Does positive thinking really improve the quality of your life?

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• But what is really real? We create our own reality from the thoughts we entertain and the more positive those thoughts are the more positive our lives will be.

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  by Bluerose on March 24th, 2007

• Well it sounds a bit like you're trying to convince yourself this is true, which is itself a kind of positive thinking. There's another kind of "positive" which appears naturally when one is able to be with the whole of life just as it is -- both desirable and undersirable things. This kind of positive doesn't require superficial self-manipulation, and it allows for a true sense of wholeness and satisfaction, rather than a perpetually anxious grasping at the positive.

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  by Stableboy on March 24th, 2007

• Also, your question "what is really real" is very revealing. This kind of uncertainty about reality is a result of getting entangled in thoughts. By challenging thoughts, we return to direct perception of reality, which answers "what is real" with a great deal of certainty.

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  by Stableboy on March 24th, 2007

• I asked, "What is really real?" By that I mean that there are many realities how do we know which is the 'real' one? Or if any are? My thoughts on creating our own reality is more than me trying to convince myself. I am convinced. How many people do you know who are able to be with the whole of life just as it is? "This kind of positive doesn't require superficial self-manipulation.." Are you sure about that? I'm only uncertain about certain types of reality because there is no way of knowing the whole of reality. I don't believe in "a great deal of certainty". There are no certainties.
  
  If you would like to discuss this some more pop over to -
  
  http://z4.invisionfree.com/Question_Sac/index.php?act=idx

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  by Bluerose on March 24th, 2007

• Well I'm not out to argue about it really, if you're satisfied with that perspective I don't have much more to say.

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  by Stableboy on March 24th, 2007

• I guess the one thing I would say is that there's a difference between perception and conception -- people get very caught up in the concepts about reality (which is where all this stuff about "many realities" comes from -- there are indeed many INTERPRETATIONS of reality, but only one reality). If we don't distinguish between our concepts and our perceptions, things get very complicated and uncertain.

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  by Stableboy on March 24th, 2007

• Not argue - discus. But if you're happy with what you know and I'm happy with what I know then I guess there is nothing else to say. But if we are two very open minded people, and I think we are, then we know that we can always learn more from each other. And if that s the case then this discussion is never ending, just like our journey. Peace. Friends?

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  by Bluerose on March 24th, 2007

• Well sure, I didn't mean to give offense... I can go on and on for hours about this topic, it's just that I've already posted so much about it in my time on AB that I feel like I'd be starting over from scratch here to go off to some other site. I'm sure we'll have many more encounters about this as time goes by if you continue to hang out on AB. Peace! :-)

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  by Stableboy on March 24th, 2007

• i like the answer you have given. in a way it makes a lot of sense but i also must say that positive thinking does attract positive energy. someone who is prone to anxiety for example should try and change those vicous patterns of thinking. but at the same time i am in agreement that reality should be dealt with. we don't want to live in a 'prozac nation' afterall now do we?

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  by haggis on May 31st, 2007

• Well the point that I'm making here isn't that positive thoughts are bad -- it's that intentionally trying to manipulate them into existence is a superficial solution to negative thinking. I like positive thoughts as much as the next person, but to have the notion that one should be manufacturing them as a way to "pump life up" in some way is very weak, in my opinion. The path to freedom and a full life starts with *understanding* our negativity: where it comes from, what's driving it, what distortions it introduces. When one can really see clearly regarding thoughts, they stop being taken so seriously, and a natural kind of healing and aliveness shows up... our "underlying" positivity which isn't forced or shallow, but just comes with being human and alive.

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  by Stableboy on May 31st, 2007

• yeah i kind of feel like people have a hard time facing up to reality and instead just want to be happy. but what is happiness but a passing emotion...i hate it when people say, "oh just smile" and I'm like, "what if i don't feel like it, what if I'm having a bad day"... do i have to smile to make you feel better about your life? it all seems like a facade.

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  by haggis on June 1st, 2007

• You're right: happiness IS a transient emotion, and thinking you can be happy all the time is kind of a malfunction. All emotions are transient (so if you're sad all the time, that is ALSO a malfunction). While it isn't possible to "feel happy" all the time, it is possible to be satisfied and whole, so that you stop getting tangled up into (for example) long periods of depression, or anger, or jealousy. Someone who doesn't get caught up for long periods in their own thoughts just "rides the waves" of emotions, one after the other... when one wave is gone, there's some calm, and then another (different) wave comes along. But nothing gets "stuck". What the "positive thinkers" are trying to do is get obsessed with one particular wave and just make it live forever... that doesn't work, waves are naturally transient.

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  by Stableboy on June 1st, 2007

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• Actually if you say affirmations enough you will start to believe them. That is why negative thinking is so harmful. Anything you say to yourself over and over your brain begins to believe. Even if in the begining you didn't believe it.

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  by Namaste formerly future_health_educator on March 24th, 2007

• Very, very true.

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  by Bluerose on March 24th, 2007

• I think that's what I said, educator..hence the word "BELIEVE" in BIG letters...

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  by American idle on March 25th, 2007

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