“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will – then your life will flow well.” – EPICTETUS
“I am child of god. Nothing but the best will happen for me.” If you think like this, then what if I told you that this is resulting in you feeling more miserable? In this post we look at life of a legendary rock climber, and by analyzing the teaching of a spiritual master, we’ll find why forcing yourself to think positive makes you feel more miserable .
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How a legendary rock climber overcomes his fears
Free Soloing is as dangerous a sport as they get. A person climbs across thousands of feet of vertical wall, using nothing but his limbs. With no safety ropes to cling on to, the climber cannot afford any slip ups. One wrong move and he is sure to meet a painful death. The risk involved in free soloing , makes it a real test of one’s ability to be in control of one’s emotions under challenging circumstances. This is what makes American rock climber Alex Honnold, widely regarded as the world’s best free solo climber, somebody to look up to, when it comes to how to handle emotions when faced with difficulties.
In the words of Alex Honnold, his ability to handle the storms better, is what makes him better than other rock climbers in the world. Honnold admits ,”There are certainly better technical climbers than me. But if I have a particular gift, it’s a mental one — the ability to keep it together where others might freak out.”
So now the question arises, how does Honnold keeps his emotions in check while performing an activity in which failure means certain death ? Does he force himself to think positive while preparing for the climb ? How does he handle fear ?
Alex answers, “A lot of people say I don’t feel fear, or that I don’t fear death, but that’s just not true! I have the same healthy hope of survival as everybody else. I don’t want to die. At least not yet. I think I just have more of an acceptance that I will die at some point. I understand that, but I don’t want to baby myself along the way. I want to live in a certain way, which requires taking a higher degree of risk, and that’s acceptable to me. ”
As Alex tells above, rather than forcing himself to think positive, Honnold adopts a more stoic approach to climbing. He accepts the risks associated with the activity he is passionate about. He is as wary of death as anybody else. However he accepts the fact that he may die someday. Honnold doesn’t blind himself by thinking positive and then freaking out when things don’t go his way. He accepts the risks he takes and then tries to mitigate the risks by meticulous preparation.
How forcing oneself to think positive, results in eventual depression
Sri Sri Ravishankar, the world renowned spiritual teacher, warns us about the dangers associated with forcing oneself to think positive. He says ,” Your hear so much about the power of positive thinking. I tell you, this is the cause of depression. People who are into positive thinking for three, four years, they get into depression in the fourth year. Because they are thinking, ‘Oh no, no, think positively, think positively.’ The more you try to think positively, the more you are drawn towards negativity.”
Sri Sri warns us to be wary of people who tell you to think positive as such people are not aware of how psyche works, what the being is, what the mind is. Sri Sri continues, “You try to think positive and see if it leads to positive thoughts. It creates more negative thoughts deep within you. Somewhere in you, it starts boiling up. The fear comes and your mind is divided into two.
Sri Sri tells that conflicts may arise when you force yourself to think positive. He gives an example of times when you are sick. Gurudev explains, ” One may be sick and say to himself,’ Be positive, I will be healthy.’ What healthy ? You are unable to do something. Somewhere your consciousness is slipping down. In your mind you are trying to say, ‘I am healthy, I am healthy.’ But deep inside something else is coming up, all sorts of duality and conflicts arise.”
How a lady overcame grieving over her son’s loss
Gurudev Ravishankar narrates an incident of a lady who used to force herself to think positive. Unfortunately she lost her son in an accident. When a son dies, a mother can not be happy. Yet, being influenced by ‘think positive’ school of thought, she tried to be positive amidst the heartbreak. Despite the loss, she told herself, ‘Oh no, I am happy. Nothing happens to me. So what if my son died? I am happy, I am bliss.’ She would say that for five minutes and then for the next five minutes she would cry.
According to gurudev, forcing herself to think positive had damaged her so much that she couldn’t see the reality as it is. Sri Sri then told her, “Don’t worry about your happiness. You mourn, you cry, you weep, you be with your sadness for some days.” Once she whole heartedly cried and allowed herself to grieve, she felt like a burden had been removed off her chest and finally started experiencing happiness again.
Dangers of forcing yourself to think positive
To explain the dangers of forcing oneself to think positive Sri Sri Ravishankar says, ” The power of so called thinking positive. might seem to be doing some good in the beginning. It touches you only on the surface level, but pushes all that garbage underneath the carpet. How long can it stay there ? One days, two months, one year or two. Initially you will find everything fine and wonderful. But after some time you will find that due to the garbage present underneath the carpet, the carpet starts stinking.”
In other words, everything in the level of mind exists in form of duality. There can not be pleasure without pain, happiness without sadness, goodness without badness in the realm of the mind. Therefore when you force yourself to think positive thoughts. What you are actually doing is forcing yourself to be conscious of only positive thoughts. However the negative thoughts are still there in their subconscious mind. You may suppress the negative thoughts, but eventually in some situation they will pop out resulting in fear, anxiety and feeling miserable.
Solution to your misery : Don’t think positive
As long we are identified with our mind, duality will exist as that’s the nature of mind. Therefore if you really want to feel positive, stop forcing yourself to think positive. Sri Sri Ravishankar gives us the solution, “We don’t need to think positive. We don’t need to think negative. We have to transcend the thinking. Thinking is like a cloud in the sky. Thoughts come and go. Watch and observe your thoughts. By doing this, you will see that you will get into another plane of existence. That is true you. That’s freedom!”
If you liked this article you will also like, Swami Vivekananda’s Tips on How to Succeed in Life.
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Thanks for reading ! 
Really impressed by the way you describe everything in such a simple way.
Thank you so much brother 🙂