Unlocking Positivity- Changing the Narrative

This episode focuses on how to shift away from negative narratives that often dominate our thoughts during challenging times. We explore practical strategies for creating positive habits, like establishing personal mission statements, practicing gratitude, and letting go of negativity, fostering a mindset that embraces everyday joys. 

• Understanding how negative thought patterns impact well-being 
• Creating a personal mission and vision statement for guidance 
• The importance of gratitude in shifting perspectives 
• Incorporating gratitude practices into daily routines 
• Using lists as tools to cultivate positivity 
• The concept of a "let go of list" to release burdens 
• Engaging with vision boards as a visualization technique 
• Embracing positivity and intentionality during winter months

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Chapters

• 0:06 Changing the Narrative
• 11:00 Positive Mindset for Changing Destiny

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast. So this is a place where we take time to pay attention to the good things happening all around us and we celebrate what we call everyday joys. These are little things that you might miss in the busyness of your life. So we get our inspiration from nature and we relish all the changes that it brings, and this is a place where you can celebrate creativity and introspection. But don't worry, everyone is welcome to join in and you can find your place here. Also, while you're doing that, you might take a few minutes to lift your spirits and find some fun in your everyday routine. So this is episode 110, and I am your host, sally Burlington.

Speaker 1: 0:51

You've tuned in right in the middle of our winter well-being series. So what does that mean? During winter, here at Create Harmony, we shift our focus to things that are cozy and snuggly, and while we're enduring the shorter, darker, colder days of winter, we try to stay attuned to all sorts of things that help us restore ourselves and help us reset our minds, and this usually happens at the start of the new year. So our podcast is filled with lots of ways to declutter, ways to clear your mind, ways to find winter self-care, and so the things we've talked about so far during winter well-being was how to make your joy more accessible. We've covered the concept of house hushing. We've talked about how to host the best little small group gatherings around the table and how to create some really renewing self-care practices right in your own home, and if you missed any of those discussions, you might want to go back and check them out.

Speaker 1: 1:53

So, for today, we are going to talk about changing the narrative. So what does that mean? So what that means is our brains are prone to focus on things that are negative. Our brains focus our attention on negative narratives, and now this is a defense mechanism that we have inherited from our ancestors, and the purpose of this is to avoid danger, and avoiding danger is important. It's a thing that we really all like to do, but in our current landscape, sometimes we get so focused on avoiding danger that we completely forget about all the wonderful things going on around us. We don't even notice those things or see those things and, in addition, sometimes those negative narratives. That applies not just to what we see outside of ourselves, but also what we say to ourselves, inside our heads. Without even realizing it, we surround ourselves with negative messages and negative thoughts, and that narrative is playing inside your head all day long. So let's just take a moment and think about what it's like to have harsh and negative thoughts going on in your head all day long, and that's not the ideal way to live. But how do we stop that process? And the best way to change the narrative in our brain is to create some new habits, and that will build new neural pathways and those pathways will train your brain to gravitate towards more uplifting thought processes.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So today I'm going to make a few suggestions of some things you might want to add to your life that might help you get your thinking into some more productive areas. So the first idea I have is is for you to establish a mission or a vision statement for your personal life. Maybe you have this already, but just take a few moments to reflect on really what you want your life to be about. And you might even want to add if you've already got your mission, vision, you could even add a list of your core values. Now these are your fundamental beliefs and principles. These are the things that guide your behavior, guide your decision making. If you've got this sort of curated for yourself. It's going to serve as a compass. It's going to offer you direction and purpose and this exercise really, you could do this as a whole family if you want to develop a family mission statement or family core values. That can really keep you grounded into the things that really matter, and it might help you discern how to spend your resources, your time, your energy, etc. So you might choose some examples of things that you might choose for some core values, or things like integrity or compassion, responsibility, teamwork. So just focus on those things to keep your attention on what you want your life to be about rather than what you don't want your life to be about.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Another idea for changing the narrative this is something we talk about a lot here at Create Harmony, and that is gratitude. All sorts of gratitude-based habits could really be a benefit to you and this will help you again focus on all the good things that are going on around you. How can you have? Add some gratitude based habits to your rhythm? You may also you may already have some of these. Maybe you have a gratitude journal, but you could even go more and more into the arena of gratitude. You could do this as a mental list or something that you write down each day. You could couple it with a daily activity. Like you could do this like habit stacking while you're in the shower you try to think of as many things as you're thankful for as possible and listen the way that gratitude works best.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Really get granular here. Try to get right down to being able to take a breath or being able to talk. You know those things all there. There are millions of things that you could be thankful for, no matter what your circumstances are. There are still millions of things that you could find that are good, that you could be thankful for. So I've mentioned before that we have a whiteboard in our back hall and at the top of the board it says good things and we try to write as many good things as possible up there until the board gets full and then we start again. And the benefit of that is that when you take a minute and you get the marker and you stand there and think, let me think of some good things, it draws your attention to those good things and then they're written down. So when you're moving through that area and you're, you know, going through your life, you notice them and you remember that good thing again, like you revisit it again because you're coming and going in that space, so so that might be a good. That might be a good thing for you to add to your life a place where you could catalog good things going on for you Now.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Listing this is another version of listing that. That might be a way you could change the narrative. You can list things you're thankful for or come up with as many positive lists as you can Like. You can make a list of all the things you've accomplished this week, what you feel good about. You could make a list of all the people in your life that you love. You could make a list of all the things you're excited about in the near future.

Speaker 1: 7:31

A slightly different angle here is what I will call a let go of list, and this is a list of things that you no longer need in your life, both literally and figuratively, and making this kind of list can be so freeing. It's just sort of like Marie Kondo you know you think an object and then release it. You could do that for less tangible things, like if I were gonna make a let go of list, I would add letting go of guilt for some of the books that I have stacked up. I have a tendency to have all these books that I think I'm gonna read and they are great books with deeper lessons and good ideas, and I want to read them, but right now, in my current calendar and my current amount of brain space, I really just don't have the resources to take them in right now. So I need to let that go, with the knowledge that I can always pick it up later. So a let go of list might be a good practice for you.

Speaker 1: 8:32

If you like to be creative, you could make a vision board, and this is a pretty popular idea. It's a collage of things you want to go towards. These are things images that you like and you feel connected to that you want more of in your life, and lots of times people do this. At the beginning of the year, I recently taught a vision board workshop and we made vision boards. So these you get together with your friends and have vision board night. These images will help you, not only the process of selecting the images and creating the board, but just like the good things board I talked about, it's going to be a reminder. It's going to be right there in front of you for you to come back to and your brain to be like oh yeah, I really love going to the beach or whatever it is and you'll feel good and these things mean something to you.

Speaker 1: 9:18

And I've heard of a new way of doing a vision board. I thought you might like this idea. It's called Vision Board Bingo and it operates just like the game of bingo. You create a grid like you like. If you play bingo, you get a card with a grid on it, and this, you create a grid with stuff on it that you want in all the boxes. So you have, you know, all these things in your boxes and then, as you complete them, you check it off or you fill in that part of the grid. So, for example, if I was going to make a vision board bingo card for myself, in one of the boxes I would put swim in my own pool, because we're building a pool in our backyard. And then, after my pool is done and I swam in there for the first time then I would get to fill in that space. And so these are just all sorts of things in grid format that you want in your life. You know more healthy things. You get it, you'll come up with ideas.

Speaker 1: 10:13

So that's another idea for how we change the narrative. So these are all suggestions that you might want to add to your rhythm. Don't don't overthink it and don't forget you are basically only in charge of your own brain, and often we, sometimes we let our brains get on autopilot and we end up in a destination that does not serve us. So just take a little bit of time to reroute yourself. You do not need to do all of these things at once, but just as they fold into your life, change the narrative.

Speaker 1: 11:00

So for our closing today, I want to leave you with a quote, and this quote is by marie forleo, and it says what we say in the privacy of our own mind matters. It drives our behavior, which drives our destiny, which shapes our world for a bit. But when you are thinking about what is in the privacy of your own mind, don't begin by beating yourself up for thinking negatively all the time. Think about all the possibilities that you are getting ready to see, and that will be inspiring. So thanks so much for joining us today as we considered how to change the narrative. We're still on our winter well-being series and hope you'll be back next week for some more of that, and until next time, peace, thank you.