Seeing the Glass as Half Full Dictates That I CAN, I WILL, I AM

The holiday season often brings about an array of emotions in between the highs and the lows. However, much of what you experience and what you deal with or don’t deal with emotionally has more to do with how you perceive situations, as well as how you act or react to them. Often, what we see is what we believe, resulting in what we get. 

If you see the glass as half-empty, it will take much more to fill the glass to a level of full. However, when you see the glass as half-full, you will realize that it takes less to fill the glass to its fullest level. The problem is, too many of you see the glass as half-empty, causing much anguish, despair, and anxiety; all because you see less in the glass, and you believe that you will have to work two to three times as hard to fill the glass.

Your life is like a glass. How you look at your life, whether with lack or with fullness, your view of your life will determine how you will handle your life’s situations and circumstances. Sometimes you make dire decisions based on the cloud of circumstances and situations that seem to loom over your life, believing that life is much more difficult than it seems, based on what you see, instead of the reality of what God has ordered as your destiny. However, if you continue to view your negative circumstances as conditions, you have decided that you are stuck in the manure and can’t get out. When you begin to view your negative circumstances as situations, you have already initiated an, ‘I can’ attitude, putting forth a plethora of ‘I will’ efforts, declaring an, ‘I am’ reality of achievement.

In order for you to change your view and your vision of your life’s glass, you must begin to possess a sense of optimism, allowing you to gain or maintain a sense of hope. The hope you possess simply means that you have a positive outlook, you have faith, you believe in a higher power, you have positive expectations, you possesses an inner sense of assuredness, you are encouraged, you are confident, and there is no doubt as to where you are going in life or how you will get there…the glass is half-full!  

When you see your life’s glass as half-full, you possess an optimistic attitude, you believe in a higher power, you are spiritually connected, you are not shaken by what seems to be, but you anticipate what can be, and you believe beyond a shadow of doubt that the outcome of any and all of your negative situations will be positive. As a matter of fact, you will think, feel, and speak with an authority of favorable outcomes. You have an “I can” attitude, as you exhibit behaviors and actions that can and will lead to favorable outcomes. You awake every morning with a song in your heart, you see a light at the end of every tunnel in the midst of all of the darkness, and you believe in what can be rather than what things seem to be. You also begin see and believe in what will be!

In my opinion, it is extremely important for you to be optimistic each and every day of the year, especially during today’s tumultuous times. It allows you to hold on, to keep moving forward, to keep the faith, to laugh instead of crying, to keep looking up, to not give up, to manage yourself as well as your life circumstances, and to believe that the sunshine does come after the rain. All of this is what happens when you see your glass of life as half-full.  

When you view your life’s glass as half-empty, you will not be prepared for, and you will also miss out on the blessings that are waiting for your arrival.  Being optimistic allows for positive expectations, where as pessimism causes you to hold your head down with little or no expectations. Optimism dictates that you hold your head up, in preparation to behold and receive expected positive outcomes.   

Holding onto and seeing the half-empty glass of pessimism becomes the controller of your attitude on a daily basis, with you running the risk of exhibiting negative behaviors, experiencing anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, depression, fear, stress, insomnia, paranoia, addictive behaviors, loss of control, withdrawal from life, thoughts and feelings of giving up on life, suicide, homicide, and seeing no way out of your current negative situation.  

And you wonder why your social life is in the pits! Your vision of your life is in the pits with your half-full pessimistic view of your ability to engage with PPPG’s-Positive People Going Places, © causing you to seek relationships with somebody, winding up with anybody, who turns out to be nobody. Seeing your life’s glass as half-full positively affects your social health. Your interpersonal relations are strengthened, communication skills are strengthened, and intimate relationships are more readily found, developed, and sustained. 

You will never be able to enjoy yourself as an individual, as long as you behold your life’s glass with a pessimistic half-empty vision. As a matter of fact, with your half-full optimistic life’s glass, your mental health is more stable, allowing for an increased healthy love for self, high self-esteem along with increased self-confidence and self-acceptance. Your increased confidence fosters the belief that “I can, I will, and I am!” And with those daily affirmations, your worry about outcomes of your life situations and life circumstances will dissipate, providing you with more of a quest and thirst for inner peace and emotional stability.

Seeing your life’s glass as optimistically half-full allows your spiritual health to become more solidified and stable.  Your belief in a higher power that is greater than you and your negative situations and circumstances allows for increased faith, less doubt, less worry and less fear. Your life will more certainly not only seem to be filled more with sunshine than rain it will actually be filled with more sunshine than rain.

If you have difficulty moving out of and beyond your negative, pessimistic, half-empty glass syndrome, it is imperative that you engage in psychotherapy with a licensed mental health professional who practices from a positive perspective and uses tried, true, and tested activities to increase your self-esteem. Because there is truly no life understanding and no life answers, you must practice seeing your life’s glass as half-full, with positivity and optimism on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. 

Remember, life will deal you many hands.  However, it is not so much the hands that you are dealt as it is how you view and feel about the hands that are dealt to you, as well as how you play them.  If you see your life hands that are dealt to you as having possibilities or opportunities (half-full optimism), you will play to win. However, if you see your life hands dealt to you as not having possibilities or lacking opportunities (half-empty pessimism), you won’t play at all.  Why play a losing hand?

The half-empty glass dictates, I CAN’T, I WON’T, and I’M NOT! As a result, you don’t! You must see life as a glass half-full, rather than a glass half-empty.  It will take less to fill your half-full glass, fostering encouragement, hope, and expectations.  The half-full glass dictates I CAN, I WILL, and I AM! Starting today…YOU ARE and YOU HAVE accomplish all you set out to accomplish!

Here are a few tips to help you to practice the half-full glass life style, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly:

1.    Engage in daily prayer.

2.    Practice daily oral positive self-talk.

3.    Engage in daily meditation for 20-30 minutes.

4.    Engage in daily journaling, documenting your feelings and thoughts at the end of the day, recognizing the half-empty pessimistic patterns, as opposed to the optimistic half-full patterns.

5.    Practice letting go of negative thoughts & negative beliefs on a daily basis (negate the negative).

6.    Develop realistic, attainable, and measurable weekly and monthly goals with objectives, timelines, and contingency plans.

7.    Take life in small chunks, instead of big hunks.

8.    Learn to appreciate life and live it one day at time, letting the sunshine in and appreciating the rain whenever it enters into her life, but not allowing it to determine her life.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, and Happy Holidays!!!

©2019; J. Morley Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 1745; Decatur, GA 30031; (770) 808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com

How to Deal with Your Relationship When One of You is More Successful than the Other

As one of the partners in a relationship filled with disparities based on the success of one partner or the lack thereof of the other, it is imperative that at some point, issues related to the identified disparities are dealt with, preferably by both, but most certainly by you. In order for you to have a healthy and positive relationship, feelings and thoughts regarding the disparities surrounding the fact that one of you is more successful than the other must be addressed. In all actuality, the issues of disparity surrounding success in your relationship should have been dealt with prior to your commitment to solidify your relationship with each other. But since it wasn’t dealt with prior to your commitment, it is now the right time for you to do so.

How you deal with the disparities that exist within your relationship, as a result of one-sided success will probably differ based on your maleness or femaleness. The definition of ‘success’ must be factored in when considering the real or imagined disparities you and your mate are currently facing and have been facing for quite sometime. However, the reality is that although one of you in your relationship had already attained a greater level of success than the other, prior to your involvement with each other, you all ignored the red flags that often come with the disparities, hoping and sometimes believing that they would go away. 

As a male, it is promoted, expected, respected, and accepted that you should be more successful than your female partner. However, on the other hand, when your female partner is more successful in the relationship, your male ego sometimes seems to get in the way. Sadly, society still espouses a lack of respect, a lack of acceptance, and a lack of expectations for relationships with successful females to positively exist. 

One of the major problems that usually ends a relationship sooner, rather than later, is the fact that many couples ignore the larger picture containing red flags and focus on the feel good aspects of the relationship, such as sex, outward appearances, and lust. They ignore the fact of the unequal level of accomplishments in the relationship. If the disparities in levels of success are not already prevalent when you enter a relationship, as one of you excels beyond the other, the disparities will eventually rise out of the ashes. Hence, it is important to be proactive. 

When one partner in the relationship is more successful than the other, it is imperative that the two of you sit together and talk honestly and openly with each other about your feelings, thoughts, insecurities, and concerns. It is also important for the two of you to discuss the current and anticipated impacts that the disparities of unequal success are having or might have within the relationship. This conversation will also be a great time for the two of you to clarify your expectations of each other, as well as your expectations of the relationship, and set written goals, especially when one of you is more successful than the other. It is best to have these conversations before you become too involved in the relationship. It is always easier to prevent issues than it is to intervene later, once they have raised their ugly heads.

Positive, healthy, and respectful conversations with each other can relieve a lot of stress and anxiety, as well as possibly save your relationship. And if you cannot discuss and deal with these feelings together, civilly as a couple, it is time to for you and your mate to visit a marriage and family therapist to help you to sort through the divisive feelings and thoughts that exist as a result of one of you being more successful than the other. Destruction of the relationship and destruction of each other are the only outcomes of harboring feelings of insecurity, resentment, anger, and sometimes jealousy.

Discussing the disparities that exist within your relationship of one being more successful than the other is only one of the major steps necessary to allow you and your mate to live happily ever after. And just in case your love grows stale in the relationship and the fire stops burning, and as you anticipate future disparities that might arise in your relationship, it is important to engage in a verbal and written agreement to not allow your differences in accomplishments to interfere with your relationship, as well as the consequences of such. A WRITTENand legally ratified prenuptial agreement is always a great way to bring some stability to your relationship when one of you is more successful than the other. It helps to take a lot of worry out of the way, so that you can focus on loving each other. 

Too often, the non-successful partner takes and takes from the successful partner, without any investment, until he/she takes all and runs to someone else. This doesn’t just happen with very successful people such as Mary J. Blige, Sherrie Shepard, Melba Moore, and Jill Scott; it also happens to successful women that the world has not discovered as of yet. It’s just realizing the fact that there are real opportunists and real vultures waiting to prey on unsuspecting people, especially women looking for love.   

Even in relationships with disparities of levels of success, you must learn to focus on the positive aspects and commonalities that exist within your relationship, instead of focusing on the disparities in your levels of success. In other words, you must focus on what you have in common, rather than your differences. You must allow your commonalities to be connectors and not dividers, using the success of one in the couple to guide the success of the couple as a whole. You must learn to give each other compliments, as well as tell and show each other how proud you are of the accomplishments of each, not just based on levels of success, but on the fact that God has blessed the two of you to have and be with each other.  

Celebrating the accomplishments of each other removes the focus from the disparities associated with your different levels of success, and keeps you from competing with each other. You will come to not worry about or focus on what others might think, believe, or say about your respective roles as the man or woman in the relationship, as well as how your relationship should be, or how it looks, because one of you is more successful than the other. You will come to recognize that external success cannot and will never outlast internal success and eternal love. 

  

The two of you are partners, not competitors. As the successful partner in the relationship, you must learn to see your level of success as an inflator for both of you, instead of seeing it as a deflator for you. Your success should be seen as a compliment and an enhancement to you and your relationship, rather than a disgrace or disparity between you and your mate.  And if you are not considered the successful partner in your relationship, it’s time for you to find your own self-worth through having a life of your own, by identifying and focusing on what makes you “successful” in your own right, without separating yourself from your mate. You must engage with your mate without competing with him/her, and without trying to overshadow his/her level of success. Engage in public activities with him/her without shame or guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty or shameful about. Find your own shadow and walk in it! 

No matter what the level of success and who is considered the ‘successful’ one in your relationship, it’s a matter of loving and respecting each other, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are…you are in it together! Walk in it, and act like it!   

©2019; J. Morley Productions, Inc; P.O. Box 1745, Decatur, GA 30031; 770-808-6570; www.doctorjoyce.com