Overcoming Negativity

Want to improve your quality of life? Overcoming negativity in your thinking is one of the most important steps you can take. The following is a slightly different perspective on where the negative ideas in our heads come from, what damage they cause, and what we can do about it.

The Negative Voices Within

There are negative identities or thought processes in us that have no interest in our lives or well being. They seek only to perpetuate themselves. They can do that only to the extent that we give them life through our attention to them and identification with them. In other words we feed these identities within our minds and they take control of us. You can take this as a metaphorical understanding or however it makes sense to you. It can certainly be described in many other ways, but it is something you can see the truth of if you watch your mind in action.

For example, most of us go through times when we complain a lot (all of life for some people). There is a thought process in us that holds up an image of how life or the world "should be," and then compares it to what is seen, which always falls short. The result is constant complaints, criticism and negativity.

This is a recipe for suffering, of course, and the more we entertain these "should be" and "shouldn't be" thoughts, the more we make ourselves miserable. But interestingly, the more we pay attention to or identify with them, the more alive these negative voices or identities in our heads become. Watch yourself and you'll see this in action. And don't be surprised if the moment that you see the uselessness of this process your mind starts to find justifications for it. Your mind may suddenly say something like, "We have to have an idea of how things should be so we can change things for the better!"

Perpetual complaining and fostering of negative states does little to make things better of course. We can easily see that change for the better does not require a constant protestation that things "should be" this way or "shouldn't be" that way. It is enough to choose among the better possibilities, isn't it? Step back for a moment and consider the process of negativity that is justified as something good. Doesn't it seem silly for an intelligent being to decide that complaining and being negative is the way to a better life?

Feed the monster though, and it overcomes you. To see how true this is, stop feeding a negative state or internal voice and watch the desperation with which it tries to survive. You could say that you are desperate to hold onto that thought process, but it really makes more sense to see it as trying to hold on to you. After all, as an intelligent being, why would you choose to engage in thinking that is non-productive and causes you suffering? Only because you have mistakenly identified with that interior voice. You momentarily think it's your self.

Some who read this will feel uneasy with the idea that there are parts of our minds trying to take control of us. But it isn't a difficult thing to prove to yourself. Just try to stop complaining both verbally and in your thinking for one entire day. If you are truly in control of your mind that should be possible as an experiment even if you believe in the value of negativity and complaining. But I think you'll find that it is difficult to say the least.

Overcoming Negativity Through Observation

How do we overcome these negative thought processes that distort our thinking and drain our creative and constructive power? We don't overcome them, at least not directly. In fact, fighting them often just feeds them and helps them to grow in us. The better way is to withdraw our support for them.

The first step towards this is to acknowledge that there is a lot of negativity in us, and that we succumb to it at times. Learn to see it happening and that alone is a big improvement. Why? Because to some extent we can simply drop what we see as useless, the same way we drop a piece of junk mail into the garbage - no fighting nor conflict required.

Of course these things can be subtle, so continued observation is a must. This also teaches us to doubt that our internal dialog is our self. We stop identifying with it so much, and this weakens the negative forces. Believe it or not, with self observation and awareness you can have all sorts of stupid thoughts demanding your attention without it impacting you very much. You will essentially learn to say, "Oh you again. I have better things to pay attention to."

Another practical step you can take is to simply stop complaining whenever you catch yourself doing it. If you find yourself feeling that this kind of "venting" is necessary in some way (a justification your negative thought processes will supply), then at least complain consciously. What that means is you make the negative statement or complaint while watching the whole process as an observer. In fact, look around immediately afterwards to see how much your life improved from the complaint. You might laugh as you do this, but it will become clearer that there is no real intelligence in negativity.