Psychological Techniques to Always Find the Silver Lining
Acceptance and cognitive reappraisal can change our default response to negative circumstances
The common idiom “every cloud has a silver lining” means finding the positive in seemingly negative circumstances. The phrase originates from John Milton’s poem Comus:
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
The radiant glow of a silver lining appears when water droplets along a cloud’s outer edge diffract the sun’s rays. Conditioned by years of anxiety and depression, the overcast of early sobriety seemed boundless and dense— the silver lining was an invisible band of fictional sunshine.
To recognize its presence, I needed to dilute the heaviness, allowing the sunlight to penetrate naturally.
This involved hacking into and reconfiguring my brain’s default operating system through acceptance and cognitive reappraisal.
Afterward, I could appreciate what made the lining so brilliantly silver.
Acceptance is nonjudgmentally observing and acknowledging negative experiences by changing your relationship with your thoughts and emotions.
Cognitive reappraisal is reinterpreting an event to alter the emotional significance, the clinical term for finding the silver lining.
At first glance, acceptance and cognitive reappraisal seem contradictory. Acceptance involves not changing your emotional state, while cognitive reappraisal necessitates changing it.
Upon closer inspection, they’re inextricably linked.
Our brain constantly employs an iterative set of rules to evaluate sensory data. Like a limited memory algorithm, it deploys a reflexive feedback loop that utilizes current information to refine previous calculations. However, for purposes of expediency, the brain’s circuitry favors the base protocol.
Our brain doesn’t like to change its mind.
The first step to forcing a modification with cognitive reappraisal is interrupting the automatic data processing through acceptance.
The Tranquility of the Present Moment
A negative mentality is like tightening shrink wrap, gradually numbing your body and ultimately constraining your every movement. Breaking free requires increasing your cognitive flexibility through practices like mindfulness meditation.
In his book Anxiety Rx, physician and neuroscientist Russell Kennedy suggests that thoughts are merely “brain droppings” until assigned an emotional value. Once assigned, the level of value determines the severity of the response.
High-value emotions arising from unsettling events galvanize the limbic system by triggering the fear-based center of the brain. The emotions and corresponding physical alarm are jointly encoded as a somatic memory that calcifies the pain body’s discomfort.
As a survival tactic, we manufacture thoughts to reinforce the somatic memory and since the thoughts precede the physical alarm, they become linked in our brains. Studies show deep engrossment in inner dialogue can hinder your ability to differentiate between logical and emotional distress.
This is where mindfulness plays a crucial role.
Mindfulness is present-moment awareness — the ability to bypass mental chatter by concentrating on immediate sensory experiences. Consistent practice removes self-absorption, enabling you to disengage from the internal conversation.
After all, a train of thought can only follow one track at a time.
Switching your focus to nonthreatening sensory stimuli temporarily halts your mental path and the self-awareness to choose a new direction.
After establishing a dedicated meditation practice, I perceived the faint glimmer of the silver lining. However, I needed to adjust my gaze to find the positive meaning.
The Importance of Clear Vision
Removing the emotional weight of my perceptions through mindfulness downregulated the somatic memory. My thoughts reverted to brain droppings, which facilitated situational objectivity.
That said, when you habitually over-identify with negative appraisals, you tend to paint your life with a defeatist brush of lackluster:
Optimists view unpleasantness as temporary and local — “The difficult circumstance shows this specific situation was painful.” In contrast, pessimists perceive similar occurrences as global — “The difficult circumstance shows all situations are painful, proving life is miserable.”
To see the beauty in the silver lining, I had to challenge the foundation of my negativity bias by presenting an alternative perspective.
As a lawyer, my analytical brain needs a rational argument to adopt a new paradigm. To gather evidence, I explored how the brain processes external reality by reading Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow.
According to Mlodinow, The brain operates through a two-tier system where the unconscious mind absorbs and translates eleven million bits of sensory information per second to construct a reality for your conscious mind to inhabit.
The complexity of unfolding reality means our life experiences are malleable. The unconscious cannot possibly store and process all the information it receives from a particular moment. To resolve the resulting ambiguity, it uses our expectations, beliefs, and prior knowledge to stitch fragments of information into a meaningful gestalt.
Since the unconscious values quick and manageable interpretations over accuracy, it often presents a wildly inaccurate picture. Unless given a compelling reason to do otherwise, our conscious mind typically accepts the caricature with little resistance.
After reading Subliminal, I recognized I was living in a contrived world of my unconscious making. The unconscious mind may interact with the environment, but the conscious mind gives meaning to the interaction. While I can’t influence my visual faculties, I can shape my interpretative lens.
This realization equipped me with a clean canvas and a new paintbrush. All I needed was more vibrant paint.
The Power of Suggestion
Early sobriety shook the very foundation of my identity, unleashing a powerful onslaught of fear-based ideas. I reclaimed my power by ceasing to use my previous beliefs as the basis for my perceptions. I fashioned an updated contextual framework by supplying my unconscious with a new narrative.
Affirmations are essentially positive phrases usually in the form of “I am” statements. Studies show that repeating affirmations stimulates increased activity in the regions of the brain associated with reward and positive valuation. The enhanced stimulation alters neural pathways, decreasing rumination and promoting optimism.
To replace my prevailing assumptions, I’d choose an affirmation that addressed whatever psychological issue surfaced. During meditation sessions, I’d loop the affirmation to saturate my mind with a brighter portrait.
At first, my conscious mind rejected the ideas, eagerly offering convincing counterarguments. As I persisted, I replaced my unconscious beliefs, diminishing the influence of the old story. Over time, my conscious mind naturally and automatically rejected negative messages, decreasing their persuasive effect.
Now, my mind entertains only the thoughts I consciously allow, finally conceding that I am the operant power of my reality.
By retooling my mind, I promoted an ethos of pronoia — the universe conspires for your benefit, not detriment. However, maintaining this attitude requires consistent reinforcement. When mentally preoccupied, I repeat the same steps:
Recognize the transient nature of my situation to facilitate self-compassion and emotional stamina (acceptance)
Replace my default programming to construct a more supportive worldview (cognitive reappraisal)
By doing so, I can have faith in the prospect of a better tomorrow.
It turns out, this is the true meaning behind every silver lining.
Thank you for spending your valuable time with me. I am truly grateful for you, my wonderful reader.
As an RMHCI, I enjoy that you’re using clinical language~
I love the clear articulate manner in which you shared this. So easy to understand. And I learned some new words, like Pronoia! Plus, "While I can’t influence my visual faculties, I can shape my interpretative lens." Yes! To me, understanding this is an indispensable element of recovery!