Is The Glass "Half Full or Half Empty"? The Power of a Positive Attitude
Turn on the radio or television today, go to the movies, or take a brief look through the Internet and the message is everywhere:
Think positive!
Life is mind over matter!
Your thoughts create your own reality!
Seemingly everywhere, popular culture is advocating the power of positive thinking. Cognitive psychologists, self-help experts, motivational speakers, personal coaches and spiritualists all seem to share the same message: Without a positive attitude, one cannot expect to achieve success.
Similarly, for migrants in Diaspora, it is vital to possess the right attitude. Although migrants may not be able to control what happens in the workplace, in the economy, or in politics, they can control their attitude. And if their attitude is positive, then the battle is already half won--they can begin to create a positive future for themselves.
For some, positive thinking is not an easy task to master. Individuals who have been traumatized or who have experienced lengthy bouts of extreme poverty or hardship will find it difficult to develop the faith and trust needed to maintain a positive attitude. Since many migrants arrive on foreign soil with a background full of trauma and hardship, an optimistic attitude can be difficult to cultivate. Fortunately, positive thinking is something that can be learned. It is a skill that needs to be practiced like any other skill in life, whether one is an immigrant or native. Since it is not something that is naturally inborn to most people, the right mind-set for successful living is something that most people have to work at to develop.
Attitude Strategies
So how can migrants develop the right attitude for success? The following is a list of attitude strategies. Practicing these strategies daily can lead to constructive changes in one's thoughts, emotions and behavior and will help produce positive effects in every area of one's life.
Recognize the Power of Choice
The psychologist Ernst G. Beier once said: "Anyone who learns that he can choose his own feelings and words and actions is a free person and a powerful person." By the same token, when migrants win the battle in their mind, it is only a matter of time before they win the war against problems in Diaspora. Thinking positive thoughts is an action that needs to be repeatedly exercised. Human beings are free agents who can, at any given time of day, choose to think the best about life and its experiences, or the worst. Since thoughts affect both emotions and behavior, choosing to think only constructive thoughts can lead to actions that contribute to a happy and successful life.
Psychological studies have shown that feeling as if one has 'no choice' over anything can lead to a sense of helplessness, depression and despair. Conversely, realizing that one has choice can lead to a sense of empowerment. How can migrants use this to their advantage? By realizing that no matter how difficult the circumstances, they still have choice in many things. For example, migrants can choose to:
Encourage positive thoughts and reject negative ones
Develop gratitude for the ordinary pleasures in daily life
Dwell on the benefits of the host society instead of the faults
See life as an exciting adventure, instead of a series of negative events
View life as ultimately good and all experiences (even those that are painful) as ultimately positive and leading to personal growth
Recognize that life is full of choices, at every moment of the day. What to wear, eat and do, plus whom to associate with are all the result of personal choice-even the fact that one lives in Diaspora is a choice.
Recognizing the choices that exist in life, no matter how small, leads to feeling empowered and combats helplessness. It is important for migrants to search out and recognize choices that they initially didn't realize were there and begin to appreciate them.
Recognize the Rejection Stage of Immigration
When immigrants first move to a new country, they typically go through a number of different emotional stages. These stages are produced by the culture shock that inevitably occurs when they are exposed to the different customs and practices in a new land. Michael Cohn and Lalervo Oberg are both experts on the topic and both have both written about these stages. According to Cohn and Oberg, the first stage is the honeymoon stage, in which the immigrant is excited about the new move and life seems full of promise. During this stage, immigrants are busy getting settled in to their new country, finding employment, housing, a school for the children and various other duties necessary for establishing themselves in their new residence. However, after a few weeks or months, another stage begins to set in: the rejection phase. During this period, culture shock begins to intensify and the immigrant begins to find that life in the host country is more annoying than anticipated. The immigrant experiences problems while attempting to communicate, find transportation, shop for food, or deal with official bureaucracies and protocols in the new country. Everything seems peculiar in the new land, from food to toiletries. Even the implements used to eat with, or the other items that stock a home may seem odd or nonsensical. The discrepancies between the host country and the home country begin to lead to confusion and irritation for the immigrant. Furthermore, the immigrant begins to feel that the natives of the country are insensitive to these problems. As a result, the immigrant begins to criticize things about the host country and becomes hostile toward the native population. They begin to self-segregate, associating only with other immigrants and passing scorn on the host country and its population, rejecting all that once was so exciting at first. Additionally, immigrants may enter into a regression phase, in which they begin to actively idealize everything about the home country. They remember only the good things about the motherland but see only the bad things in the new country-an erroneous delusion created by culture shock.
It is important for migrants to recognize that rejection is a normal stage in the immigration process and negative reactions need to be limited or consciously curbed while going through this stage. Should the immigrant persevere through this negative stage, he or she will eventually enter the final stage of immigration, which is the positive stage of adjustment. Here the immigrant stops criticizing the host culture and begins to feel more comfortable. They become more acclimatized to the novel way of doing things and begin to enjoy themselves. They associate with the natives, learn to communicate more effectively and regain their sense of good will. But in order to reach the adjustment stage, immigrants need to know how to manage the rejection phase first. Maintaining a positive attitude, developing a sense of humor and avoiding self-segregation while actively socializing with the native population are all things that can help the immigrant successfully deal with the rejection phase.
Since the rejection phase is produced by culture shock, it is also important for immigrants to prepare themselves ahead of time-before they emigrate. They need to learn all they can about the destination country's culture, language idioms and bureaucratic systems before they migrate in order to reduce the inevitable pain of culture shock upon arrival.
It is especially important for migrants going through the rejection stage to remember to take responsibility for any misconceptions and delusions they may have had about living in Diaspora. If not brought to awareness, these misconceptions can create negative emotions and self-sabotaging behaviors that can hinder success. For example, if a migrant feels irritated, bitter and disillusioned, and consequently begins to behave in an aggressive or unfriendly manner toward natives, then natives will respond similarly back. Life has a tendency to reflect back what one projects, so if one projects resentment and hostility outward, that is usually what will be returned. The returned hostility from the natives then is taken to be "objective proof" that confirms the immigrant's erroneous assumptions that the host country is unfriendly and unsympathetic. As a result, a self-perpetuating cycle is set up as hostility begets further hostility. Migrants need to be aware of this cycle and need to strive to maintain an attitude of friendliness and curiosity toward the host country and its population.
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