Thinking positive is not always the solution in sadness

There is a belief that we have so internalized that it is often difficult to realize how irrational it is. This belief consists of the idea that in any event or experience in our lives there is always something positive and something negative. We have a conception of reality in which anything can be both a blessing and a curse, if we learn to focus our attention on all its facets and nuances.

This belief is very persistent, and although we may not realize it, it expresses itself through many different ways. However, sometimes this hardly causes us any problems, while other times it can compromise our mental health. For example, when we are faced with a serious crisis in our life and we consider the idea of ​​“thinking positive”, focusing our attention on the beneficial component that the situation is supposed to have.

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Facing sadness is necessary

Can you imagine how absurd it would be to tell a person that they should be fine? This is more or less what we do to ourselves if we insist on thinking positive at all costs.

when we have important reasons to be very sad or angry.

There are experiences in which, whether we like it or not, we must position ourselves in the face of sadness and anger. We can accept that it is there and strive to get out of that emotional crisis, we can make it part of our conception of life and assume that anything that does not consist of feeling bad is inauthentic, or we can try to ignore it. In theory, most people are able to see that the first option is suitable and beneficial while the second is not; however, the third generates more division of opinions.

After all, isn't ignoring pain the underlying motto of the philosophy of life based on “live in the moment, don't complicate your life”?

If it only matters what we feel in the here and now, suffering seems like an absolute waste of time, so it seems best to simply not do it: think positive even in the saddest or most disappointing moments. Of course, it is a very consistent idea with the idea of ​​always choosing an optimistic interpretation of things. The only problem it has is that many times it does not work or, in fact, it can make the situation worse.

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Why constantly thinking positive can hurt us

The problem with this approach to sadness based on the philosophy of the here and now is that our decisions do not have absolute power over our emotions. When we realize that there is something that causes us great sadness, it is impossible to distance ourselves from it and decide what to do with it as a scientist might do with a petri dish looking through the microscope. We must decide what to do from that emotion, not with her, and therefore ignoring her is not an option.

What if we prefer to show that we do have that power to manipulate our emotional state at will? Let's take an example: a middle-aged man sees how the dog that has accompanied him for twelve years is run over by a car. Faced with a situation like this, he decides to focus on the positive, which in this case is having happy memories with the animal and being able to reflect on what that experience has taught him.

The first problem with this is that the first step to thinking positive is to appear to think positive, that is, not cry. The fact of having to control crying it makes the experience even more painful, since, among other things, it forces the man not to think about certain things that he knows in advance would make him cry. That means that, in practice, it is impossible for you to perform those actions that are supposed to be the positive side of having had a dog that has died.

But there is still another element that makes thinking positive at all costs harmful: it prevents us from normalizing the experience. If we try to ignore the sadness that something causes us, we never come to accept it, which means that we get stuck in the grieving process; we simply do not know how to move forward. It is necessary to assume that it is not possible to show that the emotional impact of a bad experience does not exist in order, in this way, to be able to manage the relationship that we are going to have with that feeling.

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Suppressing sadness or anger does not work

Many times we fall into the trap of thinking about emotions, feelings and sensations in an overly essentialist way. We label sadness, anger, and other similar states of mind as "negative emotions." and we try to make them not part of our day to day, without more. In some contexts it is effective to de-dramatize certain situations, but when the discomfort is very intense, the resilience it cannot be based on the suppression of emotions.

When it comes to managing the emotions that make us feel bad, we must always take into account the most important factor in these cases: time. Since from our decisions and our rationality it is not possible for us to control that emotional side that characterizes us as animals that we are, we must let the passage of time help us.

If we accept sadness, little by little time will accumulate the opportunities to distract our mind with things other than thoughts about what makes us sad. In this way, there will come a point where it will be possible for us to think about everything, even what made us feel bad, without experiencing the same pain that we lived a few days ago, when we did the same.

Mental well-being, in short, consists of being able to look back and recall experiences without feeling limited by our emotions. Thinking positive at all costs, which in practice is forcing ourselves to ignore certain memories and ideas, is nothing more than a way of putting a name that limitation and ignore the fact that it will not go away on its own if our fight against unrest is to strengthen its power over U.S.