By DR. VICTOR S. SIERPINA
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau
What if the only thing holding us back from our potential self is our own thinking?
Recently, a patient came for her annual physical. Not much had transpired for Rose (made-up name) since last year. She reported laying around on the sofa most days, with no motivation and fleeting thoughts of suicide. Though Rose moved to Galveston a couple years ago from Austin, she has yet to make any friends here. Her psychiatrist of many years there has her on a potent mix of three medications for severe bipolar depression. She gets out once a week to meet an off-island friend for lunch and some mah-jongg. She gets no exercise, eats “like a hog” despite her uncontrolled diabetes and has no job prospects. Rose wonders out loud if her medications are the issue and need to be adjusted despite having been on them for nearly a decade.
I take a deep breath as I explain how thoughts become emotions, instigate actions, followed by results. Clearly she doesn’t like her current results. Looking upstream to her thoughts and resultant emotions is a reasonable place to start anew. Indeed, without a new direction, her mind will continue to create exactly what it has always created — misery.
I just read a transformational book, Think Better, Live Better, written by Joel Osteen, Houston megachurch pastor and New York Times best-selling author. He describes how we each have seeds of greatness, inherent potential and infinite possibilities endowed as a result of our joint human and divine natures. We may block the manifestation of our good by accepting outdated labels or criticisms or by otherwise limiting our self-expectations to goals far below our potential.
Joel encourages us in direct and practical language to reprogram our inner software with affirmations of growth, victory and achievement. He gives numerous examples from his own and his father’s life of overcoming negative circumstances, of the heroism of many of his church members in overcoming depression, addiction, financial lack, relationship problems, health or work challenges. He also shares stories of prophets, kings and sages of old who were no-accounts and disrespected in their societies but who rose to great heights.
This kind of change of thinking can also be found in cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, positive psychology and through the power of affirmations and afformations.
I made some recommendations to Rose on how to find some local mah-jongg partners, volunteer or join a social or faith-based community and engage in resistance exercise. Anything different would be preferable to lying around feeling sad and sorry for herself for another year or even another day.
Changing her thinking, as for all of us, is a potent way to a better life. It is very hard to outperform a negative self-image. Whether Rose will explore beyond what is to what can be is really up to her.
What if she is a butterfly stuck in “wormy” thinking, never knowing her true nature awaits?
Dr. Victor S. Sierpina is the WD and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine and Professor of Family Medicine at UTMB.