By Jamie DeNovo, guest blogger
You are in the middle of a crisis. Your world is falling apart and you don’t know how to cope. What advice do you hear over and over? “You’ve just got to think positive!” And then you realize, ““Wow, that’s the solution!” And away you go. Or does it always work that way? I posed the above question to diverse friends and associates. Here some of typical responses:
Lynette: When I am very upset and someone tells me to just think positive, it makes me angry. It is minimizing my problem. Richard: The phrase is so overused, it’s meaningless. Ryan: Going through a crisis situation, think positive just sounds patronizing and insensitive. It can actually make you more defensive of your negative feelings.
When we are suffering deeply, ‘Be positive’ advice from others can have the opposite effect. Why is that? Simply put, the word positive triggers areas associated with brain regions associated with pleasure or reward brain. Our brain resists linking positive feelings with misery and unhappiness, increasingly so when the underlying issues are deep. Our thoughts and emotions can’t just about-face into positive. It’s not possible. Unsurprisingly, we feel defensive instead of encouraged. So what can we do?
The real-world truth is, no one wins the battle 100% of the time. Emotional triggers can go off, life can explode and send us reeling. We can, however, minimize the casualties.
Emotions don’t exist in a vacuum. They activate supporting thoughts. So when the emotion comes (sadness, frustration, depression), immediately on its heels, thoughts come spilling into our heads. Thoughts in turn amplify emotions. They feed off each other and grow. Once we have a certain momentum or intensity established, it can be nearly impossible to switch the direction or stem the flood of emotions. But nearly impossible is not impossible. In the realm of I.M.Possible there is always a way you can turn the tide.
So when think positive is just too high on the mental ladder for us to reach, what can supply the missing rungs?
Consider the original comfort attempt: “Quit being negative. Think positive.” Now try this, replacing the term positive with productive: “You’re feelings are valid. It’s a challenging situation, but negative thoughts will only produce more hurt. How can you move forward from here? What is the most productive thing you can do in the situation right now?”
The word productive activates action and solution brain networks. It doesn’t minimize our pain or diminish our challenge. It does switch on motivational as well as reward circuits.
Productive thinking is geared towards future positive results, a much easier concept to connect with and act on when we are in mental confusion or pain. We now have a means to create an emotional transition. Whatever the cause of our suffering, we do generally recognize that we want to somehow stop things from getting worse.
Productive thinking gives us something to do; it gives us hope, which makes us feel better. Our brain is able to change enough to reset our focus and direction. Productive actions involve tiny but progressive steps, advancing from chaos to coherence to achievement. We can then move onward through the crisis to a more positive mental state.
