File:2013 Rainbow over Washfold.jpg In the public domain (Wikipedia Commons Images)
THERE IS SOME DANGER IN UNBRIDLED POSITIVE THINKING
We tend to magnify threats and to underestimate our coping mechanisms, resources, ability to innovate when faced with obstacles, and our ability to see opportunity in crises. So, we need to balance our proclivity for negativity with a habitual leaning towards positivity – and see both the stars and the bars as we look at a reality beyond our confined space and place, and reframe our thoughts accordingly. But not to the point that we wear rose-tinted glasses no matter what the circumstances. A healthy, realistic balance should be maintained.
Positive psychology which can be traced to the likes of Lao Tzu, Buddha and in modern times to William James - and developed or punted by Abraham Maslow, Norman Vincent Peale, Martin Seligman and others - has become very popular. Positivity is a factor in a number of resilience models and has become a desirable leadership and life-style trait.
At the intersection of psychology and theology we have seen misunderstandings, and the adoption of dangerously applied misinterpretations such as ‘the law of attraction’ – a magical direction of one’s thoughts to manifest what one desires, that is, to bring about a self-serving outcome. Worse still, is to try and foist ‘positive thinking’ on others. For example, it is not helpful but potentially harmful to tell someone who is suffering from depression (an illness, not a poor choice) to ‘think more positively’. (Andrée-Ann Labranche, a doctoral student in psychology, describes this as “emotional invalidation” which “involves ignoring, denying, criticizing or rejecting another person’s feelings”. Undermining their right to have, understand, accept, validate, own and work through their own feelings and behaviours. Her research shows that it is harmful to invalidate another’s emotions, and likely to invoke depressive symptoms or exacerbate existing depression, especially if this is done repeatedly.
Emotional invalidation takes away hope.
Blind optimism, irrational faith in positive thinking needs to be tempered, or it leads quickly to unwarranted belief in self (My will be done, not thine or yours).
In seeking balance, we should heed what German psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm said, that (extreme or ‘toxic’) optimists and pessimists are both lazy opt-outs. Nothing needs to be done, they imply or believe – either because all will be fine, or because nothing can be done. So, “Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair… To have faith means to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the limits of the realistically possible”.
HOPE
And false or wrongly placed hope leads nowhere. A key bridge to acceptance of and working towards a future that is meant to be, is well-founded hope.
Fromm once more: “Hope is a decisive element in any attempt to bring about social change in the direction of greater aliveness, awareness, and reason. But the nature of hope is often misunderstood and confused with attitudes that have nothing to do with hope and in fact are the very opposite”.
The mystery of hope placed in a divine Creator plays a wonderful role in sound mind-positioning, and in the generation of effective, empowered action arising out of facing situations and threats realistically. Out of this process something beautiful emerges from the dark (as a lotus flower rises out of murky depths).
HOPEFUL LEADERSHIP
I love Winston Churchill’s balanced acknowledgement of a dire threat as well as his encouragement of a determined response during the early part of World War II, after the fall of France: “It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour. It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage... In that supreme emergency we shall not hesitate to take every step - even the most drastic - to call forth from our people the last ounce and inch of effort of what they are capable … (and drawing on an injunction from a book of the Apocrypha that is echoed in The Lord’s Prayer) … As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be”
HELP
Having lived in Rawsonville in the Cape for 4 months now, I’ve been able to observe a small -town culture of inquisitiveness about others, sometimes leading to a helping hand and at other times to critique but without getting involved, and using the excuse, ‘I’m minding my own business’. (This doesn’t exclude gossiping though: starting fires and spreading the flames without helping). At least there is more involvement here than one typically finds in cities.
Of course, ‘helping’ when it is not required or desired by the object of that help is usually not helpful. Even parents seeing their adult children going wrong, making mistakes, approaching disaster and hurt, may need to hold back and patiently wait with 'the bandages and ointment' until asked to help.
And when asked for help it’s best to weigh up the provision of our help on the asker’s best interests. (‘Yes’ isn’t always the best answer)
Nor is it helpful to tell anyone who is suffering or in difficulty simply to ‘think positive’. That’s an implied judgement that changes nothing except impose guilt or a feeling of inadequacy. But kindling hope in a realistically understood situation is helpful. Especially in this crisis-laden age of every ‘man’ for himself. And this kindling of hope may also kindle felt - love, and healing.
Helping instead of crossing to the other side of the street is what we could be more ready, willing and able to do.
Most times the situations in which we may be in a position to give or receive help and hope is when we are off-line, away from isolating technology, and not distanced from others. In such a social context we are far more able to be open and available to sounder sensing, engaging, and responding. Neurosurgeon Ian Weinberg puts it this way:
“I would suggest that it is long overdue that we re-connect and re-engage in the flesh and with the natural environment so that we ensure a continual flow of healthy authenticity into our existence. This I believe is our birth-right and the solution to many of the current emerging maladies of mind and body”.
Let’s get out there, be of help, spread hope.
