Trying to be positive

Sometimes it is easier to see the negative side of a s situation and a little harder to see the posiives, especially if you are a pessimist which is what I used to be. Something that I have learnt through my illness is that life really is too short to always look at things negatively, so I have started to try and look for the positives in every situation, as more often than not there will be some.

A simple example of this for me is winter. I generally hate cold weather. I dont particularly enjoy the way the icy air stings my face when I walk Tess early of  morning and I hate feeling cold. I hate it when it gets dark so early and there are fewer hours of daylight. I hate not being able to do the fun summer activities that I enjoy like spending time outdoors, camping, swimming and sunbaking.

However there are some things I do like about winter which I try to concentrate on when I start thinking about these negative things. I love sitting in front of the wood fire on a cold day and bloggin or watchin tv. I love the feeling of stepping into a warm house after being outside in the cold. I love roasting marshmallows on our families open fire when I visit them as well as drinking hot chocolate. I love the feeling of stepping into a hot shower or snuggling into bed of a night when it is cold.

After making an effort to look for the positives in every situation for a while now, I feel so much happier in myself and also love making other people see  the positives in order to cheer them up as well.  Now, I would no longer call myelf a pessimist, but instead an optimist as I generally find myself thinking about the poitives in a situation rather the the negatives without even trying.

Some things, like my illness seem to have far more negatives associated with it but when I thoug hreall hard, i found that even my anorexia had some positives. These iclude the strength have gained through being sick as well but more specifically in my recovery. I think that I always had the same amount of bravery aand stregth, itjust took having to overcome something as difficult as my anorexia to truly realise just how strong I could be. After getting through the worst of my illness, I now know that I am strong enough to get through anything life throws at me.

Something else that I think is a positive is the fact that I now have my blog, which is my place where I can express myself as well as try and help other people to deal with and recover from their eating disorders. If I hadn't lived through anorexia myself, then I wouldn't have the experience to be able to give other suffferers advice on how they can get well and I wouldn't be able to show them that recovery from an eating disorder is possible and also that it is worth all the pain that is associated with recovery. I also would never have met some of the lovely people who I talk to via email or my blog.

So if you are a pessimist, who generally sees the negative side of a situation, make a conscious effort to see the positives too. Life really is more wonderful when you can look at the positive things and if you do this for long eough, you may even be able to train your self to be a optimist, like I have been able to do.