For many years I have kept a file on my hard drive called “Raves.” This is a folder in which I have saved emails, letters, screenshots, and other files that have spoken positively about me and my work. The file has moved from computer to computer—and I also have hardcopies of notes in a file drawer.
Looking at the file now is like opening a box of sunshine. It helps me understand the good that I’ve tried to do in the world, and it reminds me to be positive about life even when life puts stones in the road.
(There’s a great song called “Stones in the Road,” you can listen below! It talks about how the stones can look like diamonds—depending on how we look at them. And how going home helps us stay balanced—”going home” can mean coming home to ourselves.)
You can keep a Sunshine File, and it can help you switch from focusing on negative aspects of life to focusing on the positive. Your collection could be a file like mine with nice notes from colleagues, strangers, friends and family. It could be a special box of messages or quotations that you collect and look at from time to time. It could be a drawer in your bedroom where you keep comforting and uplifting items like a pillow full of lavender buds, a scented candle, your favorite tea, or notecards on which you can write sunshiney messages to your friends or family and pass along the light.
On another note, since spring is here, you can also go outside and get some actual sunshine, which is so good not just for our bodies but also for our minds. Sunlight can actually counter depression.
What kinds of positive messages or items have you collected? How does virtual or real sunlight affect your mood and attitude? Let us know in the comments.