False Positives

No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell

Carl Jung

I’m not a psychologist like Mr Jung, but I am a human being who has lived a life containing its fair share of turbulence, and there’s a modern taboo that I would very much like to dispel. Negative emotions are essential, natural parts of being human, have just as much value and will benefit you just as much, maybe even more than positive emotions. There, I said it.

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I’m ultra suspicious of people who always seem happy. To me, it’s not normal, healthy, or conducive to a full, enriching life. I also don’t believe it can possibly be genuine, and I’d much rather people are well-rounded and authentic than hide the less socially acceptable parts of themselves. It might not make those people permanently fun to be around, but it certainly makes them more interesting and real. There’s a lot of truth in the old saying that if you can’t handle someone at their worst, then you don’t deserve them at their best, and nobody should give their time and energy to fair-weather friends.

We live in a media and image obsessed world where we’re taught to share and express positive emotion as widely as possible, but to hide the negative underneath words we don’t mean and smiles that don’t reach our eyes. We tell everyone we’re fine when really, we’re far from it. We try to make out that our lives are better than they really are. When we’re struggling, people advise us to cheer up, get over it, and move on.  Everybody moans about miserable statuses on social media and dismisses them as self indulgent or attention-seeking. If we don’t overcome our issues or move on fast enough, we may be accused of brooding or becoming bitter, or even bringing further misery on ourselves with our bad vibes. While well-intentioned, this kind of judgement can generate further negative emotions, like the guilt of being unable to function at your best, and the shame of letting other people down, which can only be detrimental to wellbeing and recovery from life’s troubles.

For me, ignoring or distracting yourself from the problem doesn’t make it go away. Emotional pain is as valid as physical pain, and shouldn’t be treated any differently. It’s the body’s way of letting you know something needs attention, and trying to cover it up is like putting a band aid over a deep, open wound. Masking our negative emotions instead of fully engaging with them is often what makes us feel worse. I’m not talking about over-honouring these feelings, or crawling under a rock and letting them destroy us, but it is vital to honour, accept and fully experience them, to really learn what they mean and how best to let them go when the time is right. Sometimes the only way to get past something is to go right through it, and completing that process at your own pace and not the one the world dictates is what will actually stop you from hanging onto the negativity and letting it consume you from the inside out in the long term. It’s not wallowing, it’s simply living your truth and healing in your own time. You know deep down that this too shall pass and that life will get better, but at the time, you’re sad and introspective, and that’s absolutely understandable and okay.

Because as usual, your mother was right. Life’s not fair. It’s never going to be all sunshine and rainbows, you won’t necessarily receive all that you deserve, and it would be silly and setting yourself for disappointment to expect to always be happy and fulfilled. At some point, probably more than once, it’s likely that you’ll lose someone or something that you love deeply, and you’ll get your heart broken or your dreams shattered in any number of other ways. Sometimes life will be purely hardship and devastation, despite your best efforts. Sometimes even your best efforts seem pretty weak and may not look like much to other people, but if that’s all you have to give at the time, continuing to give anything at all is admirable and should be respected. Life’s traumas are quite often totally out of our control, the world can be a cruel place, and bad things frequently happen to good people. There are even occurrences in life you can never fully get over, all you can do is learn to live with them, and you deserve the time and space to deal with that in whatever way suits you best. I for one would never wish to be the kind of person who isn’t hurt or upset or even damaged by those experiences. Life is beautiful, and it’s beautiful because of those things, not in spite of them.

Everything in life exists on a sliding scale of opposites, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. They’re all of equal worth. Just as courage needs fear in order to exist, light needs dark and happiness needs sadness. If you deny one, you discredit the other. It’s impossible to dull down or numb the negative half of your feelings without that affecting the positive half, so if you never allow yourself to feel sad, angry, resentful or envious, then it stands to reason that you’ll also be unable to allow yourself to feel truly joyous, peaceful, contented or grateful.  It’s all about balance, and the scales will inevitably tip one way or the other in between the times when they settle. If we’re taught to be present and fully embrace the good times, then surely we should be present and fully embrace the bad times too. They’re just as much an intrinsic part of the whole, and being whole is infinitely preferable to being predominantly positive or negative, both of which can send a person dangerously off kilter.

I’m not a subscriber to the ‘fake it til you make it’ philosophy. I refuse to wear a smile that doesn’t come from my heart, I wouldn’t want those I love to feel they had to either, and I don’t believe it’s always helpful to do so. It’s essentially dishonest, and very damaging to suppress such an intrinsic part of human nature. It also puts struggling people under more pressure to feel better before they’re emotionally ready to do so, when they’re already fully aware that they’re not as successful or loveable as the happier version of themselves. But sometimes success is just being able to get up in the morning and survive the day, and love should be unconditional and inclusive of every part of who you are, or it isn’t true.  A friend of mine recently committed suicide, and as is often the case, a lot of people close to her never saw it coming because outwardly, she seemed fine. Sadly, she’s not the first person in my life I can say this about, and it’s a story most people can tell about someone they know, even if it’s Robin Williams. It’s an extreme example of how harmful hiding your pain can be, but emphasises the absolute necessity of being free to feel how you really feel instead of how you, or other people, think you should.

Of course there are always positives to be found in any bad situation, and in many ways life is what you make it. But the negatives will always continue to exist and run alongside, and what happens to you is often not your choice, as life is full of arbitrary events. The concept of karma and the philosophy that everything happens for a reason can be comforting, but they can also be condemning. As further extreme examples, consider how they might translate to innocent victims of crime, or war, or famine. The idea that we are responsible for our circumstances can only stretch so far, and can make people feel worse, or blame themselves for things that definitely weren’t their fault. It’s unfair if those people are then made to feel bad for being unable to muster much positive energy, and told that their ‘bad attitude’ will only encourage the cycle to continue. Yes, it is all about choosing how you react to situations, and hardship can be turned into opportunity. But that’s only possible if you first allow the negative to flow through and give yourself the indeterminable time you need to recover and adapt so you can move forward as a stronger, more complete person. If everything does happen for a reason, then negatives are part of those things, and the reasons for them need to be examined. It’s all part of living, and it’s how true resilience is developed.

It can also be argued that being, or pretending to be, permanently happy and content makes people complacent and lazy. They find no reason to strive to improve as they believe nothing needs to change. It can also give people the shock of their lives when something bad does happen, which it inevitably will. Optimism says that things can only get better, but sometimes that’s not true, because they can also get worse. Pessimism prepares people for the times when they do, and protects them from the unpleasant and damaging jolts that this can cause. Being realistic and seeing things as they are opens people up to noticing details, making them more in tune with their surroundings and able to make better judgements and also enhances creativity. Many studies show that there are no better motivators than sadness or anxiety, as they push people to change the things that are wrong, and to do the difficult interior work that strengthens character. It is possible to acknowledge the positives and be grateful for what you have, yet still yearn for what is lacking or mourn for what you’ve lost. Taking the good and bad together can actually help detoxify negative experience and aid our survival. Furthermore, people who have been through such changes often find themselves extending that to more compassion and also striving to improve things for other people, which can only be good for the wider world.

So if someone in your world is having a hard time, perhaps the best thing to do is not automatically try to fix or save them, but simply sit beside them and squeeze their hand, help them regain the power to smile again and save themselves, as they’re the only ones who truly can. Nobody can be at their best all the time, and to fully appreciate your best, you have to have known your worst, so don’t let anybody, least of all yourself, make you feel bad for keeping that company when you need to. Ultimately, it’s what will yield the greatest growth, and as with learning and developing anything in life, the most difficult lessons can take a while to process.

And if it’s you who is suffering, don’t fear or feed your demons, simply face them, introduce them to your friends and make sure they know their place. It’s what will stop them from taking you over and hardening your heart, which can only block out the sunshine as much as it does the dark. Be glad to be sad sometimes, it’s what will ultimately make you happier.

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