Struggling to stay positive?
Do you cover up feeling angry or depressed because you're known as "The Happy Person" or "The Strong One" and don't want to look like a fraud?
Feel like being positive is being fake, delusional or lying to yourself?
Everybody and their mother in the personal development, self-help and health and wellness industries tell us to think positive as much as we can.
But what do we do when we feel fake and ungrounded in doing so? Or what happens if only looking at the positive causes communication problems?
Watch the above video to explore the three problems with positive thinking and how you can start living a more authentic life!
Fake it 'til you make it.
Many well-known authors and speakers, when trying to convey the power of positive thinking to readers and audiences for the first time, tend to suggest just pretending to be positive, if you can't quite feel it in the moment, to practice raising your mindset.
However, Spirit spoke this week about problems that arise with this kind of forced positive thinking over time, because it can create an unfortunate connection between being and feeling inauthentic with being and feeling positive.
Make no mistake: inauthenticity always puts a cap on your vibration and destabilizes your energy.
Why is this important to know right now? Because you're not stupid. 🙂 You can tell when the feeling is real and you can tell when it's fake.
The problem comes in when we maintain this practice of "faking it 'til you make it" as part of our routine, rather than using it as a quick, temporary stepping stone. What was meant to be an exercise to kick-start your mindset becomes part of your identity, and the effects of that are detrimental to your energy.
One of the effects of "faking it 'til you make it" is: it creates emotional limitations, instead of expansion.
Being super-positive and "blissed out" -- as the yoga tribe calls it -- all the time feels great and is addictive because of the emotional high it can give.
However, becoming addicted to this feeling can have an ungrounding effect on your emotions and your life, because other parts of reality (such as small but serious things that need to get done like, oh say, your taxes) tend to get silenced by the sheer force of your high vibes and high emotions.
Sometimes it's appropriate and even downright essential that you be able to tune into the darker side of life. Being open to engaging -- but not getting sucked into -- depression, anger, grief and other uncomfortable feelings is a necessary ingredient in being vulnerable in a healthy way (aka. emotionally accessible and available).
Another problem, therefore, with imbalanced positive thinking is that it can emotionally numb you.
Now, we are talking in an extreme sense, here; as in someone who refuses to see the negative or acknowledge that there are things that just aren't going right, because they are too scared to confront the truth head-on.
Many sensitive, spiritual and caring empathic people like us get into this head-space where we avoid (aka. refuse) acknowledging that there's a serious issue at hand that really "should" be addressed, because it doesn't fit within our positive, feel-good outlook.
Numbing yourself by stubbornly focusing on only the positive can, in some situations, numb you to receiving the spiritual guidance and development you need to move forward.
Be kind to yourself, because this isn't something that is not commonly talked about in the wellness and personal development industry. And by the way, this isn't an invitation to turn into a serial pessimist or steaming poo-flinging monkey. LOL!
What we are really honing in on here is being honest. Being honest with yourself, first, that is.
Honesty, experiencing and expressing it, is a throat and solar plexus chakra issue. It's about living your truth (solar plexus chakra) and being able to express it freely and appropriately (throat chakra).
Know this: Honesty is the key to living a balanced, healthy life for the long haul. #thinkpositive
It's about learning to ground your positive outlook, so you can develop the ability to Respond authentically, rather than React spontaneously, to your experiences.
Having an ungrounded or "airy-fairy" fake positive outlook is only the product of people-pleasing behavior.
Wanting to look relaxed and positive to others, and being and feeling positive yourself are two entirely different things.
The main difference between the two shows up in your behavioral patterns. Can you express disagreement or stand up for yourself with ease, or do you have to blow up before you speak up?
If you find yourself staying silent when you should stand up for yourself because you mainly focus on loving people and don't want to be confrontational, then this Love Letter is for you. Balance it out!
Watch this week's video for the Oracle Card of the Week, which explains the spiritual issues behind why we can have problems with our positive thinking and what to do about it!
In Love and Light,
Victoria.
VictoriaWhitfield.com
Facebook.com/SenseiVictoriaWhitfield
Just for Today...
Choose to be honest with yourself. On a piece of paper, write down a list of all the things you are tolerating or hiding so you can appear happy, positive and strong to others.
Then ask yourself, "how could I confront or release one of these issues with love so I can move forward to a healthier future?"
Notice how you feel at that moment - you're already healing!
SHARE THIS! You’d be surprised how many people you know right now are in desperate need of healing and could use this information to change their life. If you can read this, you know someone who needs this Love Letter!