Finding our way back to hope

It was late 2017 and I was struggling with my mental health.

I had suffered from extreme post-natal depression and anxiety after my son’s birth, and it had taken me a while to access the substantial support that I needed. I had returned to my corporate work as well as running my Amatsu business and this return to some of my previous, known identity was helping, but I certainly wasn’t out of the woods. The demands of working in an environment that had changed a lot since my maternity leave, broken sleep and the ever-shifting world of motherhood was taking its toll. I struggled daily and had a list of things that I needed to do to keep myself on track, which in itself exhausted me. It wasn’t a pleasant time.

I happened to read an article about a study where participants were shown a picture with lots of faces on it, some with positive expressions and others negative. Curious, I followed a link to take part in the experiment and noticed very quickly that I struggled to see the positive expressions quickly while the angry, sad, disappointed faces leapt out at me. It told me so much about my state of mind.

I decided to work on it. It wasn’t easy at first, but I kept going back to the link again and again. I started to actively look for the smiling faces, the open faces. I got quicker at it. It started to become easier.

Spurred on by this, I started to try it in my daily life. I began actively looking for beauty, for positivity, for smiles. And I saw more of them. And more. It wasn’t that they hadn’t been there before, but my depression had taken me to a place where I had a negative bias in my thinking that was making it hard to see what was in front of me.

It was a slow process and it wasn’t the only thing I was doing to help myself, but it blew my mind that I actually could make a change to my experience of the world around me. It became a pleasure, rather than a chore. I was actively looking for delight, joy and positivity. Sometimes it meant that I had to actually create interactions that led to that feeling, which in itself created more connection and meaning to my day.

There was only one thing - I couldn’t do it from my home or desk. I absolutely had to be out in the world, interacting with what was outside of my space - people, sky, trees, opportunities. One of the things that Covid-times did to many of us was to keep us indoors and away from the nourishment of real interaction, and that has now embedded itself in parts of how we work, socialise and engage. I believe we are less for it in some ways. We need each other and we need sky and trees. We need chance encounters and moments of connection. We need to be out in the world to put ourselves in the way of joy.

All these years on, does it mean that I never feel despondent, exhausted or afraid? Of course I feel those things. But each time I experience the effects of looking for the beauty, it reinforces that neural pathway. I remember it over and over and in the remembering I flex that muscle again and again. It gets easier to resurface, to breathe in the goodness.

Even though the news would have us think that the world is populated by angry, hateful, divisive individuals, I prefer to challenge that. I think most people are generally good, but act out of fear, pain and the kind of negatively biased thinking that I experienced, that all of us experience.

Maybe we can begin to change that, one positive face at a time.

Things like Positive News , especially the print version, also help!