5 Ways to Stay Positive When You Just Do Not Feel Like It

Living with any chronic condition can affect our mental health, duh! But how do we overcome the lows?

If I have said it once, you have heard me say it way too many times: “Stay Positive.”

At times I even hate saying it, as much as you hate hearing or reading it from me. It’s like doing the wedding reception “cha cha slide”—we get it, people.

But unlike the same ole songs at church wedding receptions, staying positive must never become something everyone expects us to do or something we believe we are required to live out loud. Why? Because it is not always practical.

Life happens. Work sucks. You’re broke. We all have debt. The relationships end too early, or go on too long. The kids won’t be good. The adult kids won’t either. And sex is the last thing you want to do, and it’s the first thing you notice your partner is withholding.

So how the hell are you supposed to be able to “Stay Positive” in the middle of all that?

Short answer: You’re not.

But what do you do then? Well, try and “Stay Positive.”

 

Here are 5 Ways to Stay Positive When You Just Do Not Feel Like It: 

1. LAUGH!

I mean it. Fake it till you make it, even. Laugh at everything. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your circumstance. Laugh at how bad you look, or how good you look in the middle of all the bad around around. Then laugh at laughing.

Humor is literally the only way that I have it made if this far in my life.

“In fact, one study suggests that healthy children may laugh as much as 400 times per day, but adults tend to laugh only 15 times per day.” – according to Very Well.

2. SMILE!

Sounds easy enough. But from someone who literally shows every emotion on his face always, sometimes smiling is the hardest and toughest thing to do. But, smiling helps people more than you may even know.

According to NBC News: “The fact is, as Dr. Isha Gupta a neurologist from IGEA Brain and Spine explains, a smile spurs a chemical reaction in the brain, releasing certain hormones including dopamine and serotonin.”

3. TELL SOMEONE! 

This is pretty tough for me, even, at times—to tell someone else that I’m struggling or not feeling all happy happy today, but that’s why we have a support circle right?

Listen, people can’t earn the big payoff of being in my support circle if they aren’t actually willing to support me when I need it. They better put up or shut up. And usually I find that just by talking it out leads to me discovering something (or them showing me something that I haven’t thought about or considered).

4. BE YOU! 

It’s completely okay to not feel 100% great all the time. If you did, I might be concerned anyways. We all have bad days, so don’t be tough on yourself for needing a moment (or day) to yourself and even if that means you just stay in bed. Sometimes those times are not only needed in the moment, but beneficial in the scope of your entire busy life.

So, just be you! That’s always a pretty solid choice.

5. DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE!

We all need to be investing in others’ lives anyway and this is a good time to take your focus off of you and your circumstances—by focusing on helping someone else or just doing something nice for another human being.

It is probably the pride we feel that starts to pick us up out of our slump when we get meaningful pinvolved in another person’s life. So, what meaningful things can you do? Nah, champ, I’m not going to let you off the hook that easy— but here’s a hint… if you really aren’t sure what you can do… just post on Facebook that you want to help someone do something today and I promise, people will respond. If they don’t, email me… I can help you get busy doing something! Kidding!

Just hang in there. We are living a tough life with a bad set of circumstances, but we aren’t dying.

We are living!

So, “Stay Positive!”

Xo!