Ironically, I was thinking about writing a post about beating Monday Morning Blues this morning (because I have Monday Morning Blues) 😓 and then I had technical problems so I couldn't start work. I work from home and need my landline to work, but the landline was just beeping the engaged tone at me, so my boss told me just to do some online courses. It's like fate came knocking at my door.😇
I ended up taking a short online course that was called 'Accentuate the Positive' and it definitely gave me some powerful food for thought on a stressful and blue Monday morning. It was all about the daily exercises that you can use to help develop life skills and beat negative habits to improve mental health.
The main two exercises it talked about were 'Positive Visualisation' and 'Affirmations'.
'Positive Visualisation'
'Positive Visualisation' I thought was pretty interesting. It talked about the fact that 90% of the things we worry about, don't actually end up happening. To stop yourself from worrying about the worse case scenario, instead you should go into a dark room and play out the scenario in your head, focusing on the scenario going as well as possible, and then freeze framing at the end with the perfect outcome.
It also talked about how if you have a day that goes particularly badly, instead of worrying about all the things you should have done, just sit down and replay the situation and in your visualisation you should act the way you wish you had, and visualize the positive outcome. Then next time you are in a similar situation, you just remember the visualisation and the behaviour that led to the positive outcome, and try and implement that. You can't change what happened, but you can learn and change the future.
I had an argument with my partner yesterday, so I can definitely use the visualisation technique to replay the scenario with different behaviour that led to a positive outcome, and try and use that to help me in similar situations in the future.
Positive Affirmations
Psychologist Susan Jeffers defines a positive affirmation as "a positive statement that something is already happening", so for example you can say things like "I am learning to behave responsibly", "I am loosing weight", "I am becoming a kinder and more loving partner".
I have actually heard about positive affirmations in the past, because my boss told me that she would recite things to herself in the mirror and while driving her car, to make herself believe the great things that she was saying about herself in order to have the confidence and command attention when she is in a meeting or at work. I remember thinking at the time that it was something that I should do, but as usual I forgot.
Today I will make the commitment to myself to write some positive affirmations, and put them on sticky notes on the desk and the mirror in my office. Other ideas for where you can place your positive affirmations once written are that you can leave them as a voicemail to yourself, you can also record yourself saying them and listen to them in the car, or while walking the dog. You can also try the movie classic of reciting them to yourself in the mirror:
Have you guys ever tried using Positive Visualisation and Positive Affirmations? What do you do to help beat Monday Blues? Let me know in the comments!! 😍
Awesome post ! When I feel sad I use a technique that I like the most. I tell myself that after I finished my work and all. I would feel proud and it will be over. I basicly see myself after the efforts I made and I don't think about the hard stuff. Also I like to listen to cheering music ! helps me alot ! :P
I really like that!! and yes, cheerful music can have such an impact! Maybe I will try and wake up to cheerful music on mondays from now on :) thank you @matthieu4013 :)
meep
meep!!
meep
no problem! happy to help :P
meep
Great attitude!
I like this post a lot. I find being grateful helps keep a positive mindset too. Usually at the end of my day I run through all the things (big and small) that I'm grateful for during the day. I've been doing it consistently for a few months (I started off with three things but now I just keep going until I can't think of anything else) and I feel happy for what I have nearly all of the time. It's so good.
Yeah thats great advice. I think I will try and do that as well and actually write a physical list of the things i'm grateful for at the end of each day :) thanks a lot @choogirl :)
I love Mondays :)
hahahaha
Now why doesn't that surprise me?!
These are all related to mental instability due to various factors around us. For me meditation helps in stabilizing. Also when the day is ruff at office, doing breathing exercise for 5 minutes helps in calming down and taking better decisions. Try taking a long breath slowly and exhaling it the same way. This prevents taking spontaneous wrong decisions most of the times.
Thanks for that @themystic I will try these :)
Beautifully written post. I still hate Mondays, but this definitely helps a little.
haha thank you @linzy13
me too!!!
Love your doggie memes @hannahlicious. My yoga teacher encourages us to set an intention at the start of each day's practice -whatever is most appropriate, such as 'I choose to have a beautiful day' and/or 'I will be patient, kind, focused ...' Namaste 🌜 🌞
We all hate Mondays 😜 😜
haha :)
Yup, I am huge believer in the power of visualization. I've dabbled with affirmations from time to time too but currently visualization is my go-to method. Interestingly enough, I already read this book that talked about the benefit of negative thinking....so even though it sounds sort of contradictory, I actually use positive visualization along with negative thinking and it seems to work really well.
What I mean by negative thinking is basically to imagine the potential negative things that could happen. Once you do that, you develop ways/strategies for mitigating that. In some circumstances it works really well. Positive visualization can be used along with them in that you can even imagine something going wrong but also imagine yourself handling it well.
It's definitely powerful stuff.
ahhh okay I like the sound of that @jen8, kind of thinking, whats the worst that could happen? and then seeing yourself managing to deal with that great anyway, I definitely may try that too :)
thanks a lot for the advice :) and for stopping by!! :)
I agree with this list, I mean being able to speak yourself out of feeling certain ways can be effective. Almost like giving yourself a pep talk because lets be real if you can do it for others then why not yourself. I do it all the time and find it effective in most circumstances. Mind over body I suppose which can have a disconnection at times.
Especially when moral is at a all time low. Nice post, Upvoted and #Reesteemed ;)
thanks so much @antoniowestley
Yeah definitely like 'giving yourself a pep talk' and so true... we do it for our friends all the time so should be able to talk ourselves back up as well :)
thanks for stopping by :)
Nice post
thank you @phillips93 :)