A lot of self-help books talk about “active positivity” where you are asked to hold positive self-talk, recite positive affirmation, do positive visualization, and basically do everything possible to suppress the negative thoughts. Anyone who has been down this path knows how much effort and frustration is involved in trying to be “actively positive”, fighting the mind’s negative thinking constantly – it’s nothing short of extreme struggle, and it leaves you feeling a sense of fear/hatred towards the brain for being so stubbornly negative all the time. If you look deeply you will notice that the energy behind the motivation to indulge in “active positivity” is fear of the mind’s negativity. A lot of people who start becoming aware of the mind’s negativity, immediately grab on to this technique of “forced positive thinking” (which is what I label as “active positivity”) in a bid to suppress/silence the negative thinking of the mind – but this technique is based in fear/force(hatred), and hence creates the reflection of the same.
When you’ve become exhausted of your active positivity techniques, you are finally ready to hear the message that you can come to a place of a “passively positive mind” which does not need to be forced into positivity. For many people it may seem like a wishful dream to have a passively positive mind, and yet the truth is that the natural vibration of life-energy is pure positive (or wholeness) and since the mind is also made of the same life-energy its natural state is to be positive. The reason why the mind has become so negative is mostly because of the unconscious belief/identification with negativity created over time (load of negative energy carried from birth, the negative conditioning that you garnered from the outside and your own indulgence in “active” negative thinking) – it has lost its natural state and is now tightly held in a momentum of negativity. The way to come back to this natural state of positive mind is to simply go through a phase of letting go of the mind – it’s simple but it’s not easy, because we are so hooked up to not let go of the mind, we keep clinging to it like a helpless addict.
Active thinking and passive thinking
To reduce the mind’s momentum it’s required to let go of “active thinking” for a while (even for 30-40 minutes a day is helpful) and let it be passive, which means let the mind think passively. For many brain oriented people this would seem like a ridiculous suggestion because they can’t imagine letting go of their addiction to controlling the mind. Also, the moment you let go of active thinking, for a while the mind just feels chaotic with no real direction to the thoughts – the immediate impulse is to put the leash back on the mind, and bring into active control. It feels terrifying to let go of the mind because it’s like you are suddenly sitting in a car without a steering wheel. And yet, if you are willing to go through this small phase of fear, and let go of your addiction to “active thinking”, and just let the mind be passive, it soon returns to a harmony (the time it takes depends on the negative momentum it has gathered in the past and your willingness stay in a space of letting go) and enters into the state of passive positivity, it also develops a clarity of purpose and moves through its full potential of expression.
All techniques are part of “active thinking” and if you’ve had experience with techniques, you know that they are just “short term” relief mechanisms and none of them allow the mind to come a state of passive positivity. If you have to spend a lifetime trying to keep your mind positive, it’s not only exhausting but it also severely hampers your creativity. The only problem is that most people don’t trust this phase of “letting go the mind” – mostly because they are addicted to active thinking. The reason we are addicted to active thinking is because it gives us some pseudo-security that we are in control, but it also keeps you in a place of struggle and effort all the time, instead of being aligned with the natural ease and flow of life.
There is nothing wrong with using active thinking to deal with some practical issues like calculating your budget, scheduling appointments, getting some small mechanical work done. But if your whole work is rooted in active thinking, it’s a given that you already hate your work. The best quality of work is produced when it’s not coming from strained/active thinking, rather from an effortless excellence, with the creativity inherent to your mind’s natural makeup. When you do the work which is aligned with your natural makeup, you always feel effortless in your execution. For example, the best writers are the ones who write purely from effortless inspiration rather than writing from strained effort, the best programmers are the ones who are effortless in their intelligence in the area of coding (Linus Pauling, the guy who coded the Linux operating system, wrote several million lines of code on his own and he enjoyed the whole process because it came from an effortless inspiration). We are all geniuses in someway, we just need to find our genius, the work into which you bring in an effortless excellence is truly what your calling is.
The primary priority should be to first let go of the momentum of past negativity. This is the reason why it’s needed to go through a small phase of letting go of the mind, so that it can come to its natural harmony. Once it’s in this state of harmony it stays in sync with your inner guidance and stays aligned with your natural expression.
Investing time to reach a passively positive mind
None of this is going to happen overnight, neither is it going to happen in a matter of a few weeks. After all you have gathered negative momentum from so many years of unconscious thinking, you can’t expect to let go of all that accumulation in a period a few weeks. Moreover, it’s going to be challenging initially to let go of the mind, because of your total addiction to it – but once you know what this process entails you will know where you are heading, and hence there is much less confusion/anxiety in you towards letting this natural harmony happen. That’s why it helps to first understand this process in an objective manner, before you go through this phase of letting go of the mind – always remember, it’s only a “temporary” phase.
The circumstances that you had created through the negative momentum in your mind will start falling apart as you go through this process. Everything that’s not in integrity with your natural expression will seem to fall apart and dissolve from your reality – it won’t always feel like roses, because the dissolution of old realities can create some sense of panic in the mind even though they were miserable realities. The mind clings to the familiar, even if the familiar is a miserable reality. So you need to brace yourself for these changes to happen, and not get into a state of panic when the old realities start crumbling. Anything and everything that does not fit in with your natural expression will start dissolving and it may not always feel “right” to the mind (which may be holding some narrow perspectives), it may seem chaotic but there is an order beneath it all, you never feel orphaned by life. There may also be some periods where you don’t feel motivated towards anything, it’s like a transition phase, where the old reality has nothing that motivates you. If you stay allowing of this phase, you will soon see the motivation returning but this time towards your natural expression, towards activity that’s deeply in alignment with your natural make up.
This process feels much more comfortable when you commit yourself to it fully. There should be an authentic dedication in you to want to come to your natural expression. When you let go of the mind for a while, everything that’s not in alignment with the natural vibration of wholeness starts phasing out, mostly in layers – it feels as if your mind is dissolving all its hard held resistances, and its felt “physically” as these blocks dissolve. There will be periods of bliss when chunks of resistances drop away, raising your vibration, but it will be followed by some periods of discomfort as more negativity/resistance come up to be released – for a while this fluctuation goes on, until you empty out all your accumulated layers of negativity of the past. When you are fully dedicated to letting go, it usually takes a few months for harmony to set in, but to reach this place of full allowing can take a while. When this phase is over, you reach a place of passive/natural wholeness not only in your inner space but also in your thought space of the mind – a passively positive mind.
Thank you
Good pointer Sen. All this techniques are temporary relief. Allowing is the only way to be free of mind. But does not mean that we are going to be free all the time. mind, will always be fearful because of it is natural make up.You can t stop thinking or stop the mind thinking because you are the mind too. Body,mind and awareness. wholeness.So i agree that all this pseudo-security are just fueling the mind negativity and it does give only short term relief. i like your honesty and i have been reading so many books and so many videos in years,and i find your writing very clear because most of spiritual teachers are very confused and also most of philosophers.You read and read waiting for conclusion and they are no conclusion, it is ridiculous
One has to understand this whole question of existence, the conflicts,the battles,the misery,anxiety,depression; we all have to know that life one leads can get so empty,so “”meaningless”. Lets say intellectuals try to give it a meaning and we also want to find significance to life, because in my opinion life has no meaning as it is lived. The misery that we have,the constant struggle,the endless work with effort,the suffering,the anxiety,unhappiness,ambitions,comparison,the travail that one goes to throughh life, all that actually no meaning
we live through as a habit. So we should break down this habit or just let go.
When your mind comes into a natural harmony, as you go through this phase of letting go of its negative momentum, you will not have the energy to support habits that are not in alignment with your well-being.
Sen –
Thank you for this post. I have found that the more I practice awareness, the more my mind clings to old negativity. Almost as if it is fighting for its life. It was a miserable few months. Letting go, over and over again. Focusing on the moment. I was feeling defeated and broken. Like I would never find peace. In my morning meditation this week, an image appeared of myself being beaten. For awhile I thought it was a repressed memory, but then it occured to me…. it was myself, beating up myself. Since that realization, a lightness has appeared, I have found space between the obsessive negative thoughts and have found joy in small moments and delight in the journey. It’s a bit strange for me, the negative imagery still skips thru my head, but I easily brush it away because I am interested in what my moment offers.
My questions is, is this real progress, or just my ego playing tricks on me again?
Once you start growing in awareness there is always a forward growth in clarity, maturity and alignment, because now it’s not possible to hold on to resistances, or mind tricks, for long because your awareness makes you keenly aware of it. You can see that you are now not in the grip of the negative imagery, it has lost its intensity in your consciousness, this is how all resistances slowly start losing grip on you.
Sen –
I have been reading your posts religiously and i understand that right now all i am supposed to be doing is just be completely allowing of everything. My problem is that i am consciously trying to be allowing of negative states. But its almost like my mind clings to the negative state and just automatically fully resists them. I can’t get myself to be allowing because my mind just automatically resists.
Can you please help me with this dilemma
Abet, resistance from the mind is natural, the deal is to allow this resistance to be there also, don’t try to resist the resistance. In a while, when the mind’s momentum reduces its resistance will also lose its intensity.
Sen,
Thanks for your website. Your insights really align with my own awareness that has been developing over the past couple of years. Even as a child I had anxiety & depression. As an adult I’ve always been waiting to be ‘connected’ to myself but have avoided myself by repressing emotions, overeating and, when the depression got really bad, through medication. Two years ago I turned to my inner guidance to ask it to show me the way to feel whole and since then I have just tried to follow my intuition. I have seen so much letting go in myself these last two years. I couldn’t overeat now even if I tried and I can’t bear to go near a self-help book or spend ages googling a solution. However, everything has been so very intense this last year. For months, I had every childhood issue surfacing with resulting suppressed emotions. Then it moved onto depression which threw up awareness of core beliefs , internal battles and my intense negative & hopeless thinking. It seems that I have sobbed through everything. I don’t think it was that everything suddenly was so bad, just that I became so aware of what was going on internally. I’ve also come to the awareness that, once an issue has come to light, I don’t have to ‘do’ anything as it seems to then dissipate after a while on its own. I’ve also now realised that I don’t have to search for a purpose and I’m much more open to allowing and, actually, it’s starting to be a relief to ‘hand things over’ to a higher guidance. But, here’s the crux, after feeling that everything needed to change, that I’d out grown various people, my house and my job, I decided to rent my house out for six months / a year and use savings to support myself. Apart from doing some travelling and putting out my intention for some things I would like to create, I’ve felt that I should leave things open and see what happens. I don’t have the feeling that I’ve done the wrong thing and things seem to be slotting into place. However, over the past year I’ve not really had any peace from my mind and I have gone into really quite bad anxiety / depression which I’m finding it hard to whether. It is very intense with anxiety and resistance, and some mind patterns are still emerging. However, I’ve also had the feeling, which I’ve never had before, that I am supported by the Universe. I just wondered what your thoughts are? Is this the mind throwing everything at me? I feel caught between two worlds, not in the old but still not in the new.
Annie, this sense that you get that you are not isolated but are in fact supported by the universe (wholeness of life) is the inherent sense that always present in some who is connected with their space of being. You mentioned that your mind has come up with some intense sense of anxiety and resistance, for a while just bring awareness to your mind and get a sense of what its fear are about – make sure that you are not trying to run away from it. Just stay deeply aware of your mind and understand what its fears are about, you don’t have to try to solve them, just stay aware of them to the point where you clearly understand them. If you sense that they are just some “past” energy or emotional baggage, being released now, then just allow the release to happen, it will be over in sometime if you simply stay as an open space of allowing. If you sense that these are genuine concerns of your mind towards your future, then just stay aware of them and allow a solution to come from within.
What an Article. I have been “trying” various “techniques” for last 10+ years. For the first half of the article, I felt you were describing me. I read and practiced a lot of positive thinking books including “Think and grow rich”, “The power of positive thinking” etc. A a result, today, I have lots of stress induced illness.
I have been following your posts religiously for last few weeks and I am glad to report that I already feel a whole lot better. I still get nervous and anxious and the negative momentum blows up from time to time, but I am on the correct path.
Sen,
Article on positive mind is good one..
I was reminded by a small incident..During my college days, one of my professors seeing my neat handwriting commented that people with good handwriting don’t have great destinies and they don’t go farther. Upset at what is being said, i went to my mom and narrated this. My mother though consoled me, didn’t give any concrete answer for it. I always had this fear about what he said. Looking back, I think may be he is right on his views.. cos i didn’t succeed professionally.
What would you have to say?
The mind can come up with a lot of shallow interpretations on life, it defines “success” through some narrow lens of comparison with others. If you just live your natural expression, you are successful in being who you are – but if you compare your natural expression with others and feel “inferior” through some narrow parameters of comparison, it would indicate a lack of depth in your perception. Instead of buying these narrow, limited ideas from the mind, look to become more open to connecting with yourself, with your heart, and allow for your natural expression to unfold. The professor had a very narrow vision of life to even compare “destinies” – to say that someone has a good destiny and someone has a bad destiny, is to say that a sword is greater than the needle, the sword and the needle have different destinies, but both have equal importance, the sword no matter how big cannot do the job of a needle – all expressions of life have an equal value, the only question is whether you are aligned with your natural expression or struggling to live to meet some outside expectations, comparing yourself with others achievements.
Excuse me for jumping in here, but I hope that professor no longer teaches. What an incredibly narrow-minded, limiting, cruel thing to say – especially to someone so young and vulnerable. That was verbal abuse, pure and simple.
Nightowl -That was an impulsive response from him and the professor still teaches!
Okay, i get it. Thank you, sen!
Sen,
I was hoping you could expound a little more on awareness. In some post it seems that awareness is something that just is, and when u relax into it, that is when it is noticed. In others it seems that its something you have to do, like for instance “You mentioned that your mind has come up with some intense sense of anxiety and resistance, for a while just bring awareness to your mind and get a sense of what its fear are about – make sure that you are not trying to run away from it. Just stay deeply aware of your mind and understand what its fears are about, you don’t have to try to solve them, just stay aware of them to the point where you clearly understand them.” That says to me its something that you have to do. Is this just at the beginning stages that you have to apply effort, or am I misunderstanding? I would also like any suggestions about my issues with work and other people in general. Its when i’m out of the house that I have the most negative feelings and thoughts, mostly when I’m at work and the people I deal with. I try to stay relaxed about it while i’m there, but sometimes that just makes me feel more depressed or angry. I feel like this is where i try to control myself the most, and its the most difficult thing to let go of. Should I only be working on this when i’m alone and at home?
Becky, when you wake up from a night’s sleep, you are “conscious” of yourself – this consciousness comes from the brain which is the center that collects all nerve impulses – this consciousness is “awareness of the brain”. For most people, as soon as they wake up their awareness becomes lost in the “thinking space” or “feeling space” of the body/mind – this is what is called being in a “wakeful sleep state” (or even referred to as unconscious state in spirituality) where you are awake but your consciousness/awareness is lost in the pull of thoughts and emotions. In such a state you are lost in the narrow dimension of the thinking mind, which only has the ego perspective, and is usually rooted in all forms of negative thinking based on its sense of inner lack, inferiority and craving. When your awareness is totally lost in the mind (thoughts and emotions) you have no space of wisdom available, and you just live a reactive life.
If you want a more balanced life, you need to allow your to start waking out the mind by bringing your awareness out of it. For a while it feels like an effort because you have been habituated to be lost in the mind. It takes time for your awareness to become stable on its own, where its not pulled into the mind all the time. In this place of stability, you can start “letting go” of your accumulated negativity of the past, by staying as a space of relaxed awareness (it doesn’t feel like an effort anymore to not be pulled into the mind). Once you have let go of a good amount of your accumulated negativity you just feel rooted in a space of inner wholeness (also called the space of being) and your daily life is imbued with a sense of wisdom and guidance arising from this space. You can read this post – reaching a place of total allowing
Hi Sen
The day after you wrote this article my husband and I were on our motorbike when a car turned in front of us and we ended up on the road with numerous injuries. In order to survive the shock and the pain in hospital and at home I had to think positively. It’s actually been great. I simply can’t afford to think negatively. I still go there at times but have now had the pleasure of seeing how light and peaceful my life is when I find and then focus on the positive in every situation. I want to build on this and consolidate it for when my injuries have healed and the normal day to day existence returns and I have more energy to indulge in negativity. Hence my finding your site. Great to read your thoughts. Thankyou
Fran
Sen
Four months ago my ‘world’ fell apart virtually overnight, everything I thought was set in stone wasn’t. My greatest fears became a reality. A week later i entered into what I can only describe as a state of bliss, I felt connected, guided, protected and answers popped into my head before I had even asked the question! Some of which you have mentioned in your posts, such as life being an experience and to trust that life will take care of you etc. This lasted a good few weeks, I hardly spoke to anyone, I felt my body changing, I looked different, I kept smiling and laughing despite my ‘world’ disintergrating. I felt real, authentic. I then noticed the blissful feeling receding, it is still there in the background and I feel a peacefulness with what is most of the time but occasionally I notice my mind holding onto fears/thoughts particularly when I have been speaking to people who generate a fearful perspective for my situation and say how I ‘should’ be feeling. I feel very sensitive to others emotions/fears as thought they become my own for a while and wondered how to deal with this?
The other thing I need help with is that I have lost the inspiration/the guided feeeling I had at first. I am in a passive place and my mind tells me to take action but I know I am not yet through the phase of letting go as others fears still stir up my mind momentum…will the ‘knowing/inspiration/guided feeling return?
I have also noticed that some friends appear to have started their own awakening process after spending time with me.
Thank you.
Faye, understanding life is a required aspect of growing/evolving as a being towards balanced/conscious living, and the realizations that you had (or will have in the future) are all useful towards this understanding. However, there is also the other deal about coming to a place of balance which is to develop an inner freedom. Without inner freedom you cannot really live your understanding, you can only hold it as a concept in your mind. Finding inner freedom requires you to go through a phase of releasing the momentum of imbalance (or negativity) in a conscious manner. For ex, when you talk about feeling fearful of the external influence (when you see negativity in other people) it’s an indication that you feel a sense of helplessness in you, or a sense of meekness, that arises from not being connected with your sense of power – you may be a loving person but without a connection with your sense of inner power you will feel weak towards external negativity and hence feel very dysfunctional towards living your expression freely. Love is light nature (yin) and power is dark nature (yang), and one needs to balance both these natures in oneself in order to sense inner freedom. This balance can happen when you release the momentum of imbalance created from your past mindset. In you case, there may be a strong momentum of fear created in you because of your fear towards fear, or fear towards dark nature. In the state of allowing you need to allow the fears to arise without trying to hide from them, or trying to get rid of them – allow them from a place of openness to fear until you sense that you are no longer afraid of the feeling of fear – in this place you will have attained the attitude of true openness through which you can allow a release of all the momentum of fear built in you. I talk about this in my recent post – the phase of release