Q: I find it hard to see things from a positive view. Being a young
farm wife, I am worried about the future for our family. I strongly
suspect we may have to leave farming to support ourselves. How can I
help myself look at things more positively?
A: Things are certainly rough for prairie farm families right now, and
the future is uncertain. But how you look at things can determine how
you feel and how much energy you have to deal with them.
Read Also
Vintage power on display at Saskatchewan tractor pull
At the Ag in Motion farm show held earlier this year near Langham, Sask., a vintage tractor pull event drew pretty significant crowds of show goers, who were mostly farmers.
Newfoundlanders faced a similar crisis when the cod stocks fell and
fishing stopped. Many were on the verge of turning their boats over to
their lending institution. Because of this, many young Newfoundlanders
left and found jobs in Alberta.
Life is full of change. This isn’t new. During the 1930s, many people
migrated from the southern dust bowl north and started over.
Dawn Brown’s book, That Perception Thing, may help you find positive
ways to look at life. She shares helpful ways to realize when you have
the wrong filter in your mind, and by changing it, often with humour,
you can change how you feel.
When a negative feeling overwhelms you, try to look at it from more
than one perspective. Life has many possibilities, but often we lock
ourselves into only one choice and fail to see the others.
Once our mind is set on one way of looking at things, it gets stubborn.
It is easy to become hooked on misery and depression. You may know you
are feeling rotten, but you are afraid of trying to move out of it
because it is too uncomfortable.
When Brown’s son was a toddler, he liked to come into bed with his
parents for a few minutes in the morning. Sometimes he wouldn’t call
out and ask to do this. Brown wondered why. It turned out that on those
days, he had wet his bed and didn’t want to leave it. He felt
uncomfortable lying in a wet bed. But he knew he would be colder if he
got out of bed, even though a few minutes later, after a warm bath,
he’d feel much better.
So because he didn’t want to face the bigger discomfort of getting out
of bed, he chose to stay in it.
Brown said many of us spend longer than we have to in the “peed bed”
when something
unpleasant happens in life.
Brown is an insightful counsellor who shares her ideas well and directs
you to other helpful books. That Perception Thing by Dawn Brown is
published by Creative Bound Inc. $16.95 and can be
ordered at 800-287-8610.
Peter Griffiths is a mental health counsellor based in Prince Albert,
Sask. His columns are intended as general advice only. His
website is www3.sk.sympatico.ca/petecope.
