Developing a Positive Attitude Benefits of a Positive Attitude
Developing a more positive attitude is learning how to think in more effective ways.
Here's how to think about it and why it can be very helpful in achieving lasting weight loss.
Developing a positive attitude has may beneficial effects beyond just physical well-being. Why?
Your attitude reflects your relationship to everything else. The critical fact about everything else is that it is impermanent.
Everything is new each day. This is neither good nor bad, it's just the way it is. There is incessant flux or becoming.
Nothing abides.
The philosopher Heraclitus said: "Everything flows . . . The sun is new each day."
Developing a Positive Attitude: The Choice
The Fundamental Choice
You can choose to accept impermanence or to reject it.
This choice determines your fundamental attitude about the world. Since fighting reality is fruitless and usually painful, it's wise to focus on developing a positive attitude and decide to go with the flow.
Because everything flows, it's useful to think of reality as being like a river of flowing water. The water is constantly in flux, constantly changing.
If you accept incessant becoming and decide to enjoy what's best about it, you'll soon begin enjoying the benefits of a more positive thinking.
On the other hand, if you constantly resist change, you'll find yourself constantly struggling either to hang on to what you have or to gain more. Life becomes a battle that never ends.
Since none of us has the power to prevent impermanence, why not work on developing a mature, positive attitude that embraces impermanence? Instead of trying to stay stuck, which is impossible, why not work on developing a better way of thinking?
We human beings we become attached to our familiar ways of thinking. We find them comfortable. When we find that they happen to be useful for certain purposes, we get stuck harder to them.
There is a continuum of attachment. The people who are the most attached to their concepts are "fanatics," and the people who are the least attached to their concepts are (genuine) "philosophers."
Most people are in between these extremes; most of us are somewhere along the continuum. We are mixtures, neither pure fanatics nor pure philosophers.
What's the critical difference? A pure fanatic is never willing to question (examine) his or her concepts, whereas a pure philosopher is always willing to question his or her concepts.
Only philosophers, not fanatics, enjoy the benefits of having a beginner's mind, which is an open mind. Closed minds always lead to more suffering. Why? They are perpetually mismatched with what-is, which is always becoming.
Fanatics are stuck, whereas philosophers are always recreating themselves. Philosophers are always examining and re-examining. Ultimately, fanatics are fearful, which is a negative attitude; they are afraid of change.
Developing a Positive Attitude: Yourself
Understanding Yourself and Others
Please ask yourself: "Do I have a positive attitude or a negative attitude? Do I typically resist change or do I embrace it?"
If you resist change, please think again. All that you are doing is deliberately trying to remain stuck! Given that reality is impermanence, resistance to change is a negative attitude rather than a positive one.
Until you focus on developing a positive attitude, you are condemning yourself unnecessarily to persistent dissatisfaction.
Changing negative attitudes will help you to let go of habits that aren't serving you well and to replace them with habits that will serve you better.
If you are not living a joyful life, might this not be the reason why? If so, we encourage you to do whatever it takes to welcome change. Be open to it. Since change is going to continue to happen anyway, why not make the most of it?
Realize, too, that everyone has this fundamental choice. Others are often stuck, and they don't realize there's a better way of living. The best way of helping them isn't telling them what they are doing wrong--it's showing them how to live better.
Developing a Positive Attitude: Opening
Meditation Fosters Openness
Most people are addicted to compulsive thinking. In particular, they are attached to egocentric, gratuitous evaluations. Nothing spoils life more than that.
The purpose of meditation is freedom from compulsive thinking. If you have ever enjoyed moments of life when you were just experiencing something without a running mental commentary, then you have had a taste of genuine liberation.
If you have never had any such moments, that's really sad.
Meditation is the way to experience life directly. It is thoughts that are repetitious and borning -- not life itself!
Life happens in the present moment. If you are incessantly engaged in thinking about something other than what is right here, right now, you are separated from your life. How could you enjoy life if you are frequently missing it?
Mediation is a very clever way to enjoy life more. That's why it's terrific for developing a positive attitude.
If you don't already meditate daily, we strongly encourage you to learn more about it simply by visiting the meditation section of our website:
If you do already practice daily meditation, excellent! Keep up the good work. In fact, perhaps you could meditate even more frequently?
Objection: What's this got to do with achieving natural lasting weight loss?
Reply: Gaining weight is the result of imbalance. If you will cure the imbalances in your life, you will automatically achieve and sustain lasting natural weight loss and improved health.
Imbalances are caused by egoistic attachments. Since meditation dissolves egoistic attachments, meditation restores balance.
Once your balance is restored, your body will naturally find and maintain its optimum weight.
In other words, meditation is life's reset button!
Reviewing and, if necessary, revising your fundamental attitude is a critical step toward developing a more positive attitude. Practicing meditation daily is the very best way to do that.
While there are many different kinds of meditation, there is no other way to abiding joy.
If you were frequently very joyful, would you overeat? See the connection?
Benefits of Positive Thinking
Benefits of mental and physical balance
If you are out of balance, if you are stuck, it has taken you many years to get that way. Please, then, don't be impatient in reversing that process. In other words, please don't get stuck on becoming instantly balanced, either!
The idea is to work at it daily, to stretch yourself a bit every day. That's all. In the fullness of time, you'll be able to recover your balance. It's an illusion that there are quick, easy fixes for our important problems.
As you begin to use the relevant spiritual, psychological, and physical ideas that are relevant to your particular situation, your situation will begin to improve. It just takes a few minutes a few times a day to get started.
If you follow our suggestions, you may notice after just a week or two how much better you feel. If you feel good, you will naturally have a positive attitude.
You'll notice the improvements, which will further fuel your determination.
This isn't just about spiritual exercise, either.
For example, suppose that you used to run several miles several times weekly. You felt good and you kept your weight down. However, as you aged, you discovered that your body began to break down, that you were unable to sustain all that running.
What happened? Things changed. What should you do? Change, too.
Instead of giving up, try something else, for example, substitute a walking program for the running program. What worked yesterday may not work today, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Keep testing procedures to ensure that they are still working.
If you had a negative attitude, you'd think, "I'm too old to exercise anymore." That's an attitude that will not benefit you physically. If you had a positive attitude, you'd think, "Well, my body is telling me not to run. I'd better listen to it and do something else." That's that way to keep exercising until your dotage.
Resolve to keep open to life, to becoming.
Many people find that their attitudes seem naturally to deteriorate unless they deliberately work on them.
This is why working on your attitude should be part of your morning routine: by deliberately reminding yourself of what you are grateful for, you'll be developing a positive attitude of gratitude.
Ask Zig Ziglar's question: Have you ever seen a single grateful, unhappy person?
Life is a grand adventure. Enjoy it! Savoring the present moment may be the most important of the many benefits of positive thinking. Learning how to do that is a critical lesson fostered by meditation. Learning how to let go is also a critical lesson that is fostered by meditation.
For more on the benefits of positive thinking, see the following section of our website:
