Addicted to Negative Thinking? by Zera Young

Author:Zera Young [Young, Zera]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zera Young

Chapter 2

Why Positive Thinking Is Not the Answer

Positive thinking is widely celebrated by self-help books and gurus–to such an extent that it has almost become a hype. Although using positive affirmations to deal with negative thoughts can be helpful, the method of positive thinking is oversimplified. It’s not a straightforward equation of one canceling out the other. Let’s say you’re in the kitchen and you cut yourself. Simply telling yourself that you’re not bleeding and you’re not wounded won’t make the cut disappear. We need to acknowledge what’s there and treat it.

Suppose you decide today you’ve had enough of feeling bad, so you say to yourself, “Okay, from now on I am only going to think positively.” Every day you make a real effort to only think positive thoughts. In doing so, you push any negative thoughts away, completely neglecting their purpose. But however deeply you have suppressed them, they will never completely dissipate. It’s like trying to push garbage down in a trash can to make more space. The trash won’t disappear; it’s just suppressed.

You have a mind full of negative thoughts and there’s nothing wrong with that. Negative thinking is not a venom that needs to be met with an antidote—it’s far more complex. Negative thoughts serve a purpose, but when our thoughts turn against us and we get stuck in negative cycles, we turn this remarkable tool into a curse rather than a blessing.

There are other ways to look at your negative interpretations and we’ll explore some of these in more detail in Chapter 4 when we look at the techniques for breaking the cycle.

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