Positive Health Online

For most of my life I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. My mood went up and down, up and down. I experienced what most people experience; that things often do not always go as planned and that daily life is full of unwanted surprises and failed expectations.

A few years ago, I got really fed up with other people and outside events, basically things that I had no control over whatsoever. This threw my mood into a negative, downward spiral. I decided that I did not want to live like this anymore. I wanted to be in control of my mood. I did not want my girlfriend, my kids, a colleague, or any stranger to have such a strong influence on my mind-set anymore. I did not want outside circumstances, totally outside my control, to influence how I felt during any given day.

Highly motivated and in lack of any theory or process to solve my problem, I laid the task upon myself. I decided to figure out how I could take more control over my life with the goal to stay positive, however challenging it might be, and at the same time look forward to my future. At first it seemed impossible. I considered myself a good person but I was  experiencing bad things. So, how could I do something with bad stuff that originated from someone or somewhere else?

Then it hit me. I was the one giving time and attention to these negative events. I was the one poisoning myself with the fear of lack of money or what people thought about me, jealousy over other people’s good fortunes, bitterness of losing my business, and so on. I realized that negative thoughts and feelings were poisoning my body and mind, and I was the one in control of giving these poisons my attention. I was ultimately in control of letting the poison into my system. No one else. My mood was my responsibility.

Realizing that negative thoughts and feelings are acid poison for my mind and body changed everything for me, right there and then. I never believed that we were supposed to live sad lives. I believe we are all born happy and connected to the universe. However, I had experienced first-hand, how stress and negativity, affected my body and mind to the brink of total collapse. I knew from all the self-help I had studied whilst at university that positive thoughts and feelings were the antidote. Negative thoughts and feelings block your system, positive thoughts and feelings open your system. Just as negative body posture blocks positive thoughts and a positive body posture generate positive thoughts. You can easily test this on yourself. Just stand up with your chin down, your shoulders forward, a slight forward curve in your back, while pulling your eyebrows hard together. Do you feel glad? Do you feel happy? Not very likely! Pull your shoulders back, lift your chin, straighten your back, relax your eyebrows, and put a nice smile on your face. Do you feel glad now? Sure you do! If this little experiment show how your body affects your mind, just imagine how much more then, your mind affects your body, with ten thousand’s off thoughts a day.

So, if negative thoughts and feelings are poison, and positive thoughts and feelings are the antidote, getting rid of the poison and be glad or happy, should be a fairly easy task to accomplish. Well in theory, but for me the problem was not how to think positive, but how to stop thinking negative. You may have noticed how thoughts seem to multiply themselves with similar thoughts in seconds. It can happen to you in an instant, at any time of the day. It could be someone cutting you off in traffic or taking your parking spot. It could be someone accidentally pushing you and you drop your phone in the process. You could be worrying about why your boss walked passed you earlier, without saying hello. It could be the news headlines about new terror attacks, or an article on the next financial crisis, or on an increase in support for a different political direction than your own. It could be almost anything, but that anything triggers an unstoppable stream of negative thoughts, and on you go, down the spiral of negativity.

So how on earth do we stop this negative thought spiral?

What are the Common Poisons of Life?

Let’s first see if we can identify what the common negative poisons are in today’s societies. I divide them in three groups. negative stuff we carry around, negative people we carry around and negative outside influences.

• Negative Stuff we carry around are usually negative experiences that we do not let go of. Typically, something you regret doing or not doing, or something you worry about. In particular, if we have a negative past or a negative childhood, we tend to carry it with us. A negative past that is basically an unlimited source of negative poison, if you allow to dig into it. I do not believe you find happiness by digging in your negative past, and in my opinion you are better off locking the door to any negative past and throw away the key. I grew up on a farm and we had the expression “If you dig in dirt, you get dirty.”  I for certain, do not want to dig in dirt when I am Poisoned;
• Negative People we carry around are people in or out of your life that have done something towards you that you have not forgiven;
• Negative Outside influences are anything you experience in you daily life that triggers a stream of negative thoughts. I have already mentioned the media which play well on bad news selling better than good news. Advertisements also often play on negativity, like “Feel a cold…take this pill.” If you are religious you have endless access to negative thoughts you can poison yourself with. Religions encourage negativity with its constant reminders of sins and redemption, god and bad. I am not telling you what to believe, I am just questioning if it is healthy to feel guilty if you are on a mission to be happy. The final source of outside poison I want to point to is social media. Yes, I believe that for many, social media is a source of poison. You may know the old expression “keeping up with the Joneses.” On social media, a lot of people experience this stressful rat race daily; “keeping up with the amazing, problem free life of my social media friends.” People post a carefree life on their social media platforms, about how well they eat, all the parties they attend, their amazing travels. I understand how anyone believing this is real can feel sorry for themselves. Not to mention the strain these social media have on relationships with the ease of private messaging and commenting on posts.

How Do We Then Live a Life #NOTPOISONED?

The above gives you an idea about common poisons in life, but I really urge you to take a moment and try to discover your poisons. Because when you have discovered what Poisoned you, you can do something about it.

I developed a process to rid yourself of poison and stay #NOTPOISONED in my book Poisoned – an interactive life guide. It is very simple: confront, let go and lock out.

This process along with the exercises I developed, gave me and now many others a new starting point. To ensure we stay #NOTPOISONED throughout the day we use a secret assistant. The secret assistant is Gratitude. When you are truly thankful for what you have in your life, it is impossible to be mad or worry at the same time. Just try. Therefore, we make it our first priority in life, to start every morning reading through the Thankfulness list.

To ensure we stay on track, no matter what happened during the day, we use the App - Poisoned, (download for FREE from AppStore or Play.) The App will remind you every morning and evening to read through your Thankfulness list, and pop up reminders randomly throughout the day. (It also has audio files for the three exercises to throw out the Poison.)

This started our movement to stay #NOTPOISONED and enjoy life as it is, right now. Not that we do not occasionally fall into the poisonous negativity spiral, but now we are alert and notice what happens, so we stop our slide down the negative spiral, we turn, and we avoid getting Poisoned again.

I hope it can do the same for you! Stay #NOTPOISONED 

Further Information

Poisoned by Svein Erik Scheie (published November 2016 by CreateSpace RRP in paperback and eboo) is available to purchase from amazon.co.uk  and amazon.com For more information please visit www.sveinerikscheie.com/