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 There is a new book making its way through the talk-show circuit - Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Bright-Sided invites a provocative conversation and at the same time promotes a dangerous point of view – that positive thinking is pure fantasy. 

The book has a singular intent according to author Barbara Ehrenreich - to take on the current plague of positive thinking. Self-proclaimed as the nation’s reality checker, she says that positive thinking is a kind of delusion infecting nearly every realm of American culture. On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster.

As one book reviewer writes: “ We’re always being told that looking on the bright side is good for us, but now we see that it’s a great way to brush off poverty, disease, and unemployment…..The people who are sick or jobless—why, they just aren’t thinking positively.“

Bright-Sided exposes, as it should, the fallacy of ignoring reality and the time-tested principals of science and finance. Über optimism can be an illusion, but only when deeply held negative beliefs are obscured by the opinion that you should be positive. Bright-Sided assails positive thinking itself overlooking its benefits and failing recognize the core issue creating the illusion - that what is always more powerful than positive thought is belief.

What you agree to believe dictates your outlook impacting every thought you think, every word you speak, and every action you take. Persistent action in sync with that outlook will always produce a perfectly aligned result, positive or negative, despite what you’d like to think you believe. Thus what drives our actions is not always something we are conscious of and can be in direct conflict with what we outwardly proclaim we want.

The ultimate power of belief is simply this: no matter what you get to decide what everything that happens to you means.

This is potent stuff - especially when things fall apart. The unavoidable reality of life is that things don’t always go well. Economies stumble. People get sick. And so a preoccupation with stamping out negative thoughts is not a waste of time. Because we have the power to decide what every event means, (what story we tell ourselves about it), a positive viewpoint embracing gratitude and potential growth is always more nourishing than negative thoughts heaping abuse on an already challenging situation.

It’s important to distinguish the right use of powerful thought; apply it to what is in your life right now, rather than what is not. For example, if you are in a relationship you can interpret what’s happening in a positive way (empowered), or in a negative way (victim). If you are not in a relationship at present, and want to be, the right use of positive thinking is to apply it to the actions you can take right now to help you move toward that goal.

To reap the real benefits of positive thought first requires an awareness of what you have decided is true at the deepest level. That realization goes far beyond willing yourself to have the “right” thoughts (a practice that always leads to self-abuse). Positive belief emanates positive thinking - not a delusion, but rather a deliberate “what does this all mean” choice that can nourish the human soul in the most challenging of times.
 

BeliefWorks,

Ray Dodd, author, The Power of Belief

http://www.everydaywisdom.us