Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, has written a must-read book, Learned Optimism. The book draws on twenty years of research focused on optimism and the important role it plays in your quality of life and mental and physical health. Seligman writes, “If we habitually believe, as does the pessimist, that misfortune is our fault, is enduring, and will determine everything we do, more of it will befall us than if we believe otherwise.” The author believes that optimism is a skill that can be learned. “Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.”
A potent exercise that helps develop one’s ability to be optimistic is called “externalization of voices”. To do it, Seligman writes, “Choose a friend (your spouse might do fine) and set aside twenty minutes. Your friend’s job is to criticize you. For this reason, you have to choose your friend carefully. Choose someone you trust with your feelings and around whom you don’t get defensive.”
Explain to your friend that in this situation it is all right to criticize you: You won’t take it personally because this is an exercise to strengthen the way you dispute such criticisms when you make them to yourself. Help your friend choose the right kinds of criticisms by pointing out the negative beliefs that afflict you repeatedly. With these understandings reached, you’ll find that you don’t, in fact, take the criticisms personally when your friend makes them, and that the exercise can actually strengthen the bond of sympathy between you and your friend.”
“Your job is to dispute the criticisms out loud. Marshall all the contrary evidence you can find, spell out all the alternative explanations, decatastrophize by arguing that the implications are not nearly as dire as your friend charges. If you believe the accusation is true now, detail all the things you can do to change the situation. Your friend can interrupt your disputing. Then you should reply.”
To effectively deal with adversity, “listen carefully to your explanations of it. When they are pessimistic, actively dispute them. Use evidence, alternatives, implications, and usefulness as guideposts when you dispute yourself. Use distraction if necessary. Let this become the new habit to supplant the automatic pessimistic explanations you used to make all the time.”
Externalizing voices is a powerful exercise to help you better deal with adverse events in your life.