Remember that stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.- Andrew J. Bernstein
I dislike advice that asks people to "think differently" about how they view a situation. I believe this misses the point entirely since then you wonder, Ok then where do the thoughts themselves come from? Why do the negative ones consistently show up and the positive ones are usually nowhere to be seen? Why are people usually able to understand something at an intellectual level but they can rarely take the lesson to heart at an emotional and deeper level?
You can't "force" yourself to think differently about something if the more negative interpretation keeps overpowering the positive. We ultimately have no idea where thoughts even come from or where consciousness comes from or why some people are much more prone to anxiety and negative thinking than others. How can you "control" something when you don't know its source or how it's even created?
I am not saying give up and think it's all hopeless. I am saying that's it's not as simple as trying to control how you view a situation and what your thoughts are. The solution is probably a lot more difficult and must be more thorough. Perhaps it involves going through some kind of powerful experience that gives you a perspective shift or genuinely elicits an emotional response.
For instance, somewhat recently, I was feeling especially down and like absolute shit. Nothing was working. Music wasn't helping. My hobbies weren't helping. Talking to friends wasn't helping. But you know what randomly and unexpectedly raised my mood? An old lady was stuck in an intersection because there was no ramp installed to help her move her heavy cart. When she saw me walking by, she called to me and asked me to help her lift her cart. I ran over and helped her and almost immediately afterwards, I was feeling noticeably better. When nothing had broken through the sadness, this small act broke through. Why? I really have no idea. But notice how trying to "think differently" or "controlling thoughts" was doing absolutely nothing. Something completely unexpected like helping an old lady completely broke through the terrible mood when nothing else was working.
Perhaps we should consider more "non-orthodox" solutions to people feeling like crap. Maybe we can try to convince a sad person to go out and find someone to help and see if that helps raise their mood. Or we can prescribe some other action-based approach that is more relevant for that particular person such as asking the person to consider quitting Facebook or at least uninstalling social media apps from their phone. The overall point here is that you can't simply "think differently" about something most of the time. Some kind of action or powerful experience is needed.
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