Why positive thinking doesn’t always work

Ever since the famous movie “The Secret” was released, every Tom, Dick & Harry, and his father is telling you to think positive, as if positive thinking is the panacea to all of our problems! The movie revolutionized the concept that we create our own realities consciously or unconsciously by dint of the Law of Attraction, which states that like attracts like.

But if like attracts like, then positive thinking should attract positive outcomes, yes? It should be the answer to every negative situation in our lives, no? But it doesn’t always work that way. Why not? Despite trying so hard, despite trying to have a positive outlook in life, despite trying to see the positive in others, despite being a good person, why do we still run into so much negativity? Is it possible to eliminate all the negativity from our lives? Well, I am here to tell you that it is impossible to eliminate the negativity from our lives because we live in a world of duality where the very existence of polarity creates the context of our experiences in the first place, but it is possible to eliminate the resistance to negativity, which weakens the strong hold of negativity upon our psyche, which then releases the resistance and we experience positivity again! The negativity in our lives are just challenges that we come here to overcome, obstacles we are here to surmount, so we can have an experience of ourselves, so we can know what great feats we are capable of; and through the contrasts of the negative field we can experience the positive again. So never seek to eliminate all the negativity, rather stop judging the negative as something “bad”. You see, we live in a ‘YES’ Universe. There is no ‘NO’ in this Universe. What does that mean? It simply means, when we say, “Yes I want this”, we get ‘this’. When we say, “No I don’t want that”, we get ‘that’. When we say, “I want this because I don’t want that”, we get ‘that’, not ‘this’! Are you getting this? Confusing? Okay let me explain again!

When I am saying that I want something, while all along thinking of what I don’t want, what I get is what I don’t want. Because that kind of thinking comes from a place of resistance, a resistance to what ‘is’, to what we don’t want. Life responds to our thoughts behind the thoughts, our sponsoring thoughts. When I am resisting what I don’t want, I am basically thinking of what I don’t want, so essentially I am saying “yes” to what I don’t want. Remember, it is a YES universe! So when you judge the negative, or make it wrong, you get more of it because you resist it. What we resist persists! When mankind was not aware that we create our own realities through the mere power of our thoughts, or rather imaginations, we were still creating our realities but unconsciously, reacting to everything that happened to us without realizing that they were also happening through us.

When you are first learning that you create your own reality, you start thinking positive from a neutral ground, from a place of “testing” if it works or not; you have nothing to lose, and it works! You start manifesting small things then you get excited! So you try to apply it in everything in your life, the bigger things; you think positive, you visualize the positive outcome, you create your vision board, you meditate, stay calm, avoid conflict at all costs even if someone is hurting you, but after some time you still come up against a wall banging your head because suddenly you can go no further. You want it so bad that all you create is resistance, because not getting it hurts so much, you have so much to lose that you end up not getting it, because you’re operating from a place of “lack”. You then start believing that you cannot use positive thinking to manifest everything you want in your life and that makes you feel negative, very negative. So you try to negate your own feelings, make yourself wrong, thinking that you’re doing something wrong. You try harder to think positive but the more you try, the less it works. So what is happening here? When we use positive thinking to escape ourselves, to bypass our difficult emotions, to avoid or suppress our uncomfortable feelings, to shroud the negativity with a positive blanket, it actually backfires. Like a slap on the face, it shouts out at us: “Hey look inside!”  

Está bien sentir todo lo que sientes.

Cuanto más ocultas tus sentimientos, más se muestran. Cuanto más niegas tus sentimientos, más crecen.

What is the solution? When we want or desire something in life, while all along we have a belief at the back of our minds that we don’t deserve it, we are unworthy of it, we are unlovable, we are incapable, we are unacceptable, we are not good enough, we won’t get it, then guess what? We don’t get it! Because those sponsoring negative thoughts are far more powerful than the snippets of positive thoughts you are trying to think right now, and your deep-seated subconscious beliefs are running the show of your life. But where do those limiting thoughts and disempowering beliefs come from? Programming! Our belief systems, cultural conditioning, familial upbringing, societal dictates, religious doctrines, philosophies, theologies, ideologies, all go on to create our individual beliefs about life, about what is possible and what is not, and that varies from people to people, place to place. Once a belief has formed, it is next to impossible to superimpose that with a mere positive thought and expect it to work. No it doesn’t work. And these beliefs are programmed into us since childhood; most times we don’t even realize we are holding past beliefs that are sabotaging our present efforts to create change in our lives. And the answer to it all is not resisting or rejecting the negative aspects within us. Rather it is the opposite. It is an act of unconditional love, radical acceptance, total approval and complete presence; loving ourselves despite our negative feelings, being present with ourselves in spite of what is happening on the outside, re-examining our beliefs, becoming aware of our expectations and thought patterns, making false of what we held as truth for years, deleting the lies we believed about ourselves all along, and that doesn’t happen overnight. It is an evolutionary process and it takes time to purge those limiting beliefs; in fact, the negativity in our lives creates the awareness of what holds us back, how we are showing up based on dysfunctional beliefs that is sabotaging our efforts, so we can change them consciously. And once we have purged, suddenly the resistance releases as the Universe mirrors to us in external reality, our own internal vibrations.

It is not possible for everybody to be positive all the time, and that is okay. Do not suppress your emotions because that is the breeding ground for diseases. Sometimes we have to sit with our negative, difficult, uncomfortable, unpleasant emotions to figure out what they are telling us, what unresolved, unhealed issues are surfacing, what limiting beliefs need transcending, instead of blanketing them with a positive thought, which doesn’t solve the problem but begets it, as we will run into that issue again and again in life or get sick, until we are willing to deal with the underlying problem and heal it. Emotions are our internal compass, the marker of our personal truth at any given moment, hence we must heed them, not repress them. To understand this better, read: feel your feelings, know yourself. Self-acceptance is the first step towards healing and transformation. So if you don’t want to suffer from negativity then don’t resist or judge it. Just acknowledge it and give your unconditional love to yourself anyways, despite the negative thoughts you detected in your mind. You have to accept where you are now, in order to change anything. That is when you will experience true freedom – the freedom to just ‘be’ without judgement or resistance. Just like the flowing water goes around the boulders and continues its journey forward; the water doesn’t resist the boulders neither tries to get rid of them, instead transmutes them by breaking them down on its path. And that is the key; it is about being authentic and transmuting our shadows. We need authenticity and emotional visibility, not pseudo positivity. Instead of escaping your difficult emotions, process, channel and release them. It is possible to communicate your uncomfortable feelings with others honestly and sort them out without getting aggressive or defensive. People will respect you more, instead of always displaying a self-abandoning, self-sabotaging, overgiving, people-pleasing personality, toxic positivity, or becoming a positive nincompoop!

How does it impact relationships? Especially men have a hard time dealing with their emotions, because society has taught them to suppress their emotions and expressing makes them seen as weak. This not only creates diseases, but it is also unhealthy for relationships, as communications cannot go to deeper levels of intimacy. Nowadays with social media, dating apps and the hookup culture, more and more people are distancing from their true feelings and emotions including women, thereby losing touch with their inner selves, and relationships are increasingly failing, becoming superficial and inauthentic. Owning and naming our emotions, communicating them calmly and constructively with a willing partner, helps navigate and negotiate relationships better. Men need to learn how to get in touch with their emotions, and women need to learn how to better communicate their emotions and feelings without being blaming or judgemental, so relationships can be more fulfilling and intimate, for intimacy really implies ‘into-me-see’. 

When does positive thinking actually work? Well, when we are not using positive thinking to escape ourselves, when we are not using positive thinking while thinking of what we don’t want, when we are not using positive thinking from a place of avoiding something else, when we are not using positive thinking as a spiritual bypass. Rather, when we are using positive thinking from a place of pure creation, from a playground of limitless possibilities, playfully in our imaginations. That is when it works instantly, because there is no resistance to creation. It manifests magically! 

Magic only happens to those who can make it real in their imaginations.

Here’s a trick! Imagine every experience, including and especially the negative ones, is leading you to your highest good, revealing to you about you, the silver lining amongst the dark grey clouds. What we are seeking is wholeness, not perfection. Don’t resist anything, as by doing so, you cause its existence. The video below explains in further detail the message negativity holds for us and how to deal with it sans resistance:

For more such evolutionary videos, tune in to magicNine TV.