The Shadow side of “positive thinking”

“Only Focus on positivity, the rest will disapear on its own!"

"Don't let anger or sadness lower your frequency"

“There is only Love!”

We often hear statements like this, and sometimes they bring relief. Sometimes they offer comfort and are very helpful. But what if they actually cause you to suppress your feelings? What happens when sadness, anger, or fear are no longer given space?

Positive thinking is not bad!

Positive thinking has many benefits. For example, it can help you break out of a negative spiral, become more resilient, and sometimes even gain a clearer perspective on what’s really going on. Positive thinking isn’t a bad thing and can therefore be very valuable in itself.

An optimistic outlook on life is certainly very valuable, and -as an optimist myself- I can definitely recommend that you develop a more positive perspective. But there is one big “but”...

Because the problem arises when you allow these positive thoughts to take the place of emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear, thereby avoiding them.

Positivity as Persona!

Especially in spiritual (New Age) circles, it is often claimed that sadness, anger, or other thoughts they consider negative should not be allowed to exist. These emotions are said to lower your frequency. Unfortunately, this leads to a toxic form of positivity. These feelings, emotions, and thoughts are often present, but are consciously denied and suppressed, creating a mask of positivity. You could call this toxic positivity. Because, in a sense, you’re poisoning yourself. Sigmund Freud explains this very well, and based on my own experience and studies, I completely agree with him. Freud argues that if you suppress these emotions—if you don’t acknowledge and process them—they will resurface in a different way. Emotions that haven’t been processed will never die. They are buried alive, but sooner or later they will find their way back to the surface, causing them to emerge in a more unpleasant way.

The Shadow side of “positive thinking”

The downside of “positive thinking,” then, is that you no longer allow yourself to feel your emotions. We’ve been given all our emotions for a reason. Feelings don’t just appear out of nowhere. You need to accept them, acknowledge them, and—most importantly—process them. Suppressing them is pointless, because sooner or later they’ll take over. For example, physical symptoms may arise much later on, and you’ll have no idea where they came from or what caused them. Because everything (the physical and the mental, the conscious and the unconscious) is all interconnected! When we take the time to reflect on what we consider negative, there's actually a lot of love in that. It brings self-knowledge and helps you grow. And as paradoxical as it may seem, it actually teaches you to take a more optimistic approach to life!

Psychological Defense Mechanism

As human beings, we have many natural defense mechanisms when it comes to negative events in our lives. Many of these occur unconsciously; for example, positive thinking as a “mask” is, of course, also a mental defense mechanism. In this article, I will not discuss these unconscious coping or defense mechanisms; this is solely about becoming conscious of the fact that the method of positive thinking also has a dark side. During the sessions and throughout the program—The Fairytale Trail—we delve into the unconscious. This is where the challenges lie which you hadn’t noticed before, which is why the issues couldn’t be resolved earlier with another coach, therapist, or psychologist. If you're interested in a session, please sign up for a no-obligation orientation.

The grain of truth

As I said, positive thinking doesn't have to be a bad thing. As long as you take the time to process your emotions. The source of the spiritual preaching behind positive thinking—and not giving negative thoughts any space—is the self-fulfilling prophecy, also known as the law of attraction, or perhaps you're more familiar with it as “manifesting.” In short, the self-fulfilling prophecy means that you believe something will happen, and then it actually does. For example, when you finally go on vacation and believe that you’re bound to get sick. Often, you’ll end up feeling unwell during the first week of your vacation. Of course, this also works the other way around. You can actively steer things toward positivity. Like a kind of magic, there is, of course, a price to pay. And to create a long and happy life, you shouldn’t have to deny who you are and what you feel!