Students told to strive to be more positive
by Mikki McManus, reporter

    “Very Brady Bunchish” is the way a South Campus counselor described Self-Love & Self-Esteem Leads to Self-Empowerment, a seminar presented last week.

    Lilia Covio-Calzada kept the audience’s attention through lots of interaction. She began the presentation by splitting the audience into groups, giving each a hypothetical situation and asking them to discuss their feelings, thoughts and reactions. This task was to help the audience associate how their thoughts control their feelings.

    In the handout she gave to the audience, Covio-Calzada outlined exactly how feelings are determined.

    “What we feel is a direct result of what we think about what happened,” she said.

    Covio-Calzada also presented a list of 10 forms of negative thinking, including brief descriptions and examples of each. One form of negative thinking that many of the participants admitted to engaging in is “mental filtering.” This happens when people allow one negative comment to outweigh numerous positive comments. The counselor advised students to think more positively.

    “Appreciate something even if it is only something small,” she said.

    Covio-Calzada suggested less negative thoughts.

    “Don’t assume that when a bad thing happens to you that you must be a bad person,” she said.

    A large part of the presentation was focused on self-esteem. Covio-Calzada included 10 steps to build self-esteem in her handout, as well as her discussion. Many of these are quite simple, such as greeting people with a smile, remembering to say “thank you” to others and trying to refrain from bragging.

    Covio-Calzada referred to one item on the list as “Brady Bunchish.” That suggestion was to listen to inspirational radio or cassette programs while in the car.

    Another aspect of building self-esteem involves using affirmations, positive thoughts or ideas that one consciously focuses on in order to produce a desired result. Covio-Calzada went around the audience multiple times listening to individual affirmations. Even though one audience member referred to this exercise as “cheesy,” all in attendance were left smiling once their affirmations had been said.

    “Ask yourself, ‘what is my belief system, and am I okay with that,” she said.

    Being assertive, Covio-Calzada said, means standing up for one’s rights without violating the rights of others.

    “The goals of assertiveness include obtaining something that you want or expressing your feelings or opinions, establishing change or ending a relationship with someone, setting limits and boundaries with others and letting others know what can be expected of you,” she said.

    “Being assertive, without being aggressive, is a sign of good self-esteem,” she said.

    Taking charge of one’s life, the final segment, involves realizing when one is in a situation that makes him/her unhappy. People have four choices to take when this occurs. The first possibility is to simply remove themselves from the situation. The second is to alter the situation. A third option is to stay in the situation and be miserable. And the last option is to alter the way that they feel about the situation by changing what they think about it.

    “People are unable to control the world; they can control only their thoughts and themselves,” she concluded.

    The presentation was the third given on the South Campus in the College Student Survival series. The previous two covered time management and effective note taking.