Monday, April 22, 2019

How to Stay Positive (When People Keep Telling You to "Stay Positive")

Some housekeeping: My writing New Year's resolution has hit a bit of a slowdown lately. However, even though I haven't been blogging much I have been working on the blog. I'm working on a new version of the blog that will be a much nicer and more user-friendly design. It will be much easier for people to find Julia's posts, and to generally navigate around the site. So stay tuned!

Today I want to talk about positive thinking. By this, I mean something quite specific. I'm not referring to research findings from positive psychology about how to create positive emotions. This is extremely important, as I'll cover.

Rather, I'm talking about the positive thinking that comes from pop psychology and self-help books which teach you things like how to "attract" happiness and success - all with your mind. And without even having to go to the swamps of Dagobah to learn Jedi mind tricks from Yoda. (That may have been my first Star Wars reference on the blog - what took me so long?!)

They also say things like this from mythologist Joseph Campbell: "Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." This sounds nice but there are many problems with this, one of which is that if you say this to someone who has recently lost a loved one you may get punched in the face. Just warning you. Joey C was also responsible for the quote that led to #followyourbliss being all over Instagram. I'm sure he was an alright guy, but, c'mon, Joseph.

(The similar hashtag #followyourblister is a good reminder about foot care, however. But I digress.)

More common phrases these days on social media are, "stay positive", "sending positive vibes", "think [insert awesome thing here] into being", and the dreaded "everything happens for a reason". There are also Christian versions of these idioms, such as "God has a plan", "His ways are above our ways", "God works in mysterious ways", or "God always answers our prayers in His timing".

Now, I don't have a problem with the heart of any of these sayings. Some may even be theologically or philosophically true (though stripped of context). What I have a problem with is giving a grieving person the implicit message, "If only you looked at things this way you could stop being so sad." Some of these have an even worse implicit message: "If you had a different mindset from the beginning you could have prevented this from happening."


I want to add another caveat that those who say these things almost always have amazing hearts and good intentions. So I never (at least I do my best not to) get angry or bitter toward them. And I don't want to make anyone feel guilty. If I'm pointing the finger at anyone it's myself, because I've said these types of phrases to people in the past (*shudder*).

Having said that, here are 3 ways the positive thinking philosophy can be counter-productive.

1. It primes people for psychological breakdowns. 

If you are constantly being told that if you think the proper thoughts you will attract good things in the future, and then life gives you horrible things, you are likely to sink into a deep and dark place. This is not how things are supposed to be, you will think, and you will turn the blame inwards because you must not have thought the "right thoughts".

2. It makes grieving individuals feel worse than they already do.

From my own personal experience, and from speaking with several others in similar circumstances, I can tell you that if someone tells me to "stay positive", and I don't find it within myself to do so, it can make me feel hopeless. The positive thinking movement can make a grieving person think, "Everyone else seems to be able to be positive no matter what. Why can't I be positive? There must be something wrong with me".

3. Positive thinking just flat out doesn't work.

At least not for me, or the other grieving people I've talked to. Sure, you might be able to snap yourself into a positive state of mind if something minor happens, like if you stub your toe or your favourite hockey team misses the playoffs by 2 points (actually, I'm still not over that). But if your partner dies, or you are diagnosed with a chronic illness, or your spouse leaves you, it takes a lot of time and effort to just get back to a neutral, let alone positive, mindset.

Actually, positive thinking does work in one sense. When you're told that positive thinking attracts success and happiness, and some good things happen, you start to believe those things happened because of the positive thinking. This is confirmation bias and we're all very susceptible to it. But the problem is that really bad things also happen in this world. When the bad things are small you can keep your belief in the power of positive thinking. If the bad things are really bad, however, positive thinking doesn't seem so powerful compared to the power that grief has over you.

So what should you do instead of striving to think more positively?

Build positive emotions.

You may be asking, how is this different from positive thinking? The key word is build. Feeling sustained joy after pain and tragedy can definitely happen, but it takes time and work.

So how do you build positive emotions?

1. Be healthy. 

Do all the normal things to keep your body and mind healthy: eat vegetables, socialize, exercise, sleep well, you know, all the things.

2. Re-wire your brain.

Do your research and/or meet with professionals to learn some techniques to re-wire your brain to more easily feel positive emotions. Yes, I mean literally changing your brain's neural pathways - the fancy word for it is neuroplasticity. These techniques include but are not limited to: mindfulness meditation (been huge for me), gratitude journals, thought records, free writing (or any kind of writing), and learning a musical instrument.

3. Get in touch with your spiritual side. 

Maybe the traumatic event has forced you to re-think some of your religious beliefs - that's totally ok and normal. I am still figuring out how much of the "pre-widower" version of my faith I can hold on to. But what I know is that I can't throw it all away.

Or maybe you have never considered faith or spirituality. Like Julia, I think it's important for everybody to think through spiritual questions, but especially those dealing with loss because it moves you beyond the troubles of this world. It gets you focusing on something larger - and I don't mean in the "everything happens for a reason" sense. You don't have to have it all figured out, or even embrace religion - after all, Jesus didn't like religion very much. But developing a sense of awe and wonder, and letting that extend beyond this world, is an important part of moving forward.

Building positive emotions after grief takes time and effort. But don't fall for the feel-good-quick, positive thinking scam. I promise you will be better off putting in the work, and getting to joy and hope the right way.

2 comments:

I'd love to hear from you. Please jump in on the conversation or just say hi!