Oops: The Power and the Problem with Positivity

Who would have ever thought there would be a problem with positivity? Not me. I have always been a pretty positive person. I think a natural byproduct of sustained childhood trauma is that you either come out internalizing all the trauma and ending up depressed or you say “fuck that shit” and you decide you are a warrior. It is completely mental and dependent on each person, and I believe you can absolutely shift from depressed to warrior through mental work, be it healing, therapy, self development, you name it. Maybe all of the above. My warrior status required me to always see the bright side, the light at the end of the tunnel, the survival. I would survive. And I always did. The problem with positivity only really arrived when I started to want more than mere survival.

The Problem with Positivity

As I entered the world of self development and began to do the real mental and spiritual work toward facing my demons and opening myself up all the possibilities available to me in this lifetime, I cycled through the first stages of the law of attraction, the power of the mind, and the other metaphysical and holistic approaches to empowerment. Almost every single practice, teaching, faith, religion, places an enormous amount of importance on positivity.

“Trust in God.”

“In Allah all things are possible.”

“Positive vibes only.”

You get the gist.

So I began to adopt these mantras, warding off negative thoughts and experiences and focusing only on the positive. It wasn’t that difficult for me because my first step into my path as a light worker was releasing all fear.

I heard something once somewhere that humans are born with two basic emotions: love and fear. Everything else stems from one of those two emotions. That made more sense to me that almost anything else I have ever heard. I knew fear was holding me back from my full potential, so I decided to let it go. Sure, it sneaks up on me occasionally, especially as a mother, but I remind myself I am done with allowing fear a seat at the table, and I move on.

Then I started hearing the “positive vibes only” mantras and thought, “Okay. I can get down with this.”

Only, I couldn’t.

I realized quite quickly that “positive vibes only” is essentially, “fake it til you make it,” and I learned a long, long time ago that fake it til you make it does not work.

You see the problem with positivity, the only problem, as I see it, arises when we try to force ourselves to be positive. You cannot simply switch from depressed to not depressed by thinking positively.

It’s Evolution, Baby

Our brains are hard wired to feel fear and love, and if we’ve trained ourselves to be negative for decades, we can’t simply shift to the positive.

Also, negative shit does actually happen. Unless you are the enlightened guru on a mountaintop somewhere above all possible encounters with the world, you will have to witness some negative shit.

Sure, I do believe that if we are living empowered, positive, whole hearted lives, the negative shit doesn’t drag us down. In fact, the negative just helps us see the positive. But it is there nonetheless, so to pretend as if it doesn’t exist actually robs it of its power to help you see the positive.

It’s also super annoying, and no one wants to listen to anything you have to say if you start with “positive vibes only!”

You cannot simply make “bad” things go away or pretend they aren’t there.

The trick is to learn how to walk yourself away from what you see as negative and toward a more positive thought.

So you don’t pretend like the bad thing didn’t happen; you shift your focus until you can see how it’s actually a good thing.

This will not happen overnight.

Some of the worst things that have happened to me have made me who I am, and I am proud of who I am. I would not be here, married to my life partner, mother to two amazing wild feral children, writing this, believing what I do, and helping people see things in new ways every single day if not for what I’ve been through.

If I hadn’t had crippling, double vision begetting, heart pounding, fear based anxiety while 8 months pregnant, that lasted well into my daughter’s infancy, I might never have made the shift to light work. I might not be a professional writer today. It was that awful experience that forced me to confront my own fear and banish it.

Own It

So instead of running from negativity, own it. Acknowledge that it is in your life for you, and that you now have the privilege and the power to do something about it.

In my belief system, each one of us actually invites, intentionally or unintentionally, every single experience we have into our lives. So I say, “why do I need this? What is this here to teach me?” I also acknowledge that if I don’t learn the lesson and do something with it now, it will come back. We keep repeating the cycles until we figure out how to break them.

You may say “God wills it,” or some version of that, but it’s basically the same thing. It’s here for a reason. Do something about it instead of faking positivity and hoping it will go away. I repeat: it will come back.

So own it. Cry. Get frustrated. Freak out. Turn to your loved ones. Don’t be afraid to feel all your feelings. Elizabeth Gilbert says “Your emotions are slave to your thoughts and you are slave to your emotions.” I love that. You can’t control your emotions. But you can control your thoughts. You are the boss of your thoughts. So let yourself feel whichever feelings you are feeling, and then work on your thoughts. Find a way to flip your experience to your advantage.

Because I promise you this: it is always to your advantage.

What’s the Difference?

So now you may be asking, “what’s the difference between fake positivity and real positivity?”

One word: belief.

One of my all time catch phrases I used to use, and I still catch so many other women using is “I’m fine” or “It’s fine.”

Or some version of that.

And I just want to say, even to myself, “bitch no it’s not fine! You’re not fine! You’re pissed! You’re falling apart! You’re dying inside!”

Recently, at one of our channeling circles here in my house, one of our women was told that if she didn’t allow herself to feel her feelings, she would eventually manifest all of that tension into physical health problems.

That’s the only problem with positivity. You feel like you’re going to break, but you’re trying to “stay positive.”

Real positivity is backed by belief. You say you’re fine when you are actually fine, and when you’re not, you say “I’m so not fine.” And then you take the steps you need to take to get back to fine, and then, hopefully, to fabulous.

Steps to Fine

What are those steps? How do you get from fake positivity to real positivity?

It’s different for everyone.

I wish all self care and self love advocates were really clear on this. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.

I personally need self care every single day.

Today, I took a 45 minute walk with an audio book in my ears. I took a hot bath after everyone went to bed with one of my witchy herbal tea concoctions. I let myself play on social media for an hour in the morning while my kids wake up and watch their shows. I make sure I always have my specific ingredients for my coffee and tea. I write. I read. I take a ton of time for myself.

Part of my care hinges heavily on the fact that I chose and married a man who supports my self care practices fully. He understands how much I do and the pressure I’m under to be a mom and work from home and run a household, and he bends over backward to help me get what I need. And I do the same for him, sending him off to the gym for three or four hours at a time a few days a week.

We all need different things, but I do think that for women, we should be getting at least some form of self care every single day.

We should be getting rid of the problem with positivity.

So that we really are, at the very least, fine, and at the very best, fabulous.

This is, after all, our happily ever after.