Hey everybody, this is Steve. Are you somebody who struggles to feel positive
all the time? Are you somebody who feels at odds with yourself when you try to force
it? Well don't worry if you're because you really are not alone, in fact I think
this is a much more common experience than people think, and in this video I'm
going to explain why you don't need to force positivity on yourself, why you
don't need to fake positive feelings, and I'll explain why it's actually more
important to develop a more honest relationship with your feelings, and stay
with me to the end because I'm going to show you how we can be more at peace
with how we feel without having to put on that fake smile and force those
positive feelings! Now as a coach since 2016 I've gone deep into lots of ideas
around positivity and what you might call healthy psychology, and what I'm
going to share today comes from my experiences with presence intelligence
and a program called what every person can do, which is a program all about
excellence and deep grounding. So if this is something that interests you then
give me a like, click that like button, and if you're interested in this kind of
content or if you're a professional person then don't forget to subscribe,
click that subscription button and don't forget to click the notifications bell
which comes after it so that you'll get notified when new content arrives. Now
the first thing I want to get across is that when people talk about positivity,
different people mean different things by it. There is being positive as in
being optimistic, of having faith, always assuming things are going to turn
out fine. There is positivity as in always putting the positive spin on
whatever is happening, and that can degrade into out an out telling
ourselves a fictional story about where we are, but then there's also
positivity as being honest about where we are and how we feel, but always taking
the most constructive step from where we are, what is the most useful thing we can
do next, what is the most constructive, the most productive thing that we can do.
Positivity as self-deception is something that I think is highly flawed
and it can get us into trouble. However positivity as in always asking
the question what's the most useful thing to do next, I can't think of a
situation where that wouldn't be desirable, especially when you bear in
mind that the most productive thing to do next
might be to actually stop for now, rest, recuperate, regather, come back later.
The other point that I want to make is about affirmations because being
positive is often associated with affirmations, that's telling ourselves
positive things. Now there's no doubt that there's degree of self-hypnosis
that goes on with that internal voice, and if that internal voice that we use
to commentate on our lives to ourselves is always telling us a negative story,
then you know it's putting those negative ideas in our minds and we're
gonna experience those as real, even though it's really just a bit of
self-hypnosis. The obvious counter to that is well
why don't we just put positive ideas in our head instead, why don't we just put
positive self-talk in our head, and there is some merit to that, there's no doubt
about it, and it's worth experimenting with. The problem is though is when
people try to use positive affirmations and they're just not feeling it, now when
that happens it can just feel like you're lying to yourself and that can
complicate things, it can start to feel like self gaslighting if you want to put
it in those terms. I definitely think it's worth
experimenting with and finding out where you are with the idea of using positive
affirmations and positive self-talk to create a more positive self-hypnosis
but do monitor yourself, if you feel like you're just not feeling it and it feels
like you're just lying to yourself, and that your self gaslighting, then stop,
it's not working. Now an idea that I'd like to get across to you is the idea
that feelings are a little bit like the weather, if you think about the weather
and you think about the whole world ecosystem the rain is just as important
in that system as the Sun, now we like it when it's sunny, we don't like it as much
when it's raining, but both are actually very important to a healthy overall
ecosystem and if we look at our emotions like an ecosystem I think there's
something similarly true, our emotions are a communication from within
ourselves which we should listen to and sometimes we might want to overrule its
advice and sometimes not, I would say that's part of your emotional
intelligence, but the thing is though is that for example when people cry I see
that as a healthy emotional cleansing process, I don't see that as a bad thing.
When we are feeling disillusioned I take that as a signal to look stop for
now, you're pushing on something and it's not working, stop for now, back off, come
down from it, relax, see how you feel about it tomorrow,
whereas positively pushing through is likely to just complicate it, make it
harder, make it work even less, you know it's like if we resist resting when we
feel tired then we start to get super tired,
it's like when you resist the natural ebbs and flows of your emotional weather
system, if you want to call it, that the more you use try and stop the rain
coming the more the weather gets extreme, and we've all experienced how when you
bottle up feelings rather than address feelings as they come up, those
feelings amplify and eventually they just explode, so when positivity comes
about pushing those emotions down and overruling those emotions, drowning them
out, shouting over them if you like, I don't think you are necessarily doing
your emotional ecosystem a lot of good.
So what's the alternative? Well what I learned from present intelligence, what I
learn from what every person can do, is it is definitely possible and sometimes
important to take ownership of how you feel, but rather than force positivity
when you're not feeling it and suppress low feelings when you don't want to feel
them, relax into how you genuinely are in this moment, be at peace with what's
going on, you know if it's raining or whether it's
sunny just be at peace with the fact that right now that's the weather that
the system needs, listen to the signals, you know if the signals are it's time to
stop pushing on something that that's not working,
stop pushing on something that's not working, if the signals are you're tired
go to bed, you know it's resisting these signals that that really upsets the
natural ebbs and flows of that weather system, and by the way I want to make a
really important point here I am talking about all these things in the context of
the well person, I'm not talking in the context of mental illness or
anything like that, I am NOT addressing anything like that, but in the healthy
individual, our emotions are generally wise and some extent that just means
going along with what those signals are telling us. Now I get it
that in the real world, the so-called real world, we can't always do things
like that, I mean if I feel tired at two o'clock in the afternoon when I'm
working, I can't go and sleep, then you know I kind of have to
carry on with what I'm doing and come back to that, and sometimes you do need
to do that, sometimes you need to notice the what the emotions are telling you
and you have to say, well look I can't attend to that right now but you kind of
make a deal with yourself that you've got to deal with it at the
possible opportunity, to seek out with what you have to do and attend to it
when you can't attend to i,t so sometimes you do have to park it, I get that, and
yes sometimes you do need to take ownership of those feelings, sometimes
you do need to override them because of context, but do that sparingly, and of
course I recognize that talking about it like a weather system is a metaphor and
I hope you know that too. Now if maintaining a healthy emotional
ecosystem if you want to call it, that is something that you'd like to have more
conversation about then I would certainly love to hear from you, and
you'll find my contact details in the pin comment below this video, but most of
all if this is the kind of content that you're interested in or you're a
professional person who is interested in both excellence and deep grounding, then
please subscribe to the channel and don't forget to hit the notifications
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