The Recovered Life Show

You're listening to The Recovered Life Show, the

show that helps people in recovery live their

best recovered lives.

And here is your host, Damon Frank.

And welcome back to The Recovered Life Show.

We're talking about conquering negative thinking in recovery.

I've got mindset coach Mike Kelly with us

today.

How you doing, Mike?

I'm doing fantastic.

How are you?

I am doing so well, guys.

Mike Kelly is a mindset coach at Reworking

Mindsets.

Is that the name of your company?

Reworking Mindsets, right?

Correct.

Yes.

Excellent.

Excellent.

I was so thrilled to have you on

today, Mike, because this whole negative thinking thing,

everybody has negative thinking, but people that are

in recovery, especially people in early recovery that

are trying to rebuild their lives, or maybe

they've been in recovery forever, right?

They've been like me.

They've just been in it for a while,

right?

And they find themselves having negative thinking more

than they would like to.

This whole idea of how do you kind

of conquer this?

How do you get over this whole negative

thinking trap?

How do you know if you have it?

So I'm so glad to have you on

today.

I know you had your own kind of

path with negative thinking, right?

You've gone through it yourself personally.

What was your journey in this whole negative

thinking issue?

Absolutely.

First, thanks for having me.

My path is just realizing first what negative

thinking is.

And everyone has negative thoughts.

That's common.

That's typical.

That's okay.

But negative thinking is when those take over,

when that's a majority of your thoughts.

You focus on the bad, you focus on

the unfortunate, and it's tough to get out

of that kind of spiral and just that

constant snowball of thinking about what's bad, what's

not going well.

The negative aspects of life.

And your thoughts are kind of like a

snowball.

Whatever you focus on, whatever you give attention

to, they will just kind of continue, get

bigger, and keep that momentum rolling.

So if you find yourself thinking about negative

things and you continue to focus on what's

bad and further aspects of what's not going

well, what's not working out, just anything that's

not favorable for you, it will continue to

snowball.

So my experience of that, it's happened in

a lot of different areas, in career, in

sports, in social situations, just what's going on

in the country, in the world.

COVID was a big one for me personally,

and I think for a lot of people,

just with a lot of different unknown things

happening.

And what you give your attention to is

what will continue to happen and snowball, like

I was just saying.

You know what?

I love that when you say what you

give your attention to, because I found that

my path with negative thinking is I had

to kind of make a decision, right?

Very similar to people that are in recovery.

They have to make a decision.

It's like, you know what?

Hey, this doesn't work for me anymore.

I can't do this anymore, right?

So there's this demarcation line, kind of.

And I found that also with negative thinking.

I remember in very early sobriety, I said

to myself, you know what?

I've got to retrain the way that I

think because I'm constantly going to fear, anxiety,

worry.

And if I want to live my best

recovered life and be a high performer and

do all this, I'm going to have to

let go of this.

And for me, it was really, you know,

I just want to use the word neurologistic

programming because that's kind of what I had

to do.

So I kind of, in a way, brainwashed

myself to start looking at everything very positive.

And I've had people in my life to

say, you know, hey, Damon, even when things

are bad, you tend to will say something

like really super positive, even if it's realistic

or not.

But I kind of trained myself to do

it.

Is this a habit, Mike?

Like, is this just a, it's a habit,

right?

It's something that you could teach yourself and

to become a more positive person.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you said it perfectly.

It starts with being intentional and making that

choice.

You have to decide that this isn't working

for me.

Clearly this is not working.

I have to make a choice and do

something else.

And what is the flip from negative thinking?

It's positive thinking.

It's focusing on the good, focusing on what

you're grateful for, you know, all the things

in your life that are happening that are

good for you or even the bad things,

but there's a good aspect to it.

It's just shifting your perception and how you

view things.

And that's a big start and where to

go from there.

I love that about perspective, you know, and

really the gratitude part of it, you know,

in recovery, gratitude lists are huge.

When people come in, if they're negative, typically

a 12-step sponsor will have them write

a gratitude list with their gratitude.

So much so that it's almost like a

joke of like, oh my God, if I

see another gratitude list or another gratitude text

chain, right, I'm going to throw up.

It could be a little overwhelming, but it

is really a magic key, Mike, this whole

thing of gratitude, of being able to kind

of look outside of your current perspective.

You know, I found, and I'd love to

hear your personal experience with this because I

found that being negative shut me off from

opportunities that were just as prevalent because I

think it was easier for me to see

the negative.

So in a way, I became lazy and

it does take a little bit more, I

found, focus and willingness to sometimes pursue the

positive.

But when I do that, it's right there,

just like the negative.

So many times there's much more positive and

opportunity, I just don't see it.

Does that make sense?

A hundred percent.

And I think a lot of that has

to do with society.

There's so many shows and songs and just

what people talk about, what people post on

social media and it's complaining, oh, it's Monday.

Monday sucks.

Well, does Monday suck or does everyone else

say Monday sucks?

So you think it does, you know, you

could have the best day ever today if

you decide to and you focus on that.

But if you see 20 other people talking

about how awful it was and it's Monday

and I'm dreading this, then it's easy to

fall into that kind of trap of what

everyone else is doing.

And just like that list, it's kind of

funny that you say that it's almost frustrating

when you write down so many things that

you're grateful for.

But a lot of people do the opposite

and don't even realize it.

They complain about so much and this is

going wrong and that's going wrong.

And if you look at the world in

a different way and you focus on positivity

and gratitude, it's just as kind of sickening

and frustrating to see someone fall into that

too.

It is, you know, sometimes I, you know,

sometimes when I'm in the really positive space,

right?

And I could kind of see it and

things are really working when I'm around people

who will start the conversation office.

Let me tell you three things about what's

not going well for me, right?

Sometimes depending on my relationship with them, I'll

stop them and say, before we do that,

tell me a couple of things that are

going really well.

And you know, I've done that actually with

like family members and stuff and say, stop,

you know, tell me a couple of things

that went really well.

And you can hear their mind going a

little bit and usually their first thought is

like nothing.

And I go, nothing?

Like nothing?

You know, and I've had sponsees and people

that I've worked with in recovery, I'm like,

well, you ate today.

Yeah.

Oh, you have a house today.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that went well.

Like, you know, you were, you, you slept

all night.

Yeah, that went well.

Okay.

It's just like this training of yourself to

start looking at these things.

I think in today's society, Mike, we take

so much for granted.

Oh, I'm just going to be able to

sit my computer.

We're talking via, via zoom right now.

Right.

It's like, it's always going to work.

I'm always going to have running water.

You know, it's, I could take a hot

shower, whatever I want.

It's not until you don't have those things,

you're deprived from those things that you really

see the positives that are in your life

that are going on all the time.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And a simple one that if we're here

listening to this today, we woke up today.

That's that's a privilege.

You know, a lot of people unfortunately don't

get that every day.

So that is a great start.

We wake up with one thing to be

grateful for and it just keeps going from

there.

I saw something the other day and I've

seen this before, but you know, the person

complaining about their job, there's people without a

job that would love that.

The person complaining about their home, there's people

without a home that would love that home.

It's, it's all perspective.

And we, we do take a lot of

things for granted and there are a lot

of people that would love to be in

our situation and focusing on gratitude and what

we do have, even if it's some food

to eat, air to breathe that we woke

up today, a roof over our head, that's

more than some people have.

And that perspective again, um, can do wonders

is really powerful.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's not until you don't have those things,

uh, that you really notice them, right?

Until you really, really notice them.

And you know, I know Mike, there's people

that are listening to this, that they actually

tuned in because they actually saw the headline,

right?

They saw the episode title and they're in

maybe early recovery and they've had to let

go of a lot.

Right.

Like I know for me in early recovery,

I couldn't hang around the same people.

I had to let go.

Literally, I lost.

It was God doing for me what I

could do for myself.

Honestly, I just, everything, every day I woke

up, everything was leaving, right?

The apartment was leaving.

The friends were leaving.

I couldn't do my job anymore because it

was alcohol related, right?

Like, so I could, I couldn't do anything

right, right?

Like everything was, everything was going.

Now a lot of stuff was coming and

I had to train myself to see, Ooh,

this is an opportunity for me.

Right?

Right.

Loss is an opportunity for me.

But I think the peer group is the

biggest thing, right?

Like how, how important is it to surround

yourself and to start weaning out those habitually

negative people who just drag you into like

dust?

Like by the five minutes with them, you're,

you're, you're ready to like, you know, go

on a vacation and never come back.

It's so important.

Especially if you spend a lot of time

with those people and there's ways to do

it aside from just cutting people off to,

I know that's kind of the default and

what a lot of people think you have

to do, but you can slowly get there.

You don't maybe have to spend all the

time with that person, but limit that time.

You can direct the conversation just like you

said earlier, you know, tell me three things

that that's good that's happening for you right

now.

What I tend to do is if someone

tells me something negative, I kind of point

out the good, just like a subliminal, you

know, started going through that, but I'm glad

that you're, you're making some changes and things

are going well for you.

And they start to kind of look at

it and think, and anyone watching this will

probably think, Oh man, you've done that to

me before.

But I try, I try to do that

because that's what I do with myself.

When things go bad, it's just that little

shift of like, well, what is going good?

And even when a setback happens or someone

is negative, you know, things are exiting your

life, but what's the, what's the future look

like?

What's the real reason of that?

Is this bad?

It's bad.

Maybe in the moment where you think it's

bad, but what will come after this?

It's there's always two sides to it.

So no matter what is happening, there's a,

an alternate perspective and just taking a look

at that and analyzing, you know, is this

really a bad thing or will this help

me in the future?

Maybe it's tough now, but maybe I need

to go through something tough so I can

endure.

I can keep going.

I can, you know, keep that, keep that

up for, you know, much longer than just

today or this week or this month.

And your friend group and your, your social

group is a big part of that.

Um, we've all, I think heard the, you

know, you are the five people that you

surround yourself with the most.

I think a big part of that is

their mindset too.

Uh, not necessarily who those five people are,

you know, if you're trying to start a

business or something, of course you want five

successful business people, but do they need to

be successful business people or just someone that

has a great outlook on life and that

rubs off on you too?

I think that's equally as important and it's

good to have a mix of, of people

that, that think in a positive way and

can help you be successful, grow and be

the best version of yourself.

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now.

Absolutely.

You know, almost I say like curating those

people and I kind of do that now

is finding people that really are going to

not tell me what I want to hear

because that that that that's dangerous.

Right.

But but have have that right mindset.

You know, you know, just a funny story.

Like when I was in early recovery, I

was totally blessed.

It was in San Francisco.

There was a group that I was involved

with that were as much older men than

I was for the most part.

They were 10, 20 years older than I

was.

And I would walk into this one meeting

every week.

It was actually twice a week I would

go and I would see the same group

of people.

They were very successful, like one was a

judge, business people.

They had everything that I wanted.

Right.

And it was a new sob story for

me every week when I walked in this

meeting.

Like one week I walked in as a

man, the girlfriend, me or whatever, they would

stand up and applaud.

They would stand up and it so pissed

me off, Mike, I got to tell you,

I was like, what is going like?

Oh, it looks like I'm going to lose

my apartment.

They said, yeah, you know what I mean?

Like and finally I was so upset.

And, you know, my sponsor pulled me aside

and said, Damon, the reason that they're applauding

is because God's bringing in new things to

your life and you had to let go

of these to get what's coming.

You're just focusing on what you're losing.

You're not focusing on what you're actually receiving,

which is far bigger.

And it's never going to work out for

you, obviously, holding on to those things.

So just let go of it.

You know, and that was a big lesson

for me about letting go.

We talk about that a lot on The

Recovered Life Show.

How important is that, Mike, like really understanding

that like some things are not meant to

be like you could pursue them, but sometimes

you're suffering with negative thinking simply because you're

creating it in your life by holding on

to things.

Absolutely.

Yeah, there's there's actual suffering and there's perceived

suffering.

And a lot of times our suffering is

perceived.

We create it.

We think that we're suffering because we lost

that job.

And maybe temporarily you are suffering because, you

know, income or trying to make things work.

But does another job come into your life

that's way better than the last one that's

more aligned with what you want and that's

a better opportunity with more people?

A big one is relationships, too.

You know, we've all had that heartache and,

oh, I can't believe I lost this person.

And and we broke up and this was

the best relationship.

And you find someone else down the road

and you don't even remember that last person.

You know, it's way better.

You couldn't even imagine yourself back then.

So a lot of it is just what

we're what we're thinking to be so rough

and so bad.

And if we really just take a step

back and kind of have a bird's eye

view of is this really that that tough,

that difficult or does it just feel like

it because it is right now, you know,

give attention to those feelings.

But look at it from the big picture,

too.

You know, this is a little speck of

life and I've so much more.

What's next?

You know, every time something some door closes,

another door opens.

So what opportunity is opening for me?

Yeah, and I think the most successful people

in recovery and in life, that's how they

look at it, they look at loss as

an opportunity, right, they don't look at it

as a deficit.

It's just part of life that things come

and things go and things change and change

is good.

You know, let's get into it, Mike.

Let's really let's get down to the nitty

gritty here.

If somebody is listening to this and they're

just a negative thinker and they're like, man,

I've always been a negative thinker.

My parents were a negative thinker.

My uncle's a negative thinker.

My grandparents were negative thinkers.

It's always the worst case scenario.

What's something what's some strategies that they could

deploy, Mike, right now that's going to help

move them out of this?

I you talked about the list earlier, it

doesn't have to be that extreme, but that

same concept, everything that happens that you find

yourself and you catch yourself being negative about

find at least one thing that's positive about

it.

You know, I had an argument with someone

today.

Well, I learned where we stand on this

thing.

Right now it's raining.

I live in Phoenix.

It's a beautiful, sunny place right now.

It's raining.

Well, that's probably good for, you know, vegetation

and other things.

We probably needed it.

It's very dry here.

No matter what happens and even really difficult

things.

And I've had to go through this personally,

even really tough things, tremendous losses, unexplainable situations.

There's always something that comes out of it.

You become a different person.

You become a better person.

You learn things.

You're more aware.

There's always something to take away.

So just looking at every situation, catching yourself

awareness is huge.

So just being aware in the first place

is a huge step in the right direction.

And then the next thing, just what is

one positive or potential positive that can come

from this and starting to actually believe that.

Another thing that I put in place, and

this has been huge and super helpful for

me, I brought it to to show today

is is a jar of sticky notes.

And when you feel like, you know, what

what could happen today?

Everything was bad.

What the concept is, is you take a

sticky note, you write at least one good

thing that happened that day.

I put the date, I put it in

a jar, I save it.

I look at it six months, a year

down the road, and I see, you know,

365 good things that happened.

Looking back at all the good things that

happened to you, even if you don't feel

like there's a hundred good things happening right

now, so much good has happened.

And then you get in that habit of

gratitude.

You have to, you know, with any other

habit, you have to practice it often for

it to become a thing.

So just focusing on the positive, focusing on

gratitude, what can I be grateful for right

now?

What is going good?

What good could come from this?

And then that starts to build that.

And again, back with the snowball, it starts

to build momentum.

And then you're thinking in a positive way

before you even realize it.

Yeah, I you know what, I love this

because you're really talking about habit, you know,

creating this.

This perspective in life that you're looking at

life as an opportunity and that good things

are going to happen, you know, I know

for me.

I remember a pivotal moment where, you know,

and where in my life I had to

make a decision.

To say, I'm going to go through life

and I'm going to start actually looking almost

like an Easter egg hunt, it sounds crazy,

but like, where are all of these amazing

things that are happening, they've got to be

around me somewhere.

And, you know, and where I where I

first started to have awareness of this, Mike,

was I wasn't able to see it myself.

But in a 12 step group, I was

able to see it in others.

I saw people recovering.

I saw people getting things.

I saw people having relationships.

I saw it working.

And I had to ask myself a question.

If I could see it in them, it

has to be possible for me.

And for that was a huge breakthrough for

me because it opened the door for me

able to start to kind of, in a

way, go on a hunt every day for

things that were coming into my life that

were right there that I just I just

needed to become aware of.

I love that.

I love that.

And that reminds me of a book that

absolutely changed my life.

And that is the power of now.

It's all about mindfulness and focusing on this

moment right now.

If you think about the past and worry

about the past, you're probably going to have

anxiety.

And, you know, why did I why did

I do this?

And this went wrong and I should have

done this differently.

And if you think about the future, you're

you're probably, you know, I think I switched

those.

You're going to have anxiety thinking about the

future and you might be depressed thinking about

the past because of all the mistakes and

things and things that you could have done

if you focus on that anxiety, thinking about

the future and what's going to happen and

oh, no, what could possibly happen if you

focus on right now?

And it's more than just yourself.

It's everything happening around you.

All the sensations, the smells, the sights, the

sounds, just you can try just sitting in

a room and just observing what's in nature

is great for this.

What's happening outside of me?

Birds are doing some pretty cool things, probably,

you know, the trees, the grass, the plants,

there's other people walking around and you just

notice things that you didn't notice before and

practicing mindfulness in that way.

And then when you're around other people and

you start to do exactly what you said,

you start to notice things in them and

people are smiling and they're so happy in

the corner.

When when you just focused about what could

happen or what did happen, you don't notice

those people.

You don't notice those great things.

And there's so many beautiful things that are

happy and positive and can improve your life

that we kind of have blinders and tunnel

vision.

But if we're just open to those experiences

and just see what else is happening, there's

so much more good out there than we

probably realized.

You know, I it's interesting because when I

look at people who are they have what

I want, right, like they're very successful, maybe

in business or in life or they're just

something about them.

They tend to take a lot of the

things I've noticed, they tend to take a

lot of the things that you're talking about.

And link them into a bigger life purpose,

right?

And I didn't get this till later in

my sobriety, but that really my life purpose

and one of the reasons I do the

podcast and, you know, I'm involved with Recovered

Life is that, you know, I really just

want to be of service to people, right?

Like, so can you talk a lot about

a little bit about that, about how.

Really taking this to the next level, because

it's not necessarily as much as, OK, well,

I'm going to wake up, I'm going to

do these practices.

And yeah, look, you start looking at the

pause, your life's going to change, right?

Like your life is going to change.

Things are going to come in your life.

You are going to have momentum that that's

just a fact.

Like I see that, like the empirical data

is there that I see that.

But what happens when you link it to

something bigger, a purpose, doesn't it just take

on a whole other meaning?

It does, and I think the new perspective

and what we're talking about becomes a kind

of search for purpose and your purpose just

kind of shows up because you're realizing your

own potential, your own value, your, you know,

what you can do, what you can contribute.

You realize how everything kind of plays together

and how many opportunities and great things there

are out there.

And when you're focused on negativity, you're you're

very limited in what your opportunities are because

you feel like maybe there's not that many

opportunities.

But when you focus on positivity and all

the good things that, you know, could potentially

be yours or you could contribute in some

way, you start to find your purpose.

You start to find what it is you

really want to do and how you want

to give back to other people.

And giving back is a big thing, too.

You understand how much it helped you and

you understand that there's a different life out

there.

That's why I became a coach, is you

want to help other people see that, too.

You don't want them to continue to go

through the struggle that they're going through or

maybe that you went through at one point

and you want to help them out of

that.

It's kind of I've seen a cycle of

you, you do some healing, you do some

growth.

And then the next step in that is

you want to give back and help someone

else do it.

And they just kind of repeat that cycle.

And it keeps going.

When you give to others and when you

focus on helping other people, you're outside of

yourself as well.

And the attention and the focus isn't on

you.

It's not about all of your problems and

all of the bad things.

It's about helping someone else.

And it's greater than yourself.

And I feel like that helps you really

find a purpose, too, because we're all in

this together.

And the more that you can connect to

other people, help them and help them see

a different, better way.

That's the most rewarding thing I've found in

life so far, is helping someone make a

change and seeing that joy when they're living

a happier life.

Let's talk a little bit about your perspective

of what happened in your life.

How has your life changed?

Because obviously you're a self-described, you were

a self-described negative thinker looking at the

negative.

How has doing this, what's been the ROI

for you?

The return on investment, right?

Like, was it worth it?

Like, what's the difference in your life?

I can't even measure the ROI.

You know, it's so much that you can't

even put something tangible behind it.

My life has changed in so many ways.

And mindset has been a huge part of

that and the way of thinking and gratitude

and positivity.

So many more opportunities have come into play.

So many more relationships, friends, other family.

Just I've connected with people in a different

way and a deeper way than I ever

thought before, because people want to be around

other people that are enjoying life.

They want to know how you're doing it.

They want to enjoy life, too.

And it just brings people together so much

more.

Business wise, people want to work with people

that are happy and positive and exciting and

happy to be around.

You know, if you know, nobody wants to

really be around like an Eeyore, everything is

kind of frustrating right now.

You know, you're not going to have those

life opportunities.

So so many doors have opened up.

And even just conversations are so much more

approachable.

You know, the energy just goes all around.

Other people feed on that.

I'm attracted to people that have that sort

of energy and just love for life.

And it's hard to even put into words

just how many more opportunities there are and

how much better life can be when you

just switch the way that you look at

it a little bit.

You know, there's a lot of I use

the I use the term trapped in the

church basement a lot, nothing to do with

churches or religion, but it's more like, you

know, a lot of 12 step meetings happened

in churches.

And I've noticed something with just, you know,

my three decades of doing this is that

there are some people who.

They physically get sober and then that's it,

right, they'll maybe improve their life a little

bit, but they're afraid it really comes down

to fear, Mike, you know, like if I

change anything, I might not be sober.

If I step out of my comfort zone,

it's too scary for me.

Right.

Like they're paralyzed, like just paralyzed.

Right.

And I think a lot of it after

the whole physical recovery side of it, after

you're physically sober and you go through any

program that you're going to go through and

you do the work, right, it does it

really is a mindset game.

It's all like, how can I get the

mindset?

How can I then execute these tasks?

A big one for me, like I found,

is that it would stop for me.

The mindset would stop working when I was

grabbing too much onto expectations of the way

that I thought things should go.

You know, and then later, Mike, you know,

learning that my way was very limited.

That there was a much bigger that I

had to be open.

Yeah, I had to have bumper rails.

Like if I wanted to go, you know,

out for ice cream, I sometimes didn't end

up at pizza like I could go to.

Right.

But I needed to be open a little

bit.

Right.

Like I needed to not so grab tight

to the way that I thought it needed

to happen because I was blocking off all

the great things that were.