positive thinking

It's odd that we hear a lot about the power of positive thinking (well over ten million hits on Google) but not so much about the insidiously destructive power of negative thinking. After the onset of my hearing loss last April and after having discovered that not only will the loss not get better but the prognosis is grim-ish, I have indulged in way too much negative thinking. Negative thinking is a spiral that leads you into a vortex of self-pity and depression. It's never the event itself but the perception of the event, and later its interpretation that starts the negative spin. Since April, I have found that I live inside my head far more often than outside of it. I have created an island, a pool of thinking about my predicament and have found it progressively harder to leave the island and to swim out of the pool in order to fully participate in the outside world. While in this state, the outside world obviously continues spinning merrily but I am losing hours, days, weeks not engaging in it. Yet it's the only world we have: if not engaged in it, you might as well fade into the sunset, go gentle into that good night, give up the ghost! To paraphrase a quote from a favourite movie of mine, The Shawshank Redemption: if you're not busy living, you're busy dying.

So the other day I went down to my local mall to do some Christmas shopping for my wife. She was good enough to supply me with a long and detailed short wish list of items she'd like Santa to get for her. The day was fine...more than fine, actually. Our weather of late has been fabulous. It feels like December in the Carolinas. The temps hover around the 5-10 degrees C mark, there's no wind to speak of, the air is crisp but not in that icy way that saws through the bones and often the sun peeks from behind the clouds. Some say it's not christmasy enough for them but I say "bah, humbug"! Christmas is what you make it, right? Would you prefer to slosh through mounds of filthy snow, jump over snow banks, skid on black ice and recieve an icy spray of slush in your face from passing motorists as you attempt to cross the road? Thought not! Mind you, all the above pleasures are in store for us in the coming weeks, of that I have no doubt. Anyhoo....so as I reached the mall the other day, on that fine warm-ish winter aft, I was thinking my usual gloomy thoughts. In my defence let it be stated that the ear affliction I have is truly unpleasant (constant tinnitus and a loss of hearing, not to mention an occasional feeling of fullness in the ear that feels as if cement has been poured all the way down to my brain) This is not such an easy disease to cope it for a musician. When I have those attacls of fullness, I can hardly hear in the affected ear and gigging regularly becomes rather difficult. But what is even more scary to me is that many doctors think that what I have is a precursor to Meniere's disease. The hallmark of Meniere's is severe rotational vertigo. It is this aspect of the whole thing that has me dooming and glooming so much...because I have an obsessive thought pattern and once a thought takes hold, look out! I can't get rid of it for days or weeks. So, as I said, my inner world has been on the negative side lately.

But guess what? Walking into Fairview Mall and milling about for a while, I actually got infected with a bit of Christmas cheer. The lights were bright and my steps were light, a beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in the shopping wonderland. First I went to the record store and bought a couple of CD's: Madelaine Peyroux's latest called Half the Perfect World. A very fine album from one of my favourite contemporary jazz artist. I also bought Miles Davis' classic Sketches of Spain. I believe I have an LP of it somewhere but I wanted a CD to listen to in the car. It's an absolutely amazing recording and probably the only credible jazz interpretation of a European classical composition. A giant accomplishment by Miles and arranger Gil Evans. The only problem in the CD store was the level of the piped in music which must have nudged 90db's. I quickly inserted my handy dandy piece of cotton in my bad ear which must be protected at all times but I thought - pity the folks who have to work there.

Then I skedaddled on over to the Bay and started on my wife's long and detailed short wish list. I was able to get most of the stuff I needed with a quickie detour to Shoppers Drug Mart and Grand and Toy (if you're reading this, my dear, you can kind of guess what I got - but only kind of!)

At the end of it all, as I walked to my car, my thought process had turned wholly positive and there was a bounce in my sprightly step. I started realizing that it's not just our mood that affects our thoughts byt primarily our thoughts that affect our mood (for a primer on cognitive therapy see works by Aaron Beck) Just like I said at the outset: it need not be the event that will affect our life but rather the way we percieve and process the event. In the past few days - and in the spirit of the season - I've been processing in a much more positive way.

Feliz navidad!