The Power of Negative Thinking

Several months ago I saw a link on someone’s blog (sorry, can't remember who, so if it was you, thanks) to an Oprah Winfrey article entitled The Power of Negative Thinking. You can read the article here but the gist of it is this:

"Defensive pessimism is a strategy used in specific situations to manage anxiety, fear, and worry," says Norem, who has conducted seminal research on the subject. "Defensive pessimists," she says, "prepare for a situation by setting low expectations for themselves, then follow up with a very detailed assessment of everything that may go wrong." Once they've imagined the full range of bad outcomes, they start figuring out how they'll handle them, and that gives them a sense of control.

Hello! That’s me, alright! I have even built my career on the back of this strategy and during the long adoption process it has been my saving grace. This is not to say that I am negative or pessimistic, it just means that I try to think through all the things that could go wrong in order to either a) avoid them or b) mentally prepare for them. In my opinion, that sure beats being disappointed or caught unprepared, and once I have thought through all these scenarios I feel calmer, more in control, and can then turn my attention to more positive thoughts.

On the adoption front this means that months ago I tried to mentally prepare myself for all the scary things that could happen. Increasing wait times…sitting at the top of the FBI for months without a referral…not getting through before the rainy season… new requirements delaying our process…the children not warming to us right away...or warming to Mark and crying at me (haha, not an unlikely scenario!)…the emotions I will feel when I meet the birth family (if I am so lucky) and the caregivers...a 20 hour plane ride with two small children...and the list goes on and on into having them home and parenthood and beyond. I have researched, mostly by way of blogs and books, and I have thought through how I would feel in as many scenarios as possible. Then I back burnered all the worst case stuff and turned my attention to all the BEST CASE scenarios, which have been fodder for my dreams for many months now. Maybe that makes me a defensive-pessimistic-optimist?

Whatever you want to call it, it seems to be working for me and I feel surprisingly calm up here at the top of the FBI list. I really thought I would be a Basket Case at this stage but no, Cool Cucumber here, and I think it has something to do with this Defensive-Pessimism stuff. Wait times have increased since we started our journey…we are going to get our referral without enough time to get through court before the rainy season…we may sit at the top of the unofficial list and watch families who came on after us get their referral before us. I hope not all my worst case scenarios come true but I am ready for them and I am also ready for all the best case scenarios (come on, best case!). No matter what occurs in the next few days, weeks or months, something beautiful IS about to happen and the years ahead of us are going to be the best case scenario of all!

Peace-out :-)

Illustration by Jorge Columbo