The Tyranny of Positive Thinking
I was coaching the members of my Financial Alchemy Academy yesterday.
One of my members is going a major life transition, and she was judging herself for her naturally occuring feelings of grief and unhappiness.
Somewhere along the way, in all her years of personal development, she picked up the message (like most of us do), that she was supposed to be happy all the time. No matter what.
There was something wrong with her for being human…
Haven’t we all felt this way?
I call this the Tyranny of Positive Thinking.
Is positive thinking the answer? Not always.
Not all valid perspectives are happy perspectives.
I believe that when tragedy strikes we need to do EVERYTHING we can to heal and get better… Sometimes we have to fight for happiness, or to simply survive those really hard times.
Healing takes time. And if we want to help our friends and clients, we MUST respect the life cycle of grief, even if it takes years.
I hear helpful suggestions from my coaching peers, and I also hear an undercurrent of judgment against negative emotions and those who have them.
I wonder if some people stay stuck because their grief was never validated.
I think I’ve mentioned here before that I was hit by a car and landed in a coma when I was 16. I came out of the coma (obviously) and spent the next year and a half reading every book, taking every class, and trying every absurd exercise imaginable to get over the sleep disorder and deep depression that followed my brain injury. I was surrounded by well wishers telling me to “be more spiritual” or “turn it over,” like something I was doing or not doing was the problem!
I believe in a higher purpose or opportunity hidden in tragedy. I may never know what it is, but I choose to believe it’s there.
I never found that cosmic “why” behind car accident, but that event knocked me off my arrogance-of-the-happy high horse (though I climb back from time to time) and taught me to have more humility and respect for the mysterious workings of human experience.
The psyche is more complex than we tend to acknowledge in our personal development community.
Let’s pause before we make bad feelings (and the person who feels them) wrong, unhealthy, or morally inferior to happiness.
Yes, we want to help! But first do no harm.
In fact, I call all those periods of grief, anxiety, shame, frustration and failure, my Research and Development into the human experience. They equip me to understand and help others.
I think the purpose of life is not necessarily to be happy, but to pursue happiness. Like the sunflower grows by reaching towards the sun, the pursuit of happiness is the vehicle for our unfolding.
Those times of extended unhappiness may be just as valuable to the unfolding.
And lastly, a thought on thoughts:
- My identity is an illusion, and it’s real simultaneously.
- All thoughts are non-substantive, and they are the substance of all our experienced reality.
- We want to look for the silver lining–really we do. We must! But the clouds still suck.
I think the greatest gift we can give is to respect another person’s experienced reality before we try to move in and “liberate” them with our own.
And you know what? The moment I gave my client permission to hurt, she felt better!
August 24th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I have learned to live by a few simple rules:
1. Don’t make it wrong or bad. It just is.
2. Forget guilt. You can’t change the past, but can make better choices next time.
3. Pain has a purpose. To draw your attention to something that needs fixing.
4. Where it hurts, it needs to heal. True physically, true emotionally. Where are you feeling vulnerable, and what are you going to do about it.
5. There are only two fundamental forces in the universe: love and fear. Where the love isn’t flowing, look for the fear that is blocking it.
6. Some days your vibes will be mellow. Ride with it and be kind and gentle with yourself. See rule #1.
7. Stuff happens. See rule #1.
8. The Universe doesn’t make mistakes. Some events pivot your life into a new direction that you might otherwise not have taken.
9. Issues and emotions are like onions; full of layers. You think you got it sorted, and it comes back later from a different angle, for more learning, more healing.
10. It’s all good. Even the “bad” stuff.
Simple, but not easy.
Enjoy being confused, enjoy feeling your pain. May be the last time you’ll be like this for a long time.
Cheers, Marlowe
August 24th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
That’s beautiful. Thanks Marlowe!
August 24th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Morgana –
Always a useful reminder! And I totally agree! Sometimes you just feel sucky. Sometimes that is perfectly OK. Each of us have to make our own guidelines about how we choose to live our lives. How long can we stand feeling sucky? What are our “next steps” to move along? And NOT JUDGING OURSELVES or OTHERS can never be “bad” in my book!
Marlowe — thx also 2 u! : ) Agree and appreciate your guidelines also! : )
Giving ourselves permission to be who we are is a gift and a blessing — one which I personally treasure! : )
Blessings!
Stephanie Bell aka @SpiritCoach
August 25th, 2009 at 2:53 am
I love this phrase “My identity is an illusion, and it’s real simultaneously. ”
I can really relate to it, deeply …
I agree to that it’s essential – and healthy – to recognise and respect “negative” as well as positive feelings & emotions.
Of course we sometimes feel sad – of course we sometimes feel vulnerable and ground down by things that have happened in our lives.
I have already lost both my parents and, although ostensibly an adult, there are times when I FEEL like an abandoned child. It may seem odd to speak of being orphaned when you’re an adult – but there are times when I FEEL like an orphan.
And I know that this – and the difficult times in my childhood and teen years – may have generated huge armies of saboteurs (&multi-headed money monsters!) that hold me back …
Yet I know that all of this “down” stuff brings value …
True, it’s no good to wallow endlessly in a downward spiral of feeling sorry for myself – that’s just a self-perpetuating energy drain that helps no-one.
And yet, I also know that admitting to my own resentments, frustrations and vulnerabilities creates a nurturing, safe space for other to speak out.
When I’ve assisted on the CTI courses, the leaders have remarked on my willingness to show my vulnerability (along with all the bubbly whacky “sparkletta” sparkly stuff). They love that it gives permission to other people to open up to and reveal their vulnerabilties also.
I think it’s probably great when coaching men too – it allows them a safe space to let go of the rigours of macho-dom – and still be “all-man”
And yes, life has its contours to make it an interesting, sensual, colourful and even “spiritual” landscape.
So I whole-heartedly agree – whilst positive thinking has its positive sides, and yes, as Morgana opens this piece with, “when tragedy strikes we need to do EVERYTHING we can to heal and get better ..” it’s equally important that we “respect the life cycle of grief” (and accept that we all grieve differently and it can take different lengths of time to work through) and let go of “The Tyranny of Positive Thinking”.
Absolutely! Thanks Morgana
August 30th, 2009 at 8:08 am
I think positive thinking like everything else in nature , has its place.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
When we focus on helping others succeed we do as well.
Great post
June 16th, 2010 at 1:07 am
I think i enjoyed this post, we believe its good stuff to our readers. so much things to use and i hope you continually write great stuff on this article. thanks
July 28th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Great post Morgana! As a human we all are given the “gifts” of challenges to learn and grow. As we allow ourselves to fully embrace the feelings those gifts brings it frees us to move through those times with grace. I’ve found that having gratitude during those times is especially helpful as well. We may not feel gratitude for what we are experiencing but when I can feel gratitude for all the things I take for granted somehow it helps to put the situation into perspective.
July 29th, 2011 at 7:22 am
Sometimes we take “positive thinking” too literally as well as too passively. It has become such an overused term. I find that people say, “oh think positive” and expect all of your hurt to heal instantly. People then tend to not talk about what’s going on at all.
I love Morgana’s comment that these difficult periods are “research and development”.
Opening yourself up to difficult life experiences helps us grow and evolve in new and deeper ways so that we can then help others do the same.
July 29th, 2011 at 7:27 am
WOW a real journey reading all these posts from your article on the Tyranny of Positive Thinking…I am going on a hunch that I am that client you were coaching. I am reminded in our willingness to share the truth about what feels like our imperfections, that it draws people in to connect because they can. We really are never alone in our suffering, pain, unhappiness as we are ONE who understand it all, the full circle, the dark and the light, as we navigate our way through life going through our own experiences that create what feel like the major highs and the major lows. It’s true the toxic pill I swallowed in my decades of personal development was that I needed to be happy, healthy and wealthy no matter what. Of course my desire and quest for wholeness and abundance is what I seek, however what then when we go through phases in our lives where we are not there? In my current situation it is the breakdown of a 13 year marriage but regardless of the transition whether it be filing bankrupcy, the death of a loved one, the loss of job, etc.it just sometimes SUCKS, it feels yucky, gross, “rootcanalish” without anaesthetic painful, heartwrenching, horrible, grief stricken, like a failure and fraud to name a few. I know for sure the idea of saying a bunch of affirmations of “I am powerful”, “I am courageous” etc were not the solution, in fact the thought of those thoughts only put me deeper in sadness as the spiral downwards was beating myself up for knowing better and not applying ALL These “Helpful Tools” of which I had. Sometimes it isn’t about all the tools at all but more about learning the art and practice of truly and simply BEING with what is and finding PEACE there. I can’t imagine a beautiful rose ever asking to be more, different, put together or better than the rose in the vase right beside her….instead she chooses to be in her glory in her beauty and in her death…through her life cycle as a flower. I appreciate this community more than you know and am beginning to understand that to be seen and heard for me is good medicine for my continued journey as me. Thanks to all who shared so far….Much Love and Gratitude
L
November 15th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
What a beautiful and necessary, in fact essential post this is, Morgana — and what magnificent, highly conscious replies you have inspired here!
Thank you, all of you, for validating that which I also know to be the Truth from my own sometimes intensely challenging life. In closing may I borrow Morgana’s famous salutation: “Namaste’, y’all!”