Explore The Power of Neutral Thinking
Positive thinking gets a lot of air time. But, really, all that positivity can be HARD to maintain. And sometimes it just doesn’t feel authentic.
Consider this:
What if positivity wasn’t the goal at all? What if neutrality was?
Why? Because neutrality gets you up out of your feelings and back into reality.
An example:
Think about a time when you had something that felt so BIG happen to you. Like maybe you missed a deadline at work. And now you’re all in your feels (and they’re ALL bad) and you can’t see any way you’ll ever be trusted at work again, much less make any career progression.
And you feel all that positive thinking you’ve been doing about your work life crumbling to bits. So, you schedule a meeting with your trusty consciousness coach and gear yourself up for some big positive spin on this missed deadline…
(Insert the sound of the buzzer here)
Sorry not sorry, when a client comes to me expressing guilt and shame around this sort of thing, I give them the energetic equivalent of a shrug.
Not because I don’t care how you feel. But because I’m seeing the missed deadline neutrally. It’s just a thing that happened—one in a long line of things that will occur.
Maybe I’ll drop some practical organizational knowledge or quick tips for not dropping the ball—because that’s a logical step toward not missing another deadline…
But there will be no catastrophizing involved. Just an acknowledgement of what happened.
Bonus: no saccharine-sweet pep talk that tries to spin that missed deadline into something positive.
When BIG feelings come up ask yourself if they're necessary - and serving you well. Because big feelings sometimes become an excuse to stay stuck. Or to replay old tapes that keep you locked in a negative cycle--and keep you out of your power.
What if there was no charge?
What if you didn't perceive experiences as GOOD or BAD - what if they were just INFORMATION?
And what if events didn’t send you into cheerleader mode or leave you fighting your way through a cyclone of negativity? What if you just let them be?
Try this:
Jot down the events and circumstances that happen to you—without editorializing.
When you feel yourself getting pulled into negative self-talk, simply jot it down (“negative self-talk” is an event, too) and let it go.
Instead of letting your feelings guide your actions, just observe them. Do you feel excited, scared, doubtful, hopeful? And keep in mind that anxiety and excitement actually manifest in the same way in the body. When you’re all high strung and filled with “anxiety” about something big — it can often actually be a manifestation of excitement. Which is why it’s so important to really check in. Jot down those feelings. And then—you guessed it— do your best to neutralize any emption and let it go.
Finally, the biggest task of all: don’t speak negative thoughts out into the world. You don’t have to spew positivity either. Just keep the negative verbiage in check.
Do this for a week. Then reflect back and see how you feel.
