Why Negative thoughts are not always Bad. If you spend a lot of time studying personal development, the power of thoughts, and the law of attraction, you quickly come to the conclusion that positive thoughts are good and negative thoughts are bad for us. From this point on we try to concentrate on the positive as best as we can and avoid the negative. And mostly we notice relatively soon that something is changing. And for the positive!
But then there are phases in which you feel as if nothing is going on at all. As if you hadn’t understood anything at all and as if you were just running away from your problems. Sometimes you can look for so many positive aspects in a situation, but it just doesn’t want to get better. And sometimes you can try hard to distract yourself from something, but the negative thoughts just don’t want to go away.
And you know what? That’s perfectly okay! And it is the same for each of us! A person who claims to only think positively 24 hours a day is simply lying. Because that is not even possible. And there is a reason for that because negative thoughts don’t always have to be bad. In fact, they can be very good for us!
Why Negative thoughts are not always Bad. Negative thoughts are sometimes good.
Imagine never having a negative thought. The world would be a pink place and everything would be perfect. Would you really want that? It’s the contrast that makes life exciting. Without painful experiences, we would no longer appreciate beautiful moments. Do you know that moment when you come home on a freezing winter day and snuggle up in a warm blanket? This moment would not even exist in such a world, because you only appreciate the warmth through the contrast of the icy cold.
Why Negative thoughts are not always Bad
Negative thoughts do make sense. They show us what we don’t want and thus also what we actually want instead. They protect and warn us and show us unprocessed emotions that we need to let out. And they make us evolve. Without negative thoughts, we would always be where we are now, as there would be no reason to change anything.
Resistance is futile
As soon as we try to escape or suppress our negative thoughts, exactly the opposite of what we want happens. Resistance just always creates more resistance. If I tell you, “Don’t try to think of a green unicorn with pink dots” – what happens then? Right! You think of a green unicorn with pink dots.
So if we are afraid of our negative thoughts because we are constantly being told that they are bad and we are drawing negative things into our lives, then this fear only creates more negative thoughts. So we quickly get into a downward spiral and also reproach ourselves for simply not being able to do it. As soon as we suppress something, it only gets worse and worse.
Why Negative thoughts are not always Bad
How do you deal with negative thoughts?
Even if negative thoughts have their justification and are also important, they are not always necessarily true. They just show us our current subjective perspective. We are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are only our beliefs and inner convictions, which were usually impressed on us in our childhood. But that doesn’t mean that they are true. Still, they belong to us at this moment and that’s perfectly fine.
Why Negative thoughts are not always Bad. Instead of running away from our negative thoughts and thus from ourselves, we have to observe and accept them. It is never good to deny and push away a part of yourself. These thoughts and emotions also belong to us at this moment and should be appreciated accordingly. This is an important part of self-love. When we have stopped judging our thoughts, we can switch perspectives and wonder if those thoughts are true or if we should renew the underlying beliefs and beliefs.
We could ask ourselves the following questions:
What does this thought show me?
What does this thought protect or warn me against?
What emotions could be behind it that I have not yet processed?
What does this thought say about me?
What is the belief behind this thought?
Is this thought actually true, or are there other points of view that I might consider?
Which thought would feel better?
What would I rather think?
Listen to your feelings
Our feelings always lead us in the right direction. When something doesn’t feel good, we know we are thinking of something that is not useful to us. Negative thoughts clearly show us what we don’t want and therefore lead us to what we want instead. We need crises because they make us focus again. We need pain because it teaches us gratitude. We need problems and bad experiences to find out what we actually want. We have to be unhappy sometimes to be happy because we need contrast.
“It is impossible to avoid negative emotions altogether because to live is to experience setbacks and conflicts,” ~ Sauer-Zavala.
Learning how to cope with those emotions is the key. In fact, once you accept your thoughts and feelings, shaking off your shame and guilt, you will see your problems with greater clarity and proceed down the path to recovery.
In conclusion. Running away doesn’t help, because nothing happens without a reason. We have to be ready to feel our emotions and deal with them. And often we can learn a great deal from it. We always need both sides: positive and negative, light and dark, cold and hot, light and shadow … Because only when you unite both opposing parts, unity is created. We are only in balance if we allow both sides to do so.