Recently I read an article on Happiful.com about giving up negativity for ten weeks, and it made for an interesting and thought provoking read. The writer, Katie Hoare, describes how a fast on negative thoughts could help in changing that internal monolog we all have chattering away in our minds, and help turn it into a much more positive monolog.
This is something I have been trying to do for a while now. I find myself thinking something bad about myself or asking myself “Why am I so stupid?” and I have begun to question it and try to correct that way of thinking. I tell myself “No, I’m not stupid, no one is perfect.” Because, you know, my mind would love me to believe that I am in fact the only person in the world to lose their keys or knock over a drink.
I love the idea of combatting negativity, but it feels like a big thing for me as my default setting when it comes to myself, is negativity. Over the years my negative self has became smaller, and I do have a positive cheerleader that often fights with the negativity inside me. I’m getting better at listening to the cheerleader within, however I do feel like the negativity within me has a part to play. The negativity gets the cheerleader riled up, and her shaking pom poms become strange looking boxing gloves, as she gets ready to fight to prove the other wrong.
“No one is going to want to read my rambling blog posts, there’s no point in writing it.”
And my cheerleader tells me, “…but you’re going to think it and write it anyway so you might as well post it too.” and she shakes her pom poms aggressively at me while telling me so.
The cheerleader inside tells me all the time, “You might as well try it.” But if my negativity didn’t doubt it in the first place, I wonder would I want to do it at all? I do love proving people wrong, especially myself; I think I almost thrive on the constant fight between the two, because the cheerleader always wins.
This year, I realised negativity runs so much deeper within me, as I had told myself that feeling any kind of negativity was wrong; and so, shame, anger and any other ‘bad’ feelings weren’t being processed. I would find myself taking the side of people who upset me, and agreeing with them, assuming they’re correct because if I got angry at them, I would then be the problem. I worked with my counsellor to begin removing the cover of niceness I was hiding under, and instead of agreeing, I was able to tell myself, “I apricate that person’s feelings, but I don’t have to like it.” and I began to allow myself to feel anger and express negativity in the right way, and it has been life changing for me.
I often found myself giving false apologies and pushing my own feelings aside because I believed that all negative feelings were wrong. My counsellor challenged me to write a ‘no apologies’ letter to someone I had a turbulent relationship with, in which I had to say what I actually felt under the veil of niceness I was constantly wearing. Writing that letter felt so good, and although I would never want to send the letter, or say them things to that person, or anyone for matter, it felt so good to express them, and more importantly; it felt necessary. Negative emotions need to be processed and felt as well as the positive emotions.
I feel that trying to cut out a little self-negativity is healthy, but I think on a whole, negativity has its purpose too in the right places.
We’re all human, we feel happiness, sadness, anger and everything else; it’s all a part of the package. And really, I don’t feel like we really have to rid ourselves of all negativity, we just need to learn what is useful negativity and what’s not so useful.
Gwen Richards 