The Power of Positive Thinking?

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Reminds me if the
Guilt vs Shame idea.

Also I shouldn't should on myself
for my body chemistry.

Also situational depression is different than clinical depression.

Also if I take a laxative instead of chocolate, I can't think my way out of too much time in the bathroom.

Signature of the moment. The above reminds me if post on a blog for entertainers where I get/got responses of what are you talking about.
And my last double post was related to a pop up that asked me if I still wanted to post since others had beat me to posting.

Yes
Stress is part of the equation.

Signature of the moment..at least that's been my experience. ..

To get back tot eh OPs question.

You could say you are responsible to an extent. I just don't really think it will necessarily helps or matters. Although you must realise that it is destructive.

I'm basically saying don't beat yourself up. The negative thoughts make you feel like you deserve them sometimes this is a trap.

Right in this vein, I had the luck when sitting in a psychologist's waiting room of find this article in Psychology Today. It's not a new article or edition, January 2015 I think, but I think it really hits to the point of what negative emotions deliver in terms of value:

Beyond Happiness: The Upside of Feeling Down
https://www.psychologytoday.com/article ... eling-down

Seems like the suggestion is to avoid both reaction and suppression mode and rather ask yourself what information that emotion and the circumstance that delivered it tells you about your own current state and needs.

As someone with a profound propensity to worry, I often find myself in situations where I have to force myself into a positive mind set. Anyway, I once came across the concept of "Locus of Control", invented by the psychologist Julian B. Rotter in 1966:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
Original 1966 article: http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc512rotter.pdf

Based on this, I suggest the following example as an illustration of the "power" of positive thinking, which applies to a situation where there is uncertainty about succeeding in a given task.

Here I distinguish between:

(1) perception (Do I Believe That I Will Succeed?)
(2) reality (Can I Actually Succeed?) and
(3) result (will I Succeed?)

This yields 4 different outcomes:

Perception - Reality - Result:

- No - No - Failure (Inevitable)
- No - Yes - Failure (Lack of trying)
- Yes - No - Failure (Inevitable)
- Yes - Yes - Success

Summary: In this example the only strategy that can yield success is the "Yes" strategy that assumes I can succeed. It is not perfect (as one might fail regardless of effort in many situations), but assuming that you will fail is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, the power Positive Thinking - which is by definition a risk-taking strategy - is that it gives you the possibility (yet not a guarantee) of succeeding.

This may be one of the reasons why the average yield of stocks exceeds the average yield of bonds (the latter being a more risk-averse investment).

The problem with positive thinking is the first reaction is usually "this isn't working", and then I feel as if I'm somehow at fault for it not working. I get annoyed that it isn't working, feel all the positive thinkers pointing their judgy fingers at me insisting I'm "not trying", telling me I'm a horrible person for being "negative", etc. Maybe I'm not trying but I don't have a way to make myself "try". It's a bit like telling yourself "try not to think about a pink rhinoceros - you will get shocked each time you do". I invite anyone to try that thought experiment and not get "shocked".

For me, to tell myself to think positive just leads to negative thinking as explained above. Distraction works far better. I think my ASD gets in the way of distraction though. I find it really hard to get started on a new train of thought. The distraction technique is easier when I've taken a stimulant. I suddenly have the motivation to think about more interesting things than how depressed I'm feeling.

Stimulants seem to work better than anything else in terms of improving my mood. I don't know what that means, but unfortunately stimulants are addictive and I get very dependent on them. I feel like I'll be labeled a closed-minded ass, but drugs are the only thing that truly helps me when I'm depressed. Nothing else really works as advertised unfortunately.

Positive thinking alone is too vague of an idea to be an effective strategy in each case.

Happy people do tend to be a little delusional and this is not a bad thing. Reserved people live longer.
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article ... n_hurt_you

There is also some detrimental effect of "seeking" happiness
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160511/

Although I think that fall into an chicken and egg/scenario.

If someone is down, it isn't necessarily much to do with if they can succeed or not theoretically. Although it affects their thinking on this as well as taking them out of action for the duration.

So before such an approach can take place you have break out the downward spiral.

Personally I favour interruption and conditioning. The brain is very sustainable to conditioning both negative and positive. The majority of what we understand about behviour modification is based on conditioning.

Some think are genuinely not worth thinking about as much. You need to priorities your thoughts. In order to do that reward/punishment (often lack of reward) strategy can be applied.

No one should ever be blamed for trying, even if the attempt leads to failure.