In Episode 35, we briefly looked at how emotions affect our mental and physical health and a couple of the healing modalities that can help with emotional resilience. Tonight, I want to take a few minutes to think about positivity and realism.

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Welcome to the PEEP Podcast. I’m your host Nicolle Morock, and on this episode, we're going to briefly consider how being an optimist can affect your perception of reality… and maybe even affect your reality.

But first, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of this show – from my guests to my supportive friends to especially, you – my listeners. For the second year in a row, the PEEP Podcast placed in Strange Carolinas' Best of NC Awards for Best Podcast. This year, we took second place! I'm grateful and humbled by your votes, and I'll continue to do my best to bring you thought-provoking and entertaining topics. Congratulations to all the other winners and nominees across all the categories. It's always fun to see who else made the cut and to vote for my own favorites in their wide variety of categories. And thanks to Strange Carolinas for holding the contest each year!

I'd also like to thank those of you who have reached out through the contact form at peeppodcast.com. I appreciate your messages, private stories, and the articles you've sent me. Keep them coming! The fact that you care enough to reach out means the world to me.

And on the subject of gratitude, I'd like to return to tonight's show topic, because an attitude of gratitude is a key component of an optimistic outlook and positive perspective.

The inspiration for this episode came to me in mid-February. I wrote down my initial thoughts and set them aside, thinking that the timing wasn't quite right, yet. This morning, while meditating, the memory of those thoughts returned, and I found the page I'd written.

Now – with the world in turmoil on a level it hasn't been in a long time, I think it might be a good time to discuss positivity and how mindset is important on many levels.

There's no doubt I'm naturally optimistic. From an early age, I was reminded to be grateful for whatever I had in the glass, whether it was half-full, a quarter-full, or just a few drops, at least I had something when not everybody did. I learned to count my blessings, no matter how small and know that even when things were bad, there was much to be grateful for.

Honestly, as cheesy as it sounds, counting my blessings got me through some very personal, heartbreaking experiences with my optimism intact.

I know not everyone is wired the same way, and that's okay. The world would be a boring place if we were. But I do wish more people held on to positive thoughts and released negativity from their lives. Sometimes that means eliminating negative self-talk and working on self-esteem, and sometimes that means letting go of the people that do the negative talk for you – or to you, for that matter. Both are forms of self-care, and both are important.

Like I said, mindset is key. In fact, in most cases, it's everything.

• Gratitude leads to joy.
• Love and compassion squash anger.
• Expectation of success leads to success.
• Hope is a product of faith, and by faith, I don't necessarily mean a specific religious belief. I'm talking more along the lines of the quote from Miracle on 34^th Street: Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to. Faith could be religious, spiritual, or even a form of confidence in your own abilities, but it's almost always about something intangible and difficult to see with your own eyes.
• Positivity is all a part of this, and one might say a result of all these things.

Before I go any further, I want to make the point that we're all human. Even those who practice this mindset have moments of anger, fear, and doubt, but that's why it's called a practice. Perfection is an impossible goal for 99.99% of us, so don't let your imperfection convince you that you can't be better today than you were yesterday. It's all up to you.

After I wrote those thoughts down, I picked up a book called "Tarot Plain & Simple," and flipped to a random page I hadn't read yet, and this line immediately jumped out at me: Jung noted the importance of an attitude of hopeful expectation as a necessary condition for the success of Rhine's ESP experiments.

Imagine my surprise that the author Anthony Louis, a psychiatrist who studies astrology, symbolism, and divination, was writing about Jung and my favorite parapsychological researcher, JB Rhine, and that he was writing about an aspect of a positive mindset.

That quote leads me to my next observation about positivity: It can be powerful. Not only can it affect your perception of reality, but it can have an effect on reality itself. One of the many things I've learned about doing energy work – from clearing a house of negative entities to practicing Reiki or the Emotion Code on clients, setting the expectation for success is a big part of achieving what you set out to do.

Whether you're talking about visualizing a positive outcome for an experiment, a medical procedure, or a job interview, that act of optimism can help you create that very result. While this may sound like magical thinking, there is some scientific research to back this up, and it's been studied and written about for decades. It's not enough to think positively, though; in everyday life, you must do the work to establish it and make it real.

An article from the Mayo Clinic, which I'll link to in the show notes, makes the point that people with positive mindsets tend to be healthier, better at handling stress, and have an increased lifespan. That particular article focuses on one way that you can become a more positive person, and that's by reducing negative self-talk. Self-talk is the constant chatter that happens in most people's heads as they go through the day. An example of negative self-talk is "I can't do this." The positive version of that thought would be "I can give it a try."

Some negative self-talk is so ingrained from childhood, that it takes a lot of work to change it. That's where positive affirmations come in. For example, over my lifetime, I developed a fear of scarcity. I never had enough money. I always thought I'd never be able to have anything more than basic necessities. Someone would always be better than me, and that meant that I'd never be enough or have enough. At some point, I realized that my attitude was part of my problem, but it still took me a while to understand that I had to change my self-talk to truly change my mindset.

So, last year, I started saying this positive affirmation three times every morning:
I am abundant. I deserve abundance, and I will share my abundance with gratitude.

I say it three times because that's how many times it can take to actually feel it as truth. For you it may take more or less.

Then, everything started to change. Opportunities to make extra money through freelance work fell into my lap. Inspiration for new revenue streams came to light. And my financial situation started to improve.

But wait. Before you accuse me of magical thinking, I want to tell you, I didn't just say the mantra, I put in the work. When you ask for things to change, you have to change the way you respond to your surroundings and situations. I could have said "no" to the freelance work because my time is limited and not made extra money. Magical thinking would have me believe that affirmation meant I'd bring lottery winnings into my life. But that's not what was at work. It was me opening myself up to new opportunities by saying I'll accept them as they come. And as they've come, I've been able to increase my generosity and improve my ability to share my abundance.

But abundance isn't just about money. It's about time, friendship, family, love, empathy, compassion, and blessings. It's about sharing talents and newfound skills to help those around me, and it's something everyone deserves.

But I digress.

There's another article I'd like to share with you. I found it on the National Library of Medicine's section of the National Institute of Health website. It's titled "The Ethics of Positive Thinking in Healthcare," and while it doesn't disagree with the other article, it does point out that there can be drawbacks to telling everyone to think positively all the time. I'd be remiss if I didn't share a few potential issues.

First, telling someone facing a tragic diagnosis to be positive can show a lack of empathy. While in your heart you may be thinking it's the best thing to say, it's not necessarily appropriate to say it out loud to them. They have to process the information in their own way, on their own time, and they may need professional counseling to come to terms with it before being able to see any potential positive outcome. Trying to force the issue will only make them feel like you're out of touch with reality.

Second, too much optimism can be a bad thing. Not to get political, but Putin's invasion of Ukraine is at least partly due to his overly positive view of his right to enforce his will on others. And it's totally unacceptable. Yes, it's an extreme example, but you get the point. The man actually believed it was the will of the Universe that he take over a sovereign nation. I'm pretty sure the Universe or God or whatever title you want to use does not will anyone to lose their freedom.

The article also points out that the world of self-help and positive thinking gurus includes people who think that optimism can replace modern medicine. That way of thinking can be dangerous, and that's where the question of ethics comes in. As I've said in previous episodes, alternative therapies can be complementary to modern medicine, but they should not replace it. Give the two the chance to work together as a holistic approach. As the daughter of a woman who was a nurse for 45 years, I will NEVER tell anyone to ignore a doctor's orders or skip an important medication. God, the Creator, Divine Intelligence, or whatever you want to call the greater power gave us all types of medicine, and we should appreciate and utilize advances in healthcare as they come.

So, now that I've shared some thoughts about positivity and reality, what are yours? Feel free to stop by the Facebook page or its associated group and comment.

Thanks for listening!