Get in Touch With Your Inner Pollyanna

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened ... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut ... Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out! ... People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts.” 

Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna   
 
Pollyanna, that indomitably happy character and creation of Eleanor H. Porter, taught us to look for the best in ourselves, focusing on what’s good in ourselves and others. How many of us do that for ourselves? Instead, how many of us look for all the ways we show up in which we aren’t good enough or worthy enough as if by focusing upon our faults we can make ourselves better?  
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In the past it was my habit to call to mind all those things I felt uncomfortable about as soon as I woke up in the morning. It might have been something that happened the day before in which I felt ‘less than.’ It might have been something I’d worried over, or someone I was worried about. Whatever it was, the thoughts and images would pop into my mind, one following another as I fell down the rabbit hole of negative thinking before I'd even gotten out of bed. I’d get up feeling grumpy and irritable, resistant to all the possibilities for happiness each new day offered.

That’s not how it has to be.  It is your right and your choice to feel good in the morning when you wake up, and to feel good throughout the day. You can choose to focus upon the positive aspects of how you show up in every situation in which you find yourself.
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I have recently been enjoying the “Great British Baking Show,” in which amateur bakers compete. At the end of each episode one baker wins Star Baker, and one baker has to go home, those remaining compete again the following week. Understandably the losing baker is often disheartened and self-critical. In this most recent episode I was impressed by the attitude of the losing baker. She was disappointed, but when the others comforted her with hugs she responded by saying, “This has been the best!” You could tell that she meant it. She chose to focus upon the positive aspects.
    
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”  
Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Granted some of us have well-worn ruts of negativity to pull ourselves out of, habits of thought built up over a lifetime. Allow yourself to follow this advice from Dan Millman. Rather than berating yourself for any negativity that shows up in your thoughts, focus upon building new pathways with new positive thoughts, choice by choice, thought by thought, day by day. Allow yourself to get in touch with your inner Pollyanna.

painting of Hayley Mills as Pollyanna from Disney poster, artist unknown

Your Spiritual Toolbox

​Happiness is a thought by thought choice.  It is the result of the habit of filling your mind with positive thoughts.

Starting with your next thought, notice the trend. Does it support you? If not, find something, anything, to think that feels better than what you were just thinking.

‘Pollyanna’ your way into feeling better by focusing on what is right in this situation that you find yourself.  What did you do right? What did they do right? What were your positive motivations and intentions?

​Allow yourself to focus on the best of you that shows up for any given situation. As you do so, you can trust that more and more of the best of you will keep showing up.