“When we push aside difficult emotions in order to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop deep skills to help us deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”
Susan David, Ph.D, Mindful
Beyond the Quote (27/365)
This is the problem with positive thinking from a superficial standpoint. If something sad happens and you try to cover it up with happy thoughts, like a kind of mask, you get an un-dealt-with-sadness that lies suppressed inside. When something really upsets you and you try to distract your mind from confronting that “upset-ness,” those feelings will get pushed down and will continue to broil from deep within.
Every time you get into an argument that makes you angry and you try to chant positive mantras so that you can disregard the argument altogether, that anger turns into a poison that ends up eating you from within. Whenever we try to pretend like everything is “fine and dandy” when there is a swell of un-dealt-with-emotions inside that clearly indicate that we’re not-fine and not-dandy, the only person we’re fooling is ourselves—and even worse, the person we’re hurting the most, is ourselves.
The world is not all sunshine and rainbows—Rocky Balboa will tell you that. Things will happen that will make you sad. People will say mean and awful things, people you love will hurt you, some of your most beloved friends and family members will pass away. Things will happen that will make you really upset.
People will lie to you, people will steal from you, people will treat you like they’re better than you and disrespect you. And of course, things will happen that will make you angry. People will cut you off in traffic, you’ll have awful customer service experiences, and you’ll certainly get angry at the cards you were dealt in life for some reason or another (or for many reasons). This IS the world as it is. This IS the reality that we’re going to face from time-to-time. False positivity that leads to inaction isn’t going to help us deal with these types of situations any more than burying our head in the sand will.
We need to pull our head out from the sand, confront the emotions for what they are, feel them to the depth of our core, and develop the skills that will help us deal with those deep emotions properly. This doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to solve all of our problems or even that we’ll be able to get any kind of immediate relief when we confront them. But this act of courage sets you forward on the right path towards figuring it out and building up the skills that will. And trying to figure it out will always trump not trying. And while the sadness, “upset-ness,” and anger might feel like too much to bear, not confronting them will only give them power, momentum, and strength and will only make the feeling worse (while you get weaker from doing anything at all).
Better to have the tough conversations even when you don’t want to. Better to tell the truth (or at least not lie) when the truth is hard to say. Better to seek out help and talk to people who have been there when you just can’t figure it out yourself. Better to read, write, exercise, and think critically about the emotions in a direct and practical manner when they’re giving you anxiety and leaving your head spinning. Better to prepare for the world as it is, with every deep emotional moment we have, than to bury our head in the sand and try to live in the world as we wish it would be—filled with happiness, sunshine, and rainbows all of the time. Rocky Balboa will tell you that, too.
This post became the introduction for: 19 Powerful Positive Thinking Quotes and How To Best Apply It To Your Life
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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