Being positive about the negatives

Our modern existence and angst seem to reside side-by-side.

And a whole industry of self-help experts and personal development gurus are only too willing to sell you their services, books and subscriptions to a continuous series of solutions. Everyone touts ‘positive’ thinking. Get rid of your negativity! Embrace the power within. Sound familiar?

Which, of course we’ve tried. And it’s not as though lessons haven’t been learned in the process. Not the least of which is that it often doesn’t work.

What we learn is how quickly we can lose confidence in ourselves. We’ve experienced just how rapidly self-esteem can diminish, and, sometimes we even become experts at how to become firmly stuck and helpless in a confusing and challenging world.

There is an irony here. We’ve learned to become less, not more, resilient, More pessimistic and less optimistic. Less confident. We’ve learned the “lessons of life”! We’ve learned to be far more “realistic”. As we don't lie to ourselves, we start to change how we see ourselves.“I’m just that type of person! it’s in my genes”, or “It’s useless, I can't change my external circumstances.”

Yes there is a genetic component to how happy or sad we tend to be. And yes, our environment and local circumstances can have a bearing on our demeanour.

If I said I have good news and I have bad news, which do you want to hear first?

So here is the good news. I know you thought “bad news first”. Because most people do. But this is my article, so here is the good news first!

If we can learn to be helpless, and can learn to be resigned to our fate, we can UNLEARN these perspectives. And when we have done that, we are free to realise that we really do have the inherent power to make the decision to be happier and become more fulfilled. If we chose to exercise it.

And that is likely to be much more effective and far more powerful than hiring a therapist or life coach to sell us their solution.

We can learn to understand how we react to life. And we can develop insights that help us become attuned into how life provides solutions to the challenges that crop up. We can learn how to use Life to be the therapist.

It’s sad to have to conclude that even though we’ve tried a thousand times, a positive outlook doesn’t actually help much to overcome negative “realities”. Which leads to the inevitable and quite understandable conclusion that if being positive doesn’t overcome our negative feelings and emotions, then the problem must be with us, that it’s somehow our fault, so we we’re just not good enough. Sad emoji….. :(

But the problem is not you. The problem is the assumption that being positive cancels out feeling negative. Like lighting a candle in the darkness.

Did you think they’re polar opposites? Most people believe they are the opposite ends of a continuum. They’re not.

They work independently. We can even experience both simultaneously. And here’s the cruncher: they’re not even remotely equal.

Would you like proof?

1. Look away from this page and mentally list five emotions. Don’t read on until you have. 
2. Which were the first two emotions you thought of?How many of your five are positive? How many are negative? Most people will list negative ones first, and go on to identify more negative emotions than positive ones. Did you?
3. Recall a day when you were really down and dejected. Did the feelings carry on to the next day? They often can. Do moments of happiness linger from one day to the next? Rarely.
4. What’s stronger: your internal critic or your optimism?
5. When something unexpected happens to you, do you tend to react more intensively to negative events or to positive ones? Imagine someone pushing in front of you in a queue, and imagine when someone smiles at you. Which is the most intense reaction for you?
6. Good news first or the bad news first?
7. Which would bring about the strongest reaction, losing €10 or finding €10?
8. Think back to a time when you were assessed, perhaps a work appraisal, or a performance feedback assessment Which do you remember more vividly? Your strengths and things you did well? Or the critical comments? If you had scored ten 8/10s and a single 4/10, which one sticks in the memory?
9. If you have an established eBay account, which feedback scores are you most mindful of? 99 positives or the 1 negative?
10. When you were a youngster, did your parents say, “no!” to you more often than “yes!”?
11. Which would be the more persistent reaction to what someone says to you: feeling cheered when being complimented, or feeling hurt when someone says something unkind?
12. Do you find it hard to accept compliments?

OK! Interview over. Have a quick reprise of your responses. 

Did your review show that negativity is a much more frequent, more extensive and more intense reaction than anything positive? 

It is for most people. 

The opposite of negative is not positive. Now you know why. Negative emotions are a LOT more powerful than positive ones. 

As you have just demonstrated.