Positive thinking: A weapon for your own good?
For years we have been bombarded with positive thinking. It was sold to us as something that would help us. But this is not always the reality. Positive thinking is meant to improve our mental and...
For years we have been bombarded with positive thinking. It was sold to us as something that would help us. But this is not always the reality. Positive thinking is meant to improve our mental and emotional state. However, this sometimes does not happen, and the culprits are resistance and attachment.
What is thinking
Thought is a sense. Our mind perceives thoughts internal and external to us and distorts these to create new thoughts of its own. If negative thought enters the canvas of our mind it means that an impulse internal or external to us caused that thought.
Physical or nonphysical places are surrounded by thoughts, people are surrounded by thoughts, objects are surrounded by thoughts. Walking into a room where a woman with depression lived can cause a change in our thoughts even if we are not particularly sensitive. This happens because that place has been filled with those negative thought forms. The thoughts you perceive in that room are not your own, but are perceived by your surroundings.
If a thought emerges several times in the course of your day and under different circumstances you have the certainty that that thought is yours, you are a vibrational match of it. In that case it means you have energetic imprints or traumas that resonate at that specific frequency and project a given thought into your mind. If the negativity that caused the negative thought is within us, ignoring it is useless and counterproductive. It would be like having a broken wrist, but expecting it to be healthy and strong and playing a game of tennis. It can only make the situation worse. You cannot use positive thinking to solve this condition; you need other tools. (I will write about negative thinking in the future, for now you can check out this article where I talk about resistance in a general way: Resistance: The Problem Number to Conscious Manifestation.)
The Reality of Positive Thinking
Positive thinking is not the opposite of negative thinking. In reality, the opposite of positive thinking is the absence of thought and the opposite of negative thinking is the absence of thought. “Positive” or “negative” is just the vibrational direction in which your mind is pushed by thoughts. Therefore, it is not appropriate to use positive thinking to balance negative thinking. To do so, would be to push against the current to stand still and that which stagnates rots.
Positive thinking is useful in directing your intentions when you are in a neutral position toward what you want to experience. Being in a neutral position implies not having resistance toward the opposite of what you want and not having attachment to what you want.
Example: If you choose to eat strawberry ice cream, you are not doing so because you avoid chocolate ice cream or because you need strawberry ice cream. Your choice is a simple preference. Similarly, if you want to manifest abundance in your life, you do so because you prefer to have that experience over the experience of poverty, not because you hate poverty and want to avoid it at all costs or because you place your value in your money.
The real point of positive thinking is to evoke positive emotions. Practice it and pay attention to what you feel. Do this also when you recite any other practices to improve your situation such as gratitude lists, prayers, etc., etc. These practices are created to put you in a better vibration and should remain that way. They are not a solution; they are a push toward the positive.
Positive thinking and resistance
If I tell you, “Don't think about the pink elephant,” the first thing you will see appearing in your mind is the pink elephant. In the same way, saying “I am healthy” can lead your mind toward the image of illness you are trying to avoid. This occurs if you are currently in a state of resistance toward illness. Positive thinking is used to manifest what we would like to experience. However, what you manifest in your reality is what you pay attention to, which, in this case, is the disease.
Resistance must be resolved BEFORE applying positive thinking.
Where attention goes, the mind creates
When positive thinking becomes a way to escape the negative it ends up feeding it. To help you resolve internal resistance I recommend reading: Acceptance: The Key to Emotional Healing and Resistance: The Problem Number to Conscious Manifestation.
EXTRA:
Healing through Positive Thinking
Now I am going to say something that might confuse you, I recommend it only to the most sensitive among you. Using positive thinking to heal is possible.
Using a positive phrase can place you in a favorable vibration. Those emotions can be used to become aware of opposite vibrations and experience them in order to let them go. It serves to vent the negative and replace it with the positive. This practice requires good surrender. You will need to relax into the positive, letting it enter your cells while letting the negative out. This is done from a state of permissiveness and nonresistance. The goal, as in any healing practice, remains to feel the negative to let it out through experiencing the positive and then replacing it with the positive.
Conclusions
Positive thinking is not a panacea to all our ills and it is not always healthy to apply it. Learning its dynamics thoroughly is necessary to truly embrace its healing and manifesting power that this practice can have in our lives.
Have Good Week!
An interesting perspective on the power of our thoughts. Thank you.