Useful positive thinking

I spent most of my boyhood as a competitive gymnast. I was a Maryland State floor and horizontal bar champion and a member of the Maryland State All Star Team.

We used to employ a technique called mental practice. Before performing a routine in practice or competition, we would stand with our eyes closed and go through the routine silently in our minds. We would visualize doing the routine flawlessly.

I did this so often that sometimes my parents would find me standing at the base of my bed in the middle of the night, asleep, moving ever so slightly to indicate that there was a gymnastics routine going on in my head (I was an occasional sleepwalker).

Mental practice has been used by many successful athletes and artists to get in the zone and improve performance. Today's research shows that visualizing a task can train the mind in some of the same ways as actually performing it.

Visualize things going well, and it's more likely to happen.

The essence of this idea has been applied more broadly in the positive thinking movement.

Visualize a great job, the perfect relationship, even wealth, and it will happen. [Visualize bad things happening (or good things not happening), and that's what you'll get.]

The Happiness Lab podcast did an episode about positive thinking, with a little history and some research about when it's useful and when it's not.

I've always wondered if positive thinking is inherently flawed because, like negative thinking, it takes the thinker out of the present moment and projects them into a made-up future. Peace and inspiration are found only in the present moment, right?

The thing is, sometimes our negative ruminations are unstoppable, at least by the usual methods (puttering, mindfulness, nature time). They need a more precise antidote.

If you're incessantly worried about money, you might visualize a time (perhaps a few years from now) when you have what you need. For example, during tight times, I've closed my eyes and imagined being at a restaurant and paying a waiter a large tip at the end of the meal. Or picking up the bill for a group of my closest friends. I smell the atmosphere, the wine, and the food and feel the good feelings of that moment.

Or you might imagine introducing a new partner to friends, planting a garden at a first house, enjoying a weekend off from a great new job, or hearing "thanks" from a difficult child.

You don't need to know how these things come into your life. Just visualize having them for a few moments, long enough to dissolve the negativity. The positive and the negative will cancel each other out and plop you back down where you belong: here, Now, neutral, peace.

And once it's done, it's done.

The future probably won't turn out just like you visualized. Maybe you planted a seed of abundance, health, or affiliation. It's a nice thought. I don't know.

At the very least, it's a useful tool. The point is to pivot back to peace.

Isn't that always the point?