THE DANGER OF POSITIVE THINKING
18 OCTOBER 2022 (14 MIN READ)
With a title like that, you may believe I have lost my mind, as the self-help world is fueled by the category of positive thinking and most people feel as if they have bettered their lives by thinking that way. I am not going to deny the power of finding the light at the end of the tunnel and allowing it to change your consciousness for the better, but I will point out how ignoring the darkness and running straight to the light will stunt your ability to process your pain and have empathy for other people who suffer. For instance, consider Professor Xavier’s reaction to his best friend and companion’s sudden death in the X-Men movies, where he immediately uses positive thinking and says, “They’re in a better place now,” smiles up at the sky, and instantaneously moves on. My mom told me my goldfish went to a better place when it died. I found it in the toilet later. Maybe that’s why I don’t believe in heaven. As a viewer, you may perceive that as the smartest and most useful way to handle death—I mean it’s the genius, Professor Xavier! However, where does all the pain go? Does it magically dissipate into the cosmos with the deceased loved one? No. It sinks into your unconscious mind and slowly leaks out in destructive ways. I will go into much more detail on this in the next section, but I am using this example to shine a light on the false notion that positive thinking magically dissolves the pain in our psyches.
All it really does is leave it in the dark. And when things are left in the dark, what happens?
They keep growing.
Darkness loves positive thinking, as it’s the best way to leave it completely unattended to, which allows it to grow large and wreak havoc. Due to this truth, some of the most dangerous people in the world are those who only allow themselves to think positive.
IGNORING TRAUMA
When we use positive thinking to repress a thought of pain, we quickly assume it’s the right thing to do, as we are left with a smile on our face and devoid of any pain. Furthermore, thinking positive as a painkiller is not only accepted societally, but also recommended fervently as the go-to way to heal, so no wonder we always return to it as human beings. However, we too often fail to consider what’s on the other side of that temporary smile. When a thought of pain comes up from a traumatic experience, such as, “I am so sad that my mother died,” or “I can’t believe that person I loved cheated on me,” it is surfacing to let you know that you still have to tend to yourself for the pain you experienced. What about the thought, “I can’t believe I blamed my fart on my grandma with dementia.” Is there any hope for me?! And that tending to involves seeing that side of you process their hurt. Unfortunately, when those thoughts come up, we quickly shame that pain, as if it’s a reflection of a failed part of ourselves, and opt instead to think of something positive, like “she’s watching over me now,” or “they only showed me I was destined for someone better.” Although both thoughts could be true, emphasis on could, they are only used to stuff down and shame the pain that needs to be seen, as well as understood. And that pain is not just something small that won’t affect us, it’s deep-rooted trauma that affects our relationship to ourselves and the world around us. So, to fully heal our bodies and minds, we can’t just ignore trauma with the frustratingly popular notion of positive thinking.
If I can’t convince you of the dangers of ignoring trauma, then take it from the renowned trauma specialist, Dr. Gabor Maté: “Trauma represents a distortion and limitation of who we were born to be. Facing it directly without either denial or over-identification becomes a doorway to health and balance.” Extending off of his argument, trauma holds us back from experiencing life as it should be: far away from shocking pain and immersed into the present moment. And one of the key ways to hold on to trauma and not experience our full potential, as he mentions, is to live in a state of “denial.” Although positive thinking may not seem like denial because it acknowledges that the traumatic event occurred, it most definitely denies the painful charge that comes with that experience. And when we deny that pain stuck in our bodies from the past, it never leaves us, keeping us traumatized until we choose to release it. This need for release becomes impossible when you lock the pain away in a golden, beautiful chest of positive thinking. The pain doesn’t want to leave because it believes its cage is so nice. As you can see, positive thinking is the glittered cage we create for our trauma, justifying its bondage with a smile on our face. But what exactly is the cost of leaving it in this pimped-out cage?
FEEDING THE SHADOW
The more we leave our pain unattended to, the more we get used to it being suppressed, as well as the more it fractures our perception of the external world. In terms of the suppression, if we get used to swallowing the negative emotions and thoughts that come from a traumatic experience, such as anger and angry thoughts, then we develop the habit of swallowing all other forms of anger as well, because the memory of the emotion is too embedded with all the pain we want to avoid. No wonder that priest asked if I spat or swallowed. He was talking about my emotions! So, what may have started as suppressing the anger that came from having one’s father beat them, then becomes a repeated swallowed anger for minor disturbances, such as a loved one disrespecting your boundaries. And the more one swallows the anger that comes from these situations, the more they add to the already too-high pile of anger stemming from the trauma. This means that we not only keep adding to our dirty pile of trauma by developing the habit of suppression, but we get used to it living locked up at the bottom of our mental cave, making the repressed negative emotion build exponentially inside our systems without our conscious awareness. Even though the anger may seem locked away nice and tight, it does not necessarily stay there without consequences. The need to protect yourself from experiencing that large pile of repressed pain will affect your perception of the world around you.
When you really don’t want to feel a certain emotion, you will do whatever it takes to intellectually analyze a situation in a way where it won’t get released. Going back to the emotion of anger, if you have conditioned yourself to suppress the feeling by repeatedly repressing an angry traumatic memory, then you will interpret situations in a manner where you don’t have to get angry, so you can keep that pile of pain locked away. For instance, if a romantic interest starts gaslighting you over something they did to hurt you, falsely convincing you that it was your fault all along, then you will just stick to what they say so you don’t have to get angry. Or, as men see it, making sure you can have sex. But what happens when you just can’t take it anymore? Consider the generalized tale of the very feminine woman, who was crafted to be a perfect, beautiful, and sweet girl. This sort of girl was societally conditioned to repeatedly suppress her rage in order to fit into the box of the perfect girl. I personally have dated a number of these girls, as have some of my friends. Show off much? All of us can relate when we say that once in a while they just let loose and what seems like a monster replaces them, becoming a hurricane of rage blowing in our direction. Although this situation may seem troubling to the average man in front of it, how could this sort of thing not happen when somebody is manipulatively convinced that their anger is shameful and should not be shown? When all that repeatedly swallowed anger gets released, of course it will all fly out of control. This extreme release of rage is a direct consequence of convincing yourself that you need to repress it. And often, as explained in the previous section, this self-convincing often takes the shape of the seemingly beautiful, positive thinking, but in reality it’s a demon in disguise. Sounds like my friend’s Tinder date. The camera most definitely did not add ten pounds, it subtracted about one hundred.
Consider the tale of the incredibly sweet man or woman who attracts a terribly abusive partner, who continually demeans them and makes them feel like shit. We always think to ourselves, “How does this amazing person stay with someone like that?” I’ll tell you how. Just how they speak to you positively and always make you feel like you are perfect the way you are, they do the same for the abusive person in front of them. When that anger comes up over something terrible their partner is doing, they learn to repress it out of a painful history of repressing anger from traumatic experiences as a child. And the way they repress it is by thinking positively about the situation in front of them, such as saying, “My poor partner, I bet they just had a rough day or I did something terribly wrong. I will make sure to make it up to them.” These sweet people get stuck in these terrible traps because they cannot allow themselves to feel the anger trapped underneath all the positive thoughts. And the worst part is, they are convinced that everything is perfectly fine because they need to tell themselves that to avoid facing the pain that comes with the truth. But what happens when a situation is so dire that even positive thinking won’t help?
SHOT TO THE HEART
Throughout our lives, it basically becomes impossible to avoid confronting evil or severe devastation at some point, where the pain becomes so extreme that no amount of positive thinking will help. If you have been accustomed to using positive thinking as a painkiller and suppression tactic all your life, then you are more likely to get completely crushed when evil knocks on your doorstep, as you can no longer use thoughts to escape the overwhelming pain surfacing in your system. I’ve personally seen it happen to people close to me, such as when they lose a parent or a close friend of theirs dies suddenly from suicide or crime. Or, when they enthusiastically wave at someone who was waving at the person behind them. The reason why it’s so tough for these positive thinkers to move through evil is that all the pain coming up in their body is not just from the experience they are reacting to, it’s also from all the repressed pain from their life that has finally been released.
When the door to pain fully opens from an overwhelmingly traumatic experience, it brings all its other friends that have been imprisoned for far too long with it too, leaving those who experience it at the mercy of all their demons all at once. As you can see, if you depend on thinking positively to save you from the pain that comes with living on this circle of trauma called planet earth, then you are destined to get absolutely crushed at one point in your life. Within this brutal blow, you will begin to lose your sense of identity, since your thought patterns will be completely different to before, which will create a severe sense of confusion, dread, and eventual depression. I don’t mean to paint you this gloomy picture, I just hope to make you aware of the dangers of the popular self-help scheme referred to as positive thinking. What about the girls who always refer to themselves as “boss bitches”? Can this please be put in the same category?
To give you a glimpse of what an alternative situation looks like, consider my reaction to the sudden death of my mother. At this point in time, I had already done a ton of trauma release, which allowed me to come to terms with the pain stored in my body from traumatic childhood experiences that I had previously repressed my whole life. Since the previously suppressed pile of agony had mostly left my system, when my mother died, I was able to fully feel the devastation that came with that without completely destroying myself. In other words, I moved through the pain of my mother’s death without resistance and found myself peaceful on the other side. Although it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, I was able to do it because I didn’t have to feel all the repressed traumatic memories that would have also been released with her death. I could solely focus on feeling the pain of her transition, and even that was almost impossible.
When most of us are confronted with situations like these, we are completely broken down because we add a large pile of pain to the already too-large pile in front of us. So, of course, we completely shut down when we have to deal with it. Sounds like my laundry day. To get ahead of this, process the pile in your system as soon as you can, because when evil inevitably knocks on your door, you want to be ready to deal with it. And as you may have guessed, processing cannot occur if it only involves positive thinking. Other than completely destroying us eventually, what other beautiful magic can positive thinking do for us?
LOST EMPATHY
True empathy, if you break it down properly, suggests that you somewhat feel what the person in front of you is feeling and can relate to them because of that. What about someone having an orgasm? If you avoid internal pain, such as grief or anger, through hiding behind positive thoughts, then how can you have genuine empathy for the person in front of you without faking it? Oh, you fake an orgasm when someone else is having one. My teenage years finally make sense now… You can’t have empathy, because you don’t know what it’s like to let yourself feel that way. The most empathetic human beings in the world are those who have allowed themselves to feel broken and picked up the pieces. Inversely, the least empathetic people in the world are those who refuse to feel their internal hurt and always act like everything is ok. These are the sorts of people who tell you to get over it and smile when you are moving through something deeply painful. To those in that category, it may seem like they are doing the right thing, because that philosophy has helped them, but what it comes down to is a projected sense of narcissism. To suggest that someone else’s pain is so insignificant that they can just throw on a smile and get on with it means that they believe other people’s pain serves no purpose. This belief stems from the fact that they perceive their own pain as useless and insignificant. When someone believes the pain of themselves and others as a useless failure of the human system, they enter the territory of narcissism because they do not possess the ability to empathize, both with themselves and the people in front of them.
So, to lay it out more clearly, when you deflect from your pain by always thinking positive, you remove the ability to empathize with others because you cannot empathize with your own pain, which leads to a form of narcissism due to the inability to have empathy.
Up to this point, we have covered all the problems with positive thinking, but how can we live in a world where no positivity is allowed in our consciousness? We cannot, but there is a correct way to do it.
THE RIGHT WAY
Put succinctly, grab hold of the light once you don’t need it to cover up the dark. Once you reach a point where you have sat with the pain inside your system and you know you can handle it, then find the positive thought and hold it close to your heart. The reason why this strategy works well is due to the fact that you are no longer suppressing your pain, which creates room for a healthy release and an opportunity to gain empathy for yourself—a necessary vehicle for self-love. Going back to the example of losing a loved one, arriving at thoughts such as, “They are in a better place now,” “They watch over me,” “They lived a beautiful life,” or “They live through our hearts,” are not bad necessarily, but they become destructive when they are used to numb the brutal pain stuck underneath them. However, if you have spent months genuinely feeling the terror that comes with losing a loved one and you feel at somewhat peace with it, then you can entertain one of those thoughts to shift all the darkness into something more aligned with light. For instance, I can now think, “My mother lived a beautiful life,” and possess a real smile on my face, without having to stuff down all the pain.
Nevertheless, one key caveat exists with this solution: it’s ok to let go of the positive thought if the pain resurfaces. As limited human beings, we have no way of understanding our unconscious minds. Or, understanding anything about the opposite gender. So, what may feel like completely processed pain consciously may still have residual effects in the unconscious that have yet to surface. When this pain inevitably resurfaces, willingly let go of the light that has been helping guide you and go back into the cave to tend to your new wounds. Once that new wound has been fully processed, then you can create a new form of light for yourself. For our deepest traumas, this is a lifelong process that we must learn to master: sit in the dark, find the light, go back to the dark, and find a new north star.
