One thing that I get a lot when people are introduced to thought based work is a misconception that the goal is to always be positive. That is not what I am sharing with you.
Sure, there are times you could be positive instead of suffering or creating a negative experience for yourself. But there are going to be times that you don’t want to feel good. No one is saying you should paint a smile on after a breakup or after losing your job if that’s not what you truly feel or believe.
Those are things that we want to feel crappy about. This is the way of the human experience. You get the good with the bad.
When you force positivity or use thoughts you don’t believe you aren’t helping yourself.
There are downsides of trying to be positive when you truly aren’t.
50/50
If you are new around here you may not have heard me say that life is 50/50. Meaning 50% of your life will be good and 50% of your life will be on the other end of the spectrum. This is the human experience.
Everyday won’t be an even split. There is no magical scale that sends good or bad things your way because you’ve had too much good or too much negative.
If, 50/50 isn’t a concept that resonates with you consider that sometimes things aren’t going to rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes you are going to be a great girl friend and sometimes you may lose your patience.
Just because life is 50/50 doesn’t mean that you have no control and shouldn’t assess the less pleasurable 50%. When you lose your patience in your relationship you can choose if that is something you want to repeat. If, you don’t want to repeat it then you work on it.
The rule of 50/50 is why nothing is perfect always. Just because you’re miserable in a job and you get a new one doesn’t mean your life will be enjoyable always. There will still be that other 50% it just no longer shows up in the form of your job you dislike.
I take comfort in knowing that things won’t always be good. This means when things aren’t so great nothing has gone wrong. I can lean into the moments of discomfort and know it won’t be like that forever.
Since I’m going to be feeling that less than pleasurable feeling anyways, I might as well feel it doing something that I want to be doing.
Forced Positivity
Forced positivity is fake positivity and does more harm than good.
If, you aren’t truly feeling happy or positive don’t force or pretend to be. This will have detrimental effects on your ability to identify what you are truly feeling.
Forcing yourself to be happy in a miserable situation is confusing to your brain. You are having thoughts about the situation being terrible which makes you feel miserable but you are telling your brain that you are happy. Over time your brain is going to be able to tell the difference between miserable and happy.
Think of a young child that is learning their colors. They learn that red is red and blue is blue. But then someone starts to tell them that the red is actually blue. Eventually they believe that red is blue. Now both blue and red are blue. How very confusing.
Stay true to the feelings that you are having. Masking them is not the solution to feeling different. It’s okay to want to feel differently about a situation you just have to be intentional about the way that you make that happen.
Believing Something That Isn’t True
Similarly, to forcing positivity is believing that you really think of a situation in a positive light.
Forcing positivity is saying yeah, this situation sucks but I’m still feeling positive when you’re actually miserable. Where believing something you don’t believe is seeing that situation you really think sucks but saying that it’s a great situation.
What this does is prevent your mind from being able to process those thoughts about it being sucky. They will remain in the back of your mind. Sometimes as a low hum that has an effect on how you’re showing up. Other times it will keep appearing stronger and stronger until you have no choice but to address it.
When talking about people exploding this is one of those cases. Don’t say you believe something that you don’t. If, you don’t like what you are believing then you can shift it. Jumping from this sucks to this is the best thing in the world to happen is not the way to shift it.
You can’t trick your mind. It keeps record of those true beliefs until you handle them.
Everything Can’t Be Good
If, everything was good and enjoyable then nothing would be. You can’t have a life that is always on the pleasurable side of the scale. You wouldn’t have anything to compare it to.
Everything be good would make good the neutral place. Everyone would become indifferent to things being good because there is no comparison.
Feeling those pleasurable times so strongly is possible because you have the lows too. Good wouldn’t seem so good if you didn’t have any of the bad.
You need them both in order to have a full human experience.
Positive isn’t always right
The notion that being positive is the way you are supposed to feel is a sham. There is no right or wrong way to feel. People have their opinions on how you should feel in some situations but opinions aren’t facts. You get to choose how you want to feel in any situation.
A factual event in the world is neutral. Neither good nor bad, positive nor negative. What dictates that is what we think which means you are the creator of your feelings.
People so often think that positivity is the correct answer to life. Happiness and positivity aren’t the only emotions that get you through life.
Courage isn’t always enjoyable to feel but it can get you some great results.
Positivity isn’t the correct choice because there isn’t a blanket correct choice. There is only the correct choice for you.
Final Note –
It can be easy to fall into the pattern of wanting everything to be hunky dory. But when you start accepting the less pleasurable 50/50 into your life you can lean into it. Those less than perfect moments can be embraced as part of your human experience.
Above all else I always believe you need to stay 100% true to you, your thoughts, and your feelings.
Nothing you think is bad or good, right or wrong, useful or not useful. There is only what is true to you. Being aware of what those true thoughts and feelings are will take you so much further than forcing things you don’t believe.