Positive thinking is pointless. Thinking positively only works when you’re in a good mood, otherwise it trains your brain to believe thinking is always wise.
Clearly this book – Don’t Believe Everything You Think – has made a strong impression on me since my past three blogs have been on the topic. It’s not often a book makes me think so much (or in this case, not think). Another concept I wanted to explore from the book was how positive thought isn’t as powerful as you may believe.
if you’re like me, you may catch yourself in stressful or unwanted situations and tell yourself “just think about the positives”. I’d constantly do this and try working through my frustration by practicing positivity and thinking about how this case isn’t as bad as it seems. This book has made me question that process.
According to the author, while positive thinking seems beneficial, the actual way to face the world head on is by not thinking at all. When these moments pop up and your brain starts ramping up, the way to resolve it is to pause, breathe, and release the string of thinking.
Considering this more, the way I understand this is that positive thinking is allowing your brain to think because you feel it’s helpful, but in reality, you’re telling your brain that all thinking is allowed. You have to train the muscle of not thinking by preventing attachment to all thinking. If you let the brain run rampant when it’s in a good mood, it’ll be incredibly difficult to cut it off when you’re in a bad mood.
Being able to stop your thinking is something you have to do consistently, no matter what the thinking looks like. This process has proven quite difficult over the past couple days. I’ll find myself deep in the process of thinking because I feel like I’m considering productive ideas, but then a rush at work happens and my thinking switches to stress and the thinking continues uninterrupted. So even when it feels positive, you have to cut it off. That’s the only way to grow unattached.
Thinking is the root of suffering, not just negative thinking, all thinking. If you want to learn presence and be able to handle any situation, you need to practice the habit. This means stopping the brain when it’s in a positive state and when it’s in a negative one.
November 21, 2024
