Last year, I was watching a Larry King special on the power of positive thinking. He had a group of several well-known experts in the personal growth arena on the show. They all had interesting things to share until the very last question, which was, "Do you ever have bad days?"
To a person, they offered up some variation of the answer, "No." I was so incensed I literally jumped up and shouted, "Bullshit!" at the TV.
I get sick to death of seeing the smiley happy gurus who exude nothing but, "I have it all together, and if you'd just think happy thoughts, you could too." A positive message is great, but it's not the whole story. The whole story inevitably includes bumps and bruises, uncertainty and doubt along the way.
To be fair, I don't think the smiley happy gurus are being intentionally misleading (for example, I'm pretty sure they actually meant that even when they have crappy days they're able to put them in perspective, learn from them, etc.). But the reality is that what they don't address - "Hey, my life ain't perfect" - results in a vacuum. And we as mere mortals looking to the experts for advice happily fill that vacuum in with a perception of perfection.
Which is why I loved Kimberly's post over on Uncover Your Bliss about the bumpy side of the life experience:
I was facing a situation that shook me to the core of everything I have become. The details aren’t really important—I can easily explain them away, put a positive spin on them, change them into a blessing, etc. What’s important is how they affected me: I was in a state of complete despair. I mean that literally—I was at a point where I had no hope, I was angrier than I remember ever being, where I felt the last three years of my life were a complete waste, where I felt completely spiritually abandoned, where the only thing that felt real to me was that despair. Everything I gained since I moved to Colorado felt like a joke, and once I started questioning a few things, everything became questionable. My mother called it the Dark Night of the Soul, but I called it a big steaming pile of poo.
My words about letting go and stopping my struggles and finding happiness inside were taunting me. I had even printed them out along with the affirmations below them and hung them on the wall behind my computer before everything broke open. When my crisis began, I would glare at them in defiance and think, “I’m amazed I have friends if this is the kind of crap I’ve been saying to them. I’m a jackass.” I came face to face with exactly how hard it is to hear those things when times are tough.
Can I get a Hallelujah! Real, vulnerable honesty from someone who, by virtue of her primary focus - positive thinking and inspiration - might run the risk of being a smiley happy guru!
Even her bouncing back from the experience reflected the challenges of the human experience (but she DID bounce back, which is a lesson for all of us).
So I’ve been recovering from that. And I wish I could say that I magically got everything back and here I am in happyland again, la la la. It’s not true though. I got beaten down so far and became so tired in all four of my bodies (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) that I had no choice except move on. Well that’s not true, I had a choice: I could either stay upset and do nothing and feel nothing or I could just put one foot in front of the other and make little choices to make myself feel better. It was time to take my own advice by doing what I could in any given moment to make myself feel better because I couldn’t live feeling bad all the time anymore. Things are the way they are and I can either live with joy and hope or I can be sad and bitter. And since I made the decision that I was done being sad, the joy and hope have started filling the empty spaces. What a wonderful affirmation, no?
Thanks for the refreshing breath of reality, Kimberly!
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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
Wow. That's a lot of money. Thats an awesome example for her fans. Good post!
Posted by: Ian Mariano | October 04, 2007 at 03:24 PM
That really seems to be the crux of it, doesn't it. We aren't really all positive beings - no matter what we like to think on the surface. We put on this "character", which is at the end of the day just superficial. And we create crazy situations for ourselves like characters from a comedy.
I am a bit off about the whole positive thinking, notion. I tried to think of it in a different manner - and I feel that the idea of "conscious thinking" is much more realistic and practical...
http://www.thethoughts.co.uk/thoughts/positive-thinking/
Keep up with the great posts!
Marcus
Posted by: Marcus | October 07, 2007 at 01:03 PM
Hi Marcus. Interesting post. Thanks for the heads up on it!
Posted by: Curt Rosengren | October 09, 2007 at 09:14 AM