Growing The Positive Mind with the Emotional Gym

By Dr. William Larkin

Reviewed for Healthy Beginnings by June Milligan, M.Ed., CCHt |

Dr. Larkin’s research shows that when people create an “UpSpiral” of positivity, it enriches individual lives and promotes personal productivity. Over the years, he has learned that when we focus on engaging our unique personal strengths, they grow enormously and begin to undo, heal and manage our weaknesses. As we create new goals, personal clarity, direction and vision, our weaknesses seem to recede into the background and become much less pronounced. He believes that we focus too much on “fixing” weaknesses. We should focus more on our strengths because that conscious focus automatically “grows” our strengths.

Start by taking the Positive Mind Test (available in the book or online), then put that information away and read the book. You’ll learn how to apply the Emotional Gym, how to “pulse” four positive emotions (love, joy, peace, and gratitude) and thereby get into that Upspiral. This practice helps us to grow “positive emotional muscle” so that we can not only live a happier, more fulfilling life, but when we really need that positive mental attitude, that can-do mindset, we’ll have it.

Research shows that when we stay in a positive attitude we live longer; and that when we spend a lot of time in a negative mindset, we’re twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack. Not only that, but as in the Law of Attraction, when we are thinking positively, we get more of what we want. It comes to us easier and much more quickly. We’re healthier; we solve problems faster and we’re more creative and score higher on every test of well-being and life satisfaction. If that isn’t enough, research shows that with a positive attitude, we thrive at a cellular level. If every thought has its own vibrational frequency, and that “signal” floods all of our cells every time we think a thought, we certainly want to be thinking thoughts that create beneficial chemicals and hormones, not the opposite.

This book promises you seven things, which make up the seven chapters. The first promise is that you can grow positive emotional muscle, and that as you practice, it grows stronger and stronger just like physical muscle. You’ll learn how to “pulse” these emotions through your workout in the Emotional Gym. The second promise is that you can stay in that UpSpiral 100 percent of the time. The third promise (StrengthSmart) is that you can actually find out what your own personal strengths are and realize that those strengths are at the core of becoming happier and more content in your life. The fourth promise (Vibecore) which is at the very heart of you, can grow and increase, and as it does you become more clear about what you want in your life and more able to create it. The fifth promise (FuturePac) is that if you follow this process, you’ll emerge with a sense of direction and vision for your life. The sixth promise is that your vision will lead you to a sense of your passion. The seventh promise is that the knowledge of your passion will lead you to vital friends and connections that can serve as a Master Mind, and will help you to become conscious of the most beneficial way to proceed in all areas of your life, and therefore attract what you want.

We all have a pattern of strengths and weaknesses that were woven into our neural pathways very early on. Research shows that when we know what we really want, and believe we’re going to get it, and stay open to a variety of ways this can happen, we enter into a state of moving meditation that is known as flow. By learning how to increase and sustain our positive vibes, we attract what we desire.

Dr. Larkin’s research on neuroplasticity shows that as new thoughts are repeated, new pathways are created in the brain. These brain pathways are not set in stone. They are “plastic” in that they can change. We are not stuck with our old thoughts and attitudes. We have the power to change them at any time. This information makes it possible to live a brighter, happier, more fulfilling and more authentic life.  This is the applied use of positive psychology, with the purpose of increasing happiness itself, by focusing on the workings of our brains. These are practical and meaningful exercises that really work. Each chapter concludes with a “workout,” an exercise that shows you how to put what you’ve learned into practice.