Episode 51: The Negative Side of Positive Thinking

Episode Summary

You don’t want to miss this one! Join us for this passionate and spirited discussion about the perils of positive thinking. What do you do when things are hard? As coaches in our profession, it can often be about ‘looking at the bright side’ and ‘the power of positive thinking’. Today we talk about the bypassing of negative emotions that goes on in the world and a case against positive thinking. Bad thoughts get a bad rap…but is it their fault? This might be our most interesting and stimulating conversation to date.

Highlights from this hot episode include:

  • Why we must experience hard emotions and give them the due

  • Bad thoughts do not always act as a magnet to bring more stuff

  • Where the positive thinking paradigm got its roots

  • Where is the middle between letting the tough thoughts rule and bypassing and ignoring them

  • Collapsing and taking up residence into dark and difficult emotions

  • Repressing hard emotions

  • When to give yourself permission to allow the difficult emotion to be your experience

  • Why ‘accurate’ thoughts are a balanced alternative to what gets labeled as ‘negative’ or ‘positive’

  • The value of being present in the moments of now and how they give us balance and perspective and fuel ‘accurate’ thoughts

  • Why being more present allows us to be available to what needs to be

  • How fear prevents us from feeling the feels

  • Why being present with the pain of others forces us to tap into our own pain and how hard that can be

  • We have 100% survival rate!

  • How we know when we are having accurate thinking

  • Superficiality doesn’t keep us safe…we are meant to experience the full range of emotions

  • All emotions have equal importance

  • The understanding that life is terrible and life is beautiful

  • We can learn how to ride the waves in a way that we aren’t afraid of failures or the dark times

  • How we are all built for this terrible beautiful life

  • Being able to have acceptance for terrible things and not having to love them