Very often, people equate positive thinking with mental wellness. Positive thinking is a very important aspect of mental wellness, but they are not synonymous.
I like to think of a house that has a lot of rooms with closets and furnishings. Positive thinking is like decorating these rooms and straightening them up so they look pretty. It’s making the bed, closing the closet doors, opening the blinds, putting up a nice picture or putting a pretty plant on the table. It really makes the room pleasant to look at and be in.
On the other hand, thought work pulls everything out of the closets, from under the bed, the piles of papers on the desk and the countertop and puts them in the middle of the room. Has anyone seen Marie Kondo? Then it goes through each item and decides if that item needs to go into garbage, recycling, donated, or if you want to keep it and put it back in the closet, or put it on display. It decides whether an item is useful or not useful.
All of the things in our proverbial house are thoughts. Learning to have positive thoughts is really helpful and nice. But it’s not enough if you never go through everything stuffed into closets and under beds. A room can be beautifully decorated, and still not pleasant to be in if there is stuff all over the floor, or spilling out from under the bed or out of the closet.
A coach is like a house cleaner or home organizer who comes in and helps you go through everything. She tells you all of her tips and tricks to getting things cleaned and organized. She doesn’t decide which things you should keep. She just listens and helps you recognize what is useful and what isn’t. You know what you want the environment of your home and mind to be like.
You can do it yourself. But it’s more fun, efficient, and sometimes more effective with a coach. Above all, though, mental wellness isn’t a one-time job. It’s a continuous work. You don’t do the whole house in one day. You work on it little-by-little. Along the way you’ll create some lasting and helpful routines that help you keep up on it.
P.S. If you’re curious what it would be like to work with a coach, be sure to sign-up for a free coaching session with me. It’s like having a house cleaner come to your house for free! It can feel very vulnerable at first, but know that I do this all of the time. There’s nothing in your house I haven’t seen. And I LOVE when it’s a mess.