Let’s be honest: the world can be an awful place. From personal devastation to national tragedies and global catastrophes… It’s easy to feel depressed about the state of the world. There are plenty of reasons to feel disappointed and disillusioned by those in positions of power or overwhelmed by the inequality and division in our society.
It’s normal to feel discouraged about the world.
Lots of bad things happen in the world, and feeling bad about it is a normal response. It’s okay to feel: grief about what has happened, anxious about what will happen next, overwhelmed by how big the problems are, guilty for not doing more, and hopeless about the future.
These feelings are all normal, but they can also be disabling. You need to take care of yourself in order to function in the world and help make it a better place. Prioritizing your own mental health and happiness is the first step in being able to make a difference.
Practice self-affirmation.
When predicting how they will feel in the future, people overestimate the impact that imagined negative events will have on their mental and emotional states, partly because they underestimate their own psychological resiliency.
Because self-affirmation enhances resiliency, two studies examined whether self-affirmation reduces the extremity of predicted future emotions. In both studies, self-affirmation reduced the unpleasant feelings expected to result from a negative event. Results are consistent with and support self-affirmation as a way of activating or enhancing psychological resiliency when thinking of a negative event.
Prioritize your mental wellness.
If you automatically see the negative in a situation or think pessimistically about the future, don’t be too hard on yourself. The human brain has a natural tendency to pay attention to negative experiences more than positive ones. Psychologists refer to this as negativity bias. “Our brains are wired to scout for the bad stuff” and fixate on the threat, says psychologist Rick Hanson.
The authors of a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that self-affirmation was an effective way to stop people from ruminative thinking, which is “the process of continuously thinking about the same thoughts, which tend to be sad or dark.” A habit of rumination can be dangerous to your mental health, as it “can prolong or intensify depression as well as impair your ability to think and process emotions.”
When you have these negative thoughts, instead of feeling guilty for thinking them, actively resisting them, or choosing to ruminate over them, simply observe them. Let that thought exist without judgment and then choose to focus on the good in your life.
Make space for gratitude and positivity.
If you base your happiness or unhappiness on major events and external circumstances, you’re not going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on the quality of your thoughts, your mindset and attitude, and the focus of your life, then you can live with quite a bit of happiness.
Even when the world seems dark, you can find brighter moments. You don’t have to ignore the bad things to see the good things in your life. You have control over the focus of your life and the thoughts that you allow to persist. Acknowledge your negative emotions without dwelling on them and focus on the positive.
“That’s the key, isn’t it? To know the darkness will always remain, but how you choose to face it, handle it… that’s the most important part. To not let it consume. To focus upon the good, the things that fill you with wonder.”
Sarah J. Maas
How to practice affirmations:
If you’re interested in using affirmations for increasing positivity and resilience, the Selfpause app has a variety of mental wellness affirmations to help you make time for yourself and your mental health. You can also use the app to write and record your own personal affirmations!
