Negative Thoughts: Is Life a Battle?
I’m quite a sucker for “how to” posts about positive thinking. But sometimes the underlying tone seems more aggressive than positive. I don’t have a problem with being a winner in a genuinely competitive situation, but I don’t see my life as a war, either with myself or with the rest of the world!
I’m quite a sucker for “how to” posts about positive thinking. Sometimes something just strikes a chord, lightening the load I can make for myself when some old negative soundtrack kicks in. But very often their tone sounds far from positive, more aggressive, and combative. The underlying concept seems to be of life as a battle. Indeed, it is not always so underlying, with the phrase “you are a winner” sometimes liberally sprinkled through posts.
If we are all the winners, who are the losers? Are we fighting with life, or with ourselves? Are we really out to gain victory over our own minds, defeating what we find there in an aggressive and irrevocable way? “You are a tough opponent”, I read, once more, “you are a winner”. I don’t have a problem with being a winner in a genuinely competitive situation, but I don’t see my life as a war, either with myself or with the rest of the world.
I think that however reasonable the strategies may be — anyone who subtly primes themselves to fight against themselves and the world in this way, is setting themselves up for more conflict. There is also the danger, or rather the stupidity, of treating spiritual practices in an instrumental fashion, as no more or less than good techniques for attaining the ultimate goal of being a happy, successful winner.
It seems to me that the best ways to weed out negative thoughts are to work with awareness of them, working around them, accepting their existence, and ignoring them — fighting them head on tends to give them power. All the classic tips for building up positive thoughts are generally effective, if the motivation is there.
Sometimes the negative thoughts need to be understood before disappearing of their own accord, they maybe are part of a quite logical defensive pattern. Sometimes they do just need to be swept away by a breath of fresh air, and concentration on the positive. But surely the attitude of winning battles with yourself has to be counterproductive in the long run?
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This article was last reviewed by on Friday, 25th January 2008. You can leave a response below.
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27th January 2008
Personally I find it more productive not to think in terms of overcoming oneself and winning battles. Those negative thoughts are, when it’s all said and done, part of oneself. You can own them, and then let them go.
27th January 2008
That’s a nice way of putting it…
I basically agree, although some people do have intrusive and obsessive thought patterns that are not felt to be part of themselves… not so easy to let go of, and that “inner critic” also sometimes needs to be dealt with in other ways!
28th January 2008
They are certainly not easy to let go of. I found it took many years of practice and a certain type of subtle kind of mental gymnastics to do so. And if anyone asked me to describe these processes, I would not be able to.
I find it helpful to try to moderate the inner critic by not entertaining and giving short thrift to thoughts about oneself that I would want to hear directed at a best friend.
28th January 2008
In my opinion, curiosity and perhaps an inner most feeling of perfectionism are the cause and effect of positive or negative thoughts. If we wage war amongst our inner selves, it is not only for the purpose of identifying a victory or loss,however, we do sometimes mistake our inner thoughts(or opinions) as facts of our known reality. That in itself is a danger to all of us if we cannot comprend it correctly.