When anything becomes a cliché, a jargon or a ‘should,’ it loses its innocence and beauty. And ‘Positive Thinking’ is one such thing. Not that its wrong or bad, but obsessing about anything is not respecting the polarity. And true beauty is always when we see the whole. Unless we can accept ‘negative thinking’ and don’t deny that part of ourselves, positive thinking just becomes an escape, a desperation.
Peter Senge is a great thought leader, who many know as the person who brought the idea of the ‘learning organisation’ to the world. In his seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, he mentions ‘Personal Mastery’ and this discipline is based on on a beautiful book by Robert Fritz, The Path Of Least Resistance. This excerpt from Fritz’s book is worth reading.
The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking
(Robert Fritz in The Path Of Least Resistance’)
A familiar strategy in this mode (dealing with the ‘oscillation’ of the human life between polarities like pleasure to pain, high and low, ebb and flow) is to fortify will power through positive thinking, exaggerated affirmations, motivational resolve, and inspirational fervor. Some of the theories suggest that it is necessary to “program” the mind with positive propaganda so that you can enlist the cooperation of your subconscious, which is presumed to control the course of your life. The assumption is that if you can change the “program” of your subconscious, you will live happily ever after.
Every year thousands of books and magazine articles encourage people to develop their will power this way. Dozens of cable television programs are dedicated to these approaches. Subliminal message tapes, affirmations, self-hypnosis, positive reinforcements, motivational meetings, slogans and mottoes taped to the bathroom mirror, and cheerleading efforts attempt to overpower structural conflict through exaggerated determination and the “power of positive thinking”
If you assume that you can influence and direct your subconscious, what messages do you give it by using many of these programming techniques? It is very hard to communicate with the subconscious. It takes special and extraordinary means. Old programming patterns have enormous power; the subconscious is stupid and unruly. It must be treated carefully.
When you try to force-feed the subconscious with positive thoughts, the actions of manipulation speak louder than the propagandist positive words.
The Disempowerment of Positive Thinking
What is wrong with positive thinking? In a word – truth. One of the skills of the creative process is to assess the current state of the creation in progress. This is difficult if you have a bias. If you try to impose a positive view on reality, you will not easily be able to adjust your actions in a creative process.
For years, advocates of positive thinking have claimed that your attitude will shape your destiny and that if you think positive thoughts, positive results will occur. The strategy you use is to force you self into thinking the “best” of any situation. If you wake up in the morning and feel sick, tired, and headachy, one of the positive thinking tricks would have you force yourself to think something like, “Boy I feel great today. Isn’t it fabulous to be alive?”
A second school of positive thinking would have you say to yourself something like, “I really feel sick. I think it’s just wonderful that I feel sick, because good things always come from these kinds of situations. What a wonderful learning opportunity!” Positive thinking is a willpower strategy designed to help people exert their will over themselves as a kind of self-manipulation.
There are two assumptions, generally unexpressed and unexamined, at the roots of both schools of positive thinking. The first is that you need to control yourself by overpowering your habitual negativity. The second is that the objective truth about reality is somehow dangerous to you and that you must therefore impose upon the truth a beneficent interpretation.
The radical difference between positive thinking and the creative orientation can be seen in parallel assumptions about the creative process. First, in the orientation of the creative, there is no need to control yourself. Instead , the orientation assumes that whether you are habitually negative or not, you have a natural inclination toward creating what you most truly want. Furthermore, there are no inner forces you must overcome, only inner forces that might be aligned organically as part of the creative process. This is not programming yourself, but rather working with all of the forces in play- including the forces you may not especially like.
Second, in the orientation of the creative, it is essential to report to yourself what reality truly is, no matter what the conditions and circumstances may be. A clear description of reality is necessary input in the creative process. Were you to impose any “rose-colored” or otherwise synthetic views on your reality, you would obscure it.
In the orientation of the creative, if you woke up feeling sick, tired, and headachy, you would report the truth to yourself, exactly as you observed it. Furthermost, there would be no need to interpret the ultimate meaning of your situation (“Good things always come from these kinds of situations”) Reality may, of course, include your opinion of the situation, for example, “I feel sick, and I don’t like feeling this way.”
Accepting reality – the whole of it- vs. denying it by forcing positive thinking on top may be a wiser way to deal with it. Sometimes it is essential to have a band aid or a quick fix or a temporary solution. But then let us recognise it as such and not be surprised that the ‘problem’ keeps resurfacing. That is in the nature of ‘problem solving.’ Dissolving it is about embracing the creative process which honors what is emerging. And collaborates with it. Uses it. And hence doesn’t see it like a problem. But something to play with. Work with. Embrace. Allow. And learn from. It is about adjusting the sail. The blowing wind is not a problem. The way it is blowing is precisely the way it needs to blow.
Kiran Gulrajani is the founder of CoEvolve, an ecosystem of facilitators (coaches, social entrepreneurs & leaders in business, education, wellness and community). Since 1996 he has been co-creating this community and contributing to developing leaders across diverse sectors. He is on the Advisory Board of Edumedia and affiliated with the Conscious Capitalism Institute. He enjoys writing (www.CoEvolveWithKiran.wordpress.com). His flagship program, ‘Tao of Facilitation’ has touched the lives of thousands deeply. He is inspired by Lao Tsu, Ramana Maharshi and J.Krishnamurti. His work integrates the richness of eastern and western wisdom. He is a B.Tech from IITB Bombay and MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Previously worked with HCL Ltd and ITC Ltd. He enjoys enabling people to discover the magnificence hidden within.