subject: Positive Thinking: Why Positive Thinking Is Unnatural [print this page] If given the choice to think positively vsIf given the choice to think positively vs. negatively, it seems obvious that positive thinking is the better choice. It's certainly more pleasant to think the best of every person and situation vs. assuming the worst. The former leads to happiness, love and fulfillment, while the latter results in anxiety, frustration, anger and depression.
Yet, as a whole, human beings tend of be "glass half empty" kind of people, a propensity that can be attributed to nature and nurture.
The human mind's tendency to zero in on the negative is partly a survival instinct honed over millions of years. Throughout history, survival has depended on humans' ability to learn how to avoid and protect themselves from dangerous situations and things, such as attacks by wild animals, harsh weather, or poisonous plants. To navigate the very real dangers that threatened their lives, humans needed to rely on negative thinking, which operated to help them avoid danger.
Today, the dangers we face are nowhere near as life-threatening as what were faced by early humans -- and even a century or two ago. But the human mind still operates in the same way: its job is to keep us safe from harm. If you have an experience that was painful, your mind takes note and tries to help you avoid feeling that pain again in the future. The methods it uses vary. You might notice an extreme visceral fear in some cases, while in other situations, negative thinking shows up as a stream of unsupportive self-talk designed to weaken your confidence so that you're too uncertain and scared to move forward.
Learning to focus on the negative is also a skill that is learned through socialization. Some messages we absorb are unspoken, communicated through impersonal means such as mass media. Others are communicated directly via our parents and relatives, friends, teachers and neighbors.
For example, if your mother was extremely critical, you may have internalized the message that there is something wrong with you and that you can't do anything right. When you receive feedback as an adult, your mind seizes any negativity it can find and uses it as proof to support your belief that you are a failure. For instance, if your boss tells you that your work on a report wasn't up to par, rather than accepting the feedback at face value and correcting the mistake, your mind berates you with comments like, "I am such an idiot. I can't believe I messed that up. I am in over my head here. I can't believe they trusted me with this job. I am going to mess things up." Your inner critic says these things in a misguided attempt to keep you from experiencing the same type of pain again. However, the result is that you become contracted and fearful about repeating the mistake, making it harder and harder to take on additional responsibility and risks that could potentially result in additional criticism.
As you receive input from the people in your life, assess what you do with it. Do you take the comments at face value, extract what is useful, and then use the information to make positive changes in your behavior and performance? Or do you use the comments as proof that you are not good enough ... and permission to beat yourself up?
If you notice the latter, pull the reins on your negative thinking. Take a step back to objectively view the situation. Take stock of where you went wrong and what
you need to do to improve your performance in the future. Then find something that you did right to redirect your mind's attention to the positive of the situation.
For example, you might tell yourself, "I messed up one section of the report. But now I understand what I did wrong. I know how to fix and how to avoid the problem in the future. And my boss did say that the rest of the report was stellar. Overall, I did a great job!"
It may be human nature to dwell on the negative. But as a person committed to conscious living, you have the ability to retrain your mind to focus on the positive ... and to enjoy the happier, more rewarding life that will result.
