Mandatory Positivity

A woman came into my clinic the other day with a recent diagnosis of cancer.  Her doctors think she may have at most two years to live.  She is in her late twenties and has three children.  She is obviously devastated but told me “I’m staying positive”.

I said “about what?”

“I’m not even sure, but everybody keeps telling me to stay positive” she answered.

Here is a woman who is completely shocked by a devastating diagnosis and people are saying stay positive.  For decades now we’ve been encouraged to ‘think positive’ or ‘always look on the bright side of life’. 

Truly it’s not a bad thing to be positive.  Unfortunately it has become a bit rigid.

It is reported that President George W. Bush is a very positive person.  So much so that he disliked pessimists.  If someone in his inner circle questioned him or thought too negatively, he fired them.

This mandatory positivity may have contributed to the economic fall of the United States in 2008.  If anyone doubted that things were going bad they were shunned.  No sense of negativity was tolerated. When the bubble burst, as all bubbles must do, the citizens found themselves in mired in economic ruin.  They discovered that the enthusiasm with which mortgages were granted was without merit. Their banks were crippled and Wall Street was in danger of collapsing.

This blind positivity was an emotional high that many did not want to let go. The emotional pendulum swung ferociously from artificial optimism to a deep and abiding pessimism.  The negativity that prevails today over the economic situation is a natural response to a false and gloating confidence. 

Ignoring our authentic feelings and bullying ourselves into mandatory optimism will ultimately lead to some kind of fall. It denies us the opportunity to feel and release all our innate feelings and doubts. 

The only authentic way to experience the beauty and wonder of life is to surrender to our fears and our doubts. Buddha did not go meditate for three long years to return and announce to the world that ‘life is great’!  No, he came back with ‘life is dukkha’. It has suffering.  Obviously he didn’t mean that life sucked.  He meant for us to surrender to it because our life is forever changing. One day the wind is behind your back and the other it’s in your face.

When we surrender to the situation we may allow our feelings to move through us.  Whether it be joy or pain feelings must move through. Only then can we create the space for all that is actually possible.

Our emotions long for something definite but our minds only need possibility.

I asked the woman with cancer if you weren’t positive for a moment what would you feel?  She cried and cried.  I sat there and just listened to how frightened she was for the kids not having a mom, how mad she was over what was happening to her, and how sad she is to say goodbye.  She went through the ringer of feelings for that half hour.  I just listened. It was a start.

A thin layer of possibility will always be crushed by the sea of hurt underneath.  Surrender to the hurt.  Let the tears fall and then after the rain clouds have passed, let’s see what’s possible.

Dr Jag Johal