Accepting Your Negative Thoughts

First off what exactly is negative thinking? Thinking about bad outcomes or the awful state that things are currently in? The truth is, negative thinking is actually necessary and shouldn’t be rid of completely.

There are two types of negative thinking, the type that is negative but realistic and the type that is negative and not realistic. If it’s an unrealistic thought, it should be disregarded, but if it’s realistic, it should be considered further because realistic negative thinking can save your life. While unrealistic negative thinking will cause you to sink into stress, anxiety and depression.

On the flip side, the same can be said for realistic positive thinking and unrealistic positive thinking. Many people think that in order to combat unrealistic negative thinking, they have to overwhelm the unrealistic negative thoughts with unrealistic positive thoughts. This will never have the desired effect. All it does is cause the gap between unrealistic extremes to increase. And then your mind will have nothing to grab onto because it knows neither are true. All that is left is a hallow emptiness and a mask trying to be something that you’re not.

For a dancing metaphor, think about it like this. We are told not to step outside of our body center/weight. Why is this? When you step outside of your body with your left foot; you might try to step way out with your right foot to compensate. But experienced and new dancers can attest that this overcompensation actually causes an awkward off balance weeble wobble. If you continue to step outside of your body center/weight; you will eventually fall down. This isn’t a bad thing as a dancer. It’s something new people do because it is our instinct to match the extra energy the left foot attempted with the right foot, thinking this will balance us back out.

But even the most experienced dancers still occasionally accidentally step outside of their body weight, they just deal with it differently. Let’s say your left foot goes way outside of your body weight/center and you have that ‘Oh shit’ moment where your eyes widen because you realize you are now off balance. Don’t panic. It’s okay that you did that. It’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t make you a bad dancer. Instead of taking a huge step with your right foot outside of your body weight again, place your right foot directly under your body. You might wobble a little but if you place the left foot under your body right after; you’ve just regained your balance.

If the left foot is negative thinking and the right foot is positive thinking in this example then its easy to see how sometimes less is more. Less effort that is concentrated has a bigger impact.

It is important to remember that just because you HAVE a thought, that doesn’t make it TRUE. And it doesn’t make you a bad negative person. What matters is how you handle them.

For example,

Let’s say you have a really negative thought.

Everyone I love is going to die from this virus.

And you start to panic and stress because you’re thinking negatively and you told yourself to stop being negative so you jump to the other side and think something super positive.

No one is going to die. This is in God’s hands and we are all going to be fine no matter what we do. Everything is great.

You still might find yourself feeling stressed out. Why is that? Because your heart knows that neither one of these is realistic. And you are out of balance jumping dramatically from one side to the other and attempting to rationalize them both. Your thoughts will feel out of your control.

Instead when you have this type of thought:

Everyone I love is going to die from this virus.

And you start to panic, ask yourself is this realistic? If you aren’t sure logically, do some research. If you know in your heart that it probably isn’t; then correct it with a REALISTICALLY positive thought.

Statistically, most people will survive the virus.

Then bounce back to a realistically negative thought.

Some people will die though. Some people have died.

Then try another positive thought. Maybe one that is in your control and proactive.

But more people will survive if we all do our best to prevent the spread of the virus and stay inside. I can spend this time strengthening my relationship with God.

The problem with attempting to have just positive thoughts is that when your mind strays and has a drastically negative thought you then turn that on yourself, attacking your self-esteem for not being able to think positively ALL OF THE TIME. You can’t beat yourself into thinking positively. If you try it will only come back stronger and with a rebellious vengeance. Let yourself think negatively. Challenge your negativity. Oh yeah, is that the worst you got Mr. Negative. Because now you’re just being silly trying to come up with the worst thing ever that is never going to happen. I want you to stick around to help me, but you’re going to have to make sense.

Ok maybe that’s a little crazy. But the point is that thinking negatively doesn’t make you a bad person. Thinking negatively is there to keep us careful.  Your only responsibility is to evaluate which thoughts are realistic, which ones have merit. Which ones should be used to build your mind base. If your mind base is built off crazy unrealistically positive and negative thoughts you will fall down. And you can’t just think positively, just like you can’t dance only on the right leg. That isn’t dancing, that’s hopping, you will definitely fall down or get really tired. Especially if you’re dancing alone, you wont always have a partner to cling to when you feel out of balance.

I’ve gone through a lot in my life and I’ve developed a way to deal with things.

Most recently when my mom died, and I would talk about the circumstances surrounding her death, I was often shut down and told to THINK POSITIVELY. But attempting to force me to think positively would have removed me from the reality of the situation. And the situation was very negative. So basically they were asking me to just ignore the situation and just ignore the fact that my mom had been killed. I need both sides of realistic thought, positive and negative.

We are in a negative situation right now. And realistically, a lot of negative things are going to happen. Forcing yourself to THINK POSITIVELY will not help you. It will only cause the ground underneath you to turn to sand. Grab onto the positive and negative things that are realistic. The things that you can control and use those to build the base of your mind and heart. Let the unrealistic things float by you and don’t let them take root. When you get really advanced at this, you’ll be able to laugh at them as they pass you by. BOTH the unrealistically negative AND the unrealistically positive. In fact, you shouldn’t be thinking about your thoughts as being negative or positive, you should only be thinking about them as realistic or unrealistic.

This will be really hard at first. At first you’ll cry at every negative thought. You’ll beat yourself up because you can’t control your thoughts. And you’ll have to fight the urge to jump to the other side and be crazy positive so that you feel better. But remember that that crazy leap doesn’t make you feel better, it only causes you to feel more lost. BUT IT’S OKAY! It’s okay that you’re negative! It’s not a bad thing to be negative! Be negative. Let your negative flag fly. When you consciously choose the thoughts you want to be your mind base, every thought that doesn’t belong there becomes laughable or becomes an opportunity for exploration. You can’t choose the thoughts you have. You can only choose which thoughts take root. Let the realistic ones take root.

If you’re unsure whether something is unrealistic or not, REACH OUT! Don’t evaluate whether it’s bad or good and if it’s bad decide not to mention it. If something is super negative and stressing you out, figure out if it’s realistic. I don’t care how bad it is. Because a lot of the most beautiful things we have today are the products of negative thinking. The only reason depression and suicide is going to skyrocket during this virus is because of the vapid positivism you’re shoving down everyone’s throat to compensate for your own negativity that you’re ashamed of.  

And to start out, I’ll admit something negative that I’ve worried about and processed.

I’m scared that with so much distance, my friends will forget about me and I’ll lose them.

But I let that thought go because I know that realistically most of my friendships have a solid base.

I might lose a friend or two. But that is just a part of life. Friends come and go, that doesn’t make them any less valuable.

All I can do is continue to offer and show my friendship to the best of my ability at a distance until all of this over.