The Case Against Positive Thinking

“Optimism,” said Candide, “is a mania for maintaining that all is well when things are going badly.” – Voltaire  

There is a story told of a Master who saw a dead dog decaying in the road. His disciples tried to keep the unsightly animal from him, but the Master saw the unfortunate animal and said, “What pearly white teeth.” Even amid stench and decay, there was still something beautiful to behold.

The Master did not – as some positive thinkers might – say the dog was “only sleeping.”

The Master did not throw a stick and say, “Here, Rover, fetch!” The Master first perceived the reality and then found something good about it.

 Anti Positive Thinking

Positive thinkers sometimes use positive thinking to justify their inability to accept the moment. They have a long list of “should’s,” and, unless reality measures up to their imagined state of perfection (which it almost never does), they retreat into positive thoughts, affirming that, thanks to their thoughts, the future conditions of the world will be better for everyone.

In other words, some people use positive thinking as a holier-than-thou-sounding form of denial.

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? – Michel De Saint-Pierre

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A major problem with positive thinking and illness, especially life-threatening illness, is: what about the illness? If you are told to positively think yourself healthy and then get sicker, you may add personal blame to the worsening illness. “If I had only thought more positively, I would be well by now. Where did I fail?”

This is especially true of positive thinkers who tell stories of miracle cures. “If only you think positively, and believe, you, too, can have a miracle cure.” Well, maybe, or maybe not.

It took a lot of negative thinking – decades in some cases – to bring on a life-threatening illness. Why should a week or two of positive thinking get rid of it?

Now, I’m all for miracles, and I’ve seen my share, but miracles can’t be counted on. If they could, by definition, they wouldn’t be miracles. I tend to follow the Pragmatic Creed:

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and shoot down the middle.”

If you have a miraculous healing, wonderful! Take all the credit for it. If you have a slow, progressive recovery, great! If you have the usual series of ups and downs that life threatening illnesses often go through, find something to be grateful for every day, every hour, every minute. Each time you find something, it will make you smile in your heart.

Positive thinking only puts a gap between where you are physically and where you think you “should” be. There are no “should’s” to a life-threatening illness. You’ll be happier, and probably heal faster, if you let go of as many “should’s” as you can…more on this later.

Now I’d like to explore an area in which I take fundamental issue with positive thinkers – how to respond to loss.

Positive thinkers might say, “There is no loss, only the opportunity for new experiences. Rejoice!”

I say: loss hurts. It also infuriates. That’s natural. That’s human. To deny the pain and anger with an attitude of platitudes may do more harm than good.

Learn to Mourn

This is a lifetime of good-byes. As the years go on, you’ll say good-bye to both people (through moving, change, or death) and things (youth, that semi-tight body you once had, hair, prized possessions). Eventually, you’ll say good-bye to it all with your own death.

Learning to mourn, to grieve, to say a good good-bye, is an invaluable tool.

The sound of her silk skirt has stopped. On the marble pavement dust grows. Her empty room is cold and still. Fallen leaves are piled against the doors. Longing for that lovely lady, how can I bring my aching heart to rest? – Han Wu-Ti 187-57 B.C. on the death of his mistress,

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When a loss takes place, the mind, body, and emotions go through a process of healing as natural as the healing of a physical injury. Know that feeling lost, sad, angry, hurt, fearful, and tearful at good-byes is a natural part of the healing process.

We recover from loss in three distinct but overlapping phases:

• The first phase of recovery is shock/ denial/numbness
• The second, fear/anger/depression
• The third, understanding/acceptance/moving on

No matter what the loss – from a missed phone call to the death of a loved one – the body goes through the same three phases of recovery. The only difference is the time it takes to go through each stage and the intensity of the feelings at each point along the way.

When we first hear of a loss, our initial reaction is shock/denial/numbness. Often we say, “Oh, no!” We can’t believe what we’ve heard.

We go numb.

This ability to deny and go numb is a blessing. Catastrophic losses are too hard to take all at once. It has been suggested that the reason some people have slow, terminal illnesses as their method of dying is because it’s going to take them a long time to say good-bye, and they want to do it right.

“Warm summer sun, shine kindly here; Warm northern wind, blow softly here; Green sod above, lie light, lie light Good-night, dear heart, good-night, good-night.” – Mark Twain, epitaph for his daughter.

The next phase, fear/anger/depression, is the one most commonly associated with loss.

We think we’ll never love or be loved again (fear). We wail against the situations, people, things, and unkind fates that “caused” the loss (anger). We cry, we feel sad, we hurt, we don’t want to go on (depression).

One of the toughest feelings to accept is anger at the one who is dying (even if it’s yourself).

“Why are you leaving me?!” a voice inside wants to know. To feel angry at someone for dying, or angry at yourself over your own death, is perfectly normal. It’s a natural stage of recovery that one must pass through. (Pass through–not remain in.)

Finally we come to understanding/acceptance/ moving on.

We understand that loss is part of life. We accept the loss we suffered, and begin to heal.

When healing is well under way, we move on to our next experiences.

How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D., explains the process of healing in detail.

I put this information on grieving in the section “Act-centuate the Positive” because mourning is a positive human ability. It allows us the flexibility to adapt to change. It is not “negative” to feel pain, fear, and anger at loss.

It’s a natural, human response. The negativity enters when the process of healing is suppressed, glossed over, and denied.

Accept the process. Accept the numbness, the fear, the pain, the anger, the sadness, the tears, and, eventually, accept the healing.

Accepting the healing can be difficult. People may expect you to mourn longer than you find necessary, or they may want your mourning to “hurry up.” People often offer comfort to ease their own discomfort. “There, there,” they say, “everything’s all right,” when, in fact, everything is not all right.

Grieving must be done in its own time.

To deny the reality that pain hurts only delays the healing process. Take the time to grieve, to mourn, and to say a good good-bye. At the point of genuine understanding and acceptance of your own death (not just a mentally constructed understanding and acceptance) lies the ability to understand and accept the magnificence of life.

“Is there a “cure” for a broken heart? Only time can heal your broken heart, just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs.” – Miss Piggy

If you’d like some coaching around grieving and releasing request your Introductory Consultation today.