The perils of
positive thinking
I
f you want to achieve great things in your life, then stop thinking positively. No, that’s not a typo. One of the most counterproductive pieces of advice is this: Think Positively! The reason is that it adds considerable stress to your load. While the benefits of conscious thinking cannot be overstated, trying to ensure our thoughts are only of a positive nature is exhausting, ineffective and really unhelpful.
Negative thoughts happen, and in fact can provide useful insights. What often happens when we are forcing ourselves to only think positive thoughts, is that we enter into the domain of denial. But first, let’s get clear about something fundamental here… most of us, whether we realise it or not, are addicted to thinking. To prove it, try to stop thinking for the next five minutes. Unless you have spent years mastering the art of silencing the mind, you won’t be able to stop the flow of your thoughts. Thoughts just occur, they are constantly there in our minds. We’ve become so accustomed to the voice in our head, just blindly trusting its counsel, that some don’t even notice it’s there. Perhaps the only interaction you’ve had with the streams of your thoughts is when you try to enforce a more cheery and positive tone to them.
When we deny our negative feelings in an attempt to force only positive thinking, we end up missing the information in the negativity.
We can look to our feelings to understand the dangers of only thinking positively. Feelings are our reactions to our thoughts. They are always with us, giving us signals about ourselves and the world around us. Have you seen the Pixar animated film ‘Inside Out’? Its premise is to share with viewers that all our emotions (even the ones we had labelled as ‘bad’) have a place and a purpose. When we deny our negative feelings in an attempt to force only positive thinking, we end up missing the information in the negativity. In addition, studies show that when people think that others expect them to not feel negative emotions, they end up feeling more negative emotions. When we try to force our negative feelings away we make ourselves feel worse and we also miss the point of what these feelings are trying to tell us. Negative feelings, too, have a purpose. They can help us understand that something needs to change in our lives, or recognise the value we place on certain things, for example. When we have awareness, in any situation, we also have the ability to change something, if something needs to be
changed. Research shows that when people acknowledge and address negative emotions toward their relationships or chronic illnesses, it helps them adjust their behaviour and have more appropriate responses. Our emotions are important indicators because they are giving us vital information about what is going on in our lives. In this way our feelings can act as a compass in our own lives, providing important insights into our needs, wants and desires.
The answer to a happy and balanced life isn’t forced smiles and denial of any bubble of negativity, it’s to keep from getting hooked on every bad line of thinking. If we take anything away from coronavirus and all the havoc it has wreaked, it should be this: our society wasn’t equal before this crisis and that’s why it feels so unequal now. We are not going to get through this with more denial, we need to get real about what is happening and that means leaning into the discomfort of negativity with the desire to learn about ourselves, and what our next steps need to be. If we are too busy shunning thoughts and feelings that we have labelled as bad, we miss the opportunity to see what it is we really need. Kirsty Watermeyer Kirsty is a Yoga and Meditation Coach, a Transformation Facilitator and Writer. Contact her at kirsty@seednamibia.com
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