perspective
that we must be feeling negatively nearly all the time. Deep within our brain
there is an almond shaped set of neurons that play a key role in the processing
of our emotions. The amygdala is one of the parts of our body that is fully
developed the moment a baby is born. Once used to signal us of the dangers
around us, it now serves the role of providing us opportunities to show or feel
emotions for a different purpose. However, Pain is still Pain no matter how you
view it.
During my early 20s and 30s, it was a horrendous
challenge to be positive. Didn’t sleep till late as I could not stand to think
of what was my life coming to. I was married to the woman I loved (Still am)
and had just started a family. Yet, I had this debilitating idea that I was a
fraud pretending to be happy. Even though I was successfully managing my
working life, my inner child was still hurt and raw from the abuses I received
as a child. I knew I was pretending.
Over time, as I
transcended into the world of a public speaking through training, I learnt to visualise
my feelings as something malleable and trained my mind to be positive. While it
is definitely not full proof, it has helped me to exorcise some of the demons
of my past. Here are my top five daily
must-dos to keeping positive.
1. Start
and end the day with positive affirmations.
Let the spirit
of positive affirmations, start your day. Talk to yourself in the mirror, even
if you feel silly, with statements like, “Today will be a good day” or “I’m
going to be awesome today.” You’ll be amazed how much your day improves. Use it
as a positive mantra for the rest of your day. Over time, you will even streamline
your thoughts and emotions.
2. Use humor to transform the negative
to the positive.
The one thing that kept me sane during my depressive bouts was the
ability to laugh at myself. While not everyone can handle self-deprecation, I
used it to make light of not just the situations but myself as well. When I was
about to have my last child, I was going through a very bad place. Having left
my job to start a business, not being sure if there was enough money to
survive. I was at my lowest. During that
time, I allowed myself to experience humor in even the darkest or most trying
situations.
3. Mindfulness
While this may soon become an
overused cliché, being present in the moment is a big deal. Most of us have
lots of emotional baggage that we can trundle along whenever the mood arises.
Being laden with the luggage can act as a tremendous strain on our well-being. However, when we take the perspective of
allowing the emotions to run through on their own and we just observe without
expectation, clarity occurs. It’s like being in the ‘zone’ for sports players. You
just live in the moment and nothing else comes in.
4. Transforming
the negative to the positive
I am a conundrum of negativity when
the mood gives. It does not take much for me to get laden with pain. I am
normally the first person to admit that I am so bad at things. Yet when we use
transformative vocabulary, it really does make a difference! I used to get
single digits for Math in Secondary School. It was scary as I really did not
get the concepts. I always told my friends that I was terrible in maths and I
believed it too. Yet in my 4th year, I made a decision that I would
tell myself, “ I am going to practice till I get it and destroy this blooming
pain” With the attitude change and constant self- affirmation, my ungraded F9
become a magnificent A2. All because I
stopped talking about how bad I was to declaring How I was going to whoop its a$$.
5. Surrounding
yourself with positive and encouraging people
I made a decision a few years ago that
I would surround myself with mentors and encouraging people. Amazingly enough,
I found it at my local Toastmasters Club. Having a sea of positivity and
encouragement works wonders for the soul. Which is why every parenting module
will tell you that children need an enriching environment. Once you start
searching, you would realise that there are more than we can count.
These 5 tenets are crucial to my well-being. I believe
they will help you too. Stay blessed.
Never give up. Stay positive. Be happy.
