This article is in our series about increasing happiness and life satisfaction. Many people with chronic pain can’t decrease their pain. So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life – perhaps even more important – is to increase the positive. That’s what we’ll look at in this series.
For the last few weeks, we’ve looked at optimism. Today we’ll look at hope.
To be more hopeful, we can learn to recognize our pessimistic thoughts and then change them to be more hopeful. You can use “ABCD” (I’ve slightly changed the acronym from Authentic Happiness).
A – What is the adverse event?
B – What are the beliefs that you’re having because of this event? (Beliefs are just thoughts; they are not necessarily true.)
C – What are the consequences of these beliefs?
D – How can you dispute these beliefs?
So let’s look at some examples:
A – Susan wasn’t invited to the wedding of a coworker Ann.
B – Susan starts to think, “I was left out. Maybe everyone else was invited and Ann doesn’t like me. Maybe no one really likes me at work.” (See how our thoughts can spiral?)
C – Susan feels upset and sad because of these thoughts.
D – To dispute these thoughts, Susan can do several things:
Here’s another example:
A – Colin’s new pain medication didn’t work.
B – Colin starts to think, “This one didn’t work, just like that last one. I bet there’s no medication that will help me. I’ll be left with this pain for my whole life.”
C – Colin starts to feel discouraged and hopeless.
D – To dispute these thoughts, Colin can do several things:
Your assignment: Practice ABCD for one negative event each day. Look for pessimistic thoughts and dispute them.
And share in the comments so we all can learn!