By Suzanne Carter, MA, LPC
Over the years, I have often heard people say, “I'm going to be positive. I don't want to put anything negative on my Facebook page.”
I understand the intention. Most of us don't want to contribute more hostility, fear, or divisiveness to the world. However, I think there is an important distinction between being negative and being willing to look honestly at what is happening.
Facts are not positive or negative simply because they make us comfortable or uncomfortable. Sometimes the facts before us are painful, disturbing, or contrary to our deepest values. Refusing to look at them does not make us more positive.
It may simply make us less aware. This has sometimes been a challenge within what we might call the positive-thinking movement.
There can be a temptation to cover difficult realities with affirmations, immediately look for the good, or turn away from something because acknowledging it feels “negative.”
I don't believe that is what genuine spiritual consciousness asks of us. Even Thumper's famous advice from Bambi— “If you can't say something nice…”—has its limitations.
There are times when something needs to be said, even when it isn't particularly nice. When something violates our values or troubles our conscience, we can speak. The question becomes how.
We can tell the truth without attacking another person. We can speak from the “I.” We can distinguish what we actually know from what we assume or interpret. We can listen as well as speak. And we can remain connected to our own inner experience while making room for the experience of another. Our feelings are part of the information. One danger of trying to remain “positive” is that we may begin ignoring our feelings. Feelings are not necessarily facts about another person or situation. But they are information about our experience.
Carl Jung described four psychological functions through which we orient ourselves to life:
I have taught these as different ways of knowing. Each gives us information that the others may not provide. What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I sensing? What am I intuiting?
When we allow ourselves access to more of our knowing, we can respond to life from a fuller place rather than simply reacting—or pretending that something difficult isn't happening.
Spirituality does not require us to look away.
For me, spirituality is not withdrawal from the world. It is being fully present to what is happening within us, around us, and between us.
I believe we carry the presence of the Divine within us. That presence gives us the capacity to look at what is happening, feel what it awakens within us, listen deeply, discern what is ours to do, and then take action consistent with our deepest values.
Sometimes that action is speaking. Sometimes it is listening. Sometimes it is setting a boundary. Sometimes it is standing beside someone who is suffering. Sometimes it is acknowledging, simply and honestly, “This is happening, and it matters to me.”
We do not heal the world by bypassing it.
Over the years, I have become increasingly convinced that empathy is not sentimentality and feelings are not weakness. They are part of what allows us to remain connected—to ourselves and to one another.
When another person tells us something difficult, our task is usually not to correct it, fix it, advise them, reassure them, or make it positive. Often our first task is simply to be present enough to say: "I hear you, “Tell me more...I want to understand.”
From that kind of presence, something new can become possible. So yes, let us look for Goodness. Let us nurture hope. Let us speak about what is beautiful and life-giving.
And let us never confuse positivity with looking away. We can look. We can feel. We can think. We can sense. We can intuit. We can listen. And then we can speak our truth with clarity, compassion, and respect. Because the world does not need us to become numb in order to remain positive.
It needs us to remain awake enough to care—and connected enough to respond.
Suzanne Carter, MA, LPC
The Harmony Relationship Centerequinelites@aol.com
SuzanneCarter.net Please feel free to share or reproduce this article in its entirety, with attribution and my name and contact information included.