How is Positivity Not the Same as Positive Thinking?
Because genuine, non-toxic positivity isn’t just thought.
In my quest to better myself and live my life as fully as possible. I’ve listened to and read numerous self-help, empowerment, manifestation, and similar books, audiobooks, podcasts, and the like.
I’ve read, analyzed, and even absorbed a wide range of information – both useful and less than useful. My studies have included the spiritual, philosophical, psychological, educational, scientific, and everything in between.
A key trope I’ve seen over and over again in the non-scientific realm is positive thinking. Again and again, they tell you that if you put enough positive thought out into the Universe, you can manifest anything your heart desires.
The notion that thought can be used to control the universe nearly always begins with positive thinking. Whether it’s 1952’s The Power of Positive Thinking by Normal Vincent Peale, the 1937 Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, or Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 film and book sensation The Secret – the message is the same. Positive thinking will manifest incredible results into your life.
Some dismiss all of these as hokum. Bullshit. Grade-A snake oil. Having read 2 of these, I believe that they have merit to a degree – but it requires critical thinking. That’s because you must get past the rah-rah think-it-and-you’ll-manifest-it idealization to reap any benefit from it.
What does that mean? It means that you need to know that thought is not all there is to anything and everything in the Universe.
You are not thought alone
Every single human being on Planet Earth – all 8 billion of us – is not made of thought alone. You also have feelings, instincts, beliefs, values, and habits that thought only gives names to.
It’s important to be aware of your thoughts. But thought in and of itself barely touches the surface of your being.
If you don’t also address your feelings, and beyond them your habits and beliefs, you sure as hell can’t use thought to control – let alone change – anything.
What’s more, there’s a difference between passive and active thinking.
Lots of passive thoughts run through your head – much like the music in the background of most bars and restaurants. By and large, you pay it no attention. Yet every now and then you notice it. That song you love or that tune you can’t stand, your consciousness drifting and the background music suddenly swelling into the foreground, or something else draws your attention to it.
Passive thought is utterly out of your control. Because it’s passive, you’re barely aware of it. Often, when you do take a look at that passive thought, you might dismiss it as useless to you. Or you might actively start to examine it for efficacy.
Whatever the case may be – thought isn’t all that goes into what makes you, you – or your life, your life.
Positive thinking is not positivity
Positive thinking tends to be about focusing on maintaining only positive thoughts. It’s all about not allowing negativity, distress, or anything other than positive thoughts to dominate your being.
Many of the narratives about positive thinking people encounter go a step further, implying – or even saying outright – that allowing negativity or negative thoughts to enter your mind causes you to fail. Or to otherwise find new and interesting ways to fuck it all up.
This is where toxic positivity comes in. Because the notion that you should never deal with negativity and focus only on positivity is toxic. And it’s bullshit, too.
Positivity is not positive thinking. First, because it’s not thought. Yes, thought is a part of positivity. But genuine positivity is a matter of conscious awareness – mindfulness.
That means that positivity is a product of feeling, intention, action, and thought.
What’s more, genuine positivity isn’t all or nothing. It’s an attitude, an approach, a choice. Genuine positivity recognizes and acknowledges negativity, that bad things and shit happens, and that your control is wholly limited to your conscious awareness of your feelings, actions, intentions, and thoughts.
Positivity is choosing to not be a victim, to walk away when you need, to let go, to find the good in the bad, and any lessons therein.
You can’t just think things and make them real. Manifestation isn’t possible – unless you take actions along with your intentions to have, be, and do what you are seeking to make or make happen.
Work, effort, focus, and action – consciously enacted – with an inclination towards positivity is necessary.
This can only ever work for you and you alone
Another largely misunderstood element from unscientific self-help works is that you can change the world. On the one hand, you can – BUT – on the other hand, only when it comes to yourself.
You can’t make anyone else do anything. It’s impossible to think, feel, act, or intend for anyone else. No matter how badly you might want them to – you cannot control them AT ALL.
As a writer, I’d like more people to read my blogs and buy my books. I can do marketing, sales, promotions, and take other steps to get them sold. But I can’t make anyone buy anything.
That’s because I have zero control over anyone or anything other than myself.
And you have the same zero control over anyone other than yourself.
The Secret tells you to “ask, believe, receive” to make anything you desire happen. What it utterly leaves out is that you can’t create from the void. There must be effort and work, action and intention on your part. And you can’t make anyone else do anything whatsoever. That includes the Universe.
Is it all bullshit? No. There are in these works nuggets of wisdom to be found. Almost all of them are about self-awareness, mindfulness, and conscious reality creation.
BUT – and this is important – conscious reality creation is only about your personal reality. Because how you perceive reality is wholly on you and you alone. You can use conscious awareness to change your reality and/or apply conscious reality creation as such.
Positivity comes into play because it’s the attitude you take. It’s a builder, a creator – where negativity is a destroyer and a discourager.
Positive thinking is not positivity. Recognizing this empowers you to employ genuine positivity to better your life experience and cope with shit that happens along the way.
Recognizing positive thinking versus positivity isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you employ positive thinking alone, you set yourself up to get hurt because positive thinking is not the whole package – and can easily lead to toxic positivity. Knowing that genuine positivity is connected to conscious awareness and beyond thought alone, you can use this attitude to keep moving forward when life is extra challenging.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Then that can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred and seventieth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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