The Princess and the Glass Half Full; A Fairy-Tale for Adults

Is your glass half empty or half full?  Do you while away minutes, hours and days lamenting your sorrows or do you flip the pancake of life onto it's less burnt side and cover it in sugar?

Being able to see the glass half full is important to those who are recovering from injury or illness.  It's important for your quality of life in general but also because thinking positively helps you rehabilitate more effectively.

I've talked about this before in my post *written in the stars* .  The way we interpret our experiences can have a huge impact on our feelings, our relationships with others and what path we chose to take next.

I can hear you groaning at me from your sofa.  It's easy to say and not so easy to put into practise, you point out.  I know that not everyone can naturally exclude positive rays in the face of dark, dismal events.  I know that sometimes you want to fall down the rabbit-hole and run away with the cheshire cat (who is, incidentally, always grinning.)  Well, recently I read about a psychologist, Yves-Alexandre Thalmann who believes in adult fairy-tales.

He believes that we should exchange negative thoughts for nicer, more friendly explanations, more likely to result in a happy ending.  For example, you might be stuck in traffic.  When you get to the office you're in a bad mood.  When your colleague is short with you, you get really irritated.  It's a bad day all round.

The nicer version might see you sitting in traffic, thinking how nice it is to get some time to listen to your own thoughts or perhaps your favourite radio station.  When you get to the office, you've been bopping away to Bon Jovi so you're feeling in a darn good mood.  When your colleague hasn't much to say you ask them if they're ok, perhaps they slept badly or had a falling out with their partner.  Your day's course has been changed because you rewrote the story as it happened.

Why don't we simply kick the negative thoughts to the kerb for the foxes to snuffle though and think positively about the situation we are in?  It's not easy, so we assume that some characters have it and some don't.  This isn't the case.  People who see the glass as half full are people who have a natural aptitude for looking on the bright side of life, but this doesn't mean they have an inbuilt function the rest of us are missing. Anyone can turn some thoughts around if they become conscious of them.

Although the fairy tale seems to whisper eternal happiness if you think of rainbows and butterflies, when the truly difficult times happen, they can't be rewritten.  Sometimes terrible things take place and to try to see the positive in them would be condescending.  Yet like any wicked witch casting enchantments, the time will eventually come when the spell will break and the clouds will clear once again.  That horrible time, that bit of grit that wormed its way into your life just to make you squirm in horror and discomfort, will slowly become smoother and smoother, less and less of an intrusion.  And one day, when you least expect it, it will offer you what's left, that pearl of wisdom.

Let me tell you a secret... 'The Secret' By Rhonda Byrne

When you're feeling things are a struggle, it's worth considering a motivational book. Sometimes you can feel quite alone with your situation and the written word of someone else can be comforting. It can remind you that there's a light at the end of the tunnel and encourage you to see things in a different way.

I recently read'The Secret' by Rhondra Byrne. It remained a best-seller for a number of weeks despite some criticism. It mostly delves into The Law of Attraction and delivers it in a tantalising, sensationalist way that must have sent millions into a frenzy of excitement. "You mean all I have to do is think about what I want and it'll happen?" (Cue rubbing together of hands with eyes squeezed shut and a whirl of thoughts of a red Ferrari, a Caribbean beach and a playboy mansion.) Like anything that promises grandeur, some readers have taken the book to cult-like extremes. Yet it's still worth taking in as a critical reader.

The Law of Attraction basically suggests that 'like attracts like.' For example, if you think positive thoughts, more positive thoughts will follow. Along with positive thoughts, come positive events and vice versa. Byrne states that if you want something you should use the process of visualisation to imagine yourself with that which you want, followed by gratitude once you have received it. There are undercurrents of the Bible here, Byrne tells the reader to 'Ask, Believe, and Receive.' According to Wikipedia, this is based on a quote from Matthew, 21:22 in the Bible: "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

Now, on a logical level, 'The Secret' sounds like madness. Believing that natural frequencies in the Universe affect everything we do depending on our degree of positivity is akin to papering our walls with tin foil and sitting in the corner. Yet, there is definitely something more to positive thinking and visualisation. Positive people heal better. People who are optimistic are more likely to be successful in their lives. People who believe they are lucky, are lucky.

I do agree that positive thinking and visualisation are worth practising and it's got me wondering about events in my own life...

...I wanted to be a teacher. I thought and thought about being a teacher and I spent time imagining (visualising) what this would be like. Thinking about it so much meant I began to research it and then applied for a post on a training course. I thought positively about it as I felt this was what I was meant to do. Other people's opinions reinforced this notion. By the time I came to the interview I was ready to go, acting like the teacher I wanted to be. So although I didn't spontaneously wake up as a teacher after thinking positively about being one (which is what 'The Secret' implies) my thinking process did lead to me pursuing this career and successfully gaining a sought-after post within a matter of weeks. On the outside world this looked like luck. My friends joked that I had a Fairy Godmother. Actually, underneath this process there was a lot of legwork on my part. I had the idea between my teeth and I wasn't going to let it go. Positive thinking had lead me to be successful but only by giving me perseverance and confidence, not by attracting a mystical frequency from the Universe.

Now I believe I'm a lucky person and I do think there was a degree of luck running alongside the hard work of becoming a teacher. Believing in luck means I think good things will spontaneously happen to me simply because the stars are aligned. In my life, I have been lucky most of the time. I recently saw a Channel 4 programme called 'The Experiments' in which Derren Brown looked at perceptions of luck and the way people's thinking affects them. He investigated why some people attracted luck and others misfortune. Derren Brown identified a man who thought he was unlucky. Brown then set up a series of opportunities for this man including leaving money on the floor in his path and a winning lottery ticket. As this man didn't think he was lucky, he missed all the opportunities, even when they were right in front of him. You can watch this episode here - Derren Brown, The Secret of Luck, Episode 4 I interpret this to mean that if you think you're lucky, you will be lucky because you are expecting to be.

But as mentioned before, it's not all down to luck either. It's hard work and perseverance. Another experiment that comes to mind involves sprinters and visualisation. It is very common for athletes to use this technique to perform at their best. When hooking people up to monitors and asking them to visualise something, their brain fires in the same regions that would if they were really doing it. Linking to this, I came across an interesting story in my Psychology A-Level about a man called Roger Bannister. Once, it was thought no human could run faster than the World Record that had been set and that no one would achieve a 4 minute mile. For years, no one broke that record because it was held as gospel that humans were physically limited in speed. Because it was deemed impossible, it was impossible. One day a man came along who thought he could break that record. He visualised breaking it and was convinced he would be the one to do it. And so he did. Everyone was amazed because scientifically, it was thought no one could do it! BBC coverage 6 May 1954



One of 'The Secret's' points I don't agree with and in fact, am a little offended by is that because we are able to attract good things to us by thinking good thoughts, we equally attract bad things to us through bad thoughts. This culminates by Byrne saying that we attract everything that happens to us, including accidents and illness. I really don't think this is the case. I didn't have an accident because I thought negatively that day, that week or that month. I had an accident because sometimes things do 'just happen.' When they have happened, THEN you look for the positive and take from it to make you a better person.

Despite this criticism, I think 'The Secret' is an important book to read because it shows the power of thought. The body and mind are closely connected and can affect each other. When recovering, medical services often look independently at the body and forget the strength of mind over matter. As individuals, it is up to us to educate ourselves in positive thinking and use it to overcome the challenges we face.


The Secret

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