Embrace Negativity

At the midstation gondola at Oberalpsee in Switzerland. We had to cross a vast lake on a glacier with nothing beneath us, and we were the only people for miles. On top of it there was only one gondola car, and it was self-operated.

Many people, and I used to do this too, avoid feeling bad. They think that bad feelings are happening to them. They think this person, this situation, this job, this work, this world, this politician, is making them feel a certain way. But the only thing that can ever make you feel bad is your beliefs.

All Feelings Come From Beliefs

I say this again and again, because I think it is one of the things you can count on to quickly change the course of your life. This is not simply a mental game, but something that actually makes a real-world physical difference. It is divine guidance. Every single feeling that you have comes down to beliefs. Stop blaming the world, and own your feelings.

Feeling Stuck?

The reason you might feel or seem to have the same problems over and over again is that you’re responding to life in the same way. A problem occurs, and you react. It’s not that life is a certain way, or that a certain person is, or that a situation is; it is that you keep responding in the same way. The reason is that you have certain beliefs that you keep alive.

What is a Belief?

A belief is two things: it is knowledge, plus an opinion about that knowledge. We feel in part, not because of what has happened, but because we know about what has happened. Conversely, we don’t feel good when something good happens, but when we find out about it.

Some people might say, “Well, I had this feeling…” But this is one of two things: you have some thought, and then you have an opinion about it. It’s still knowledge. Or, second, you have a thought, and you have a feeling, and you make it true by acting upon it as if it were true.

You Can’t Get Rid of a Belief

When people hear things like this, their first thought is often that they want to get rid of negative beliefs. You can’t. You contain every belief and its opposite. Beliefs are like recipes. They are useless until acted upon. You’re the one deciding which recipe to follow. The other recipes still exist; you just choose not to cook them. Choose which recipe you want to cook.

Divine Intervention

You have divine guidance. You can call this God, all that is, your higher self, your soul, spirit guides, or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. But there is guidance. When your opinion about something differs from that of the guidance, you feel dissonance, and you feel bad. Your opinion is not in agreement with this higher power. Some people think this is conscience, but it is not. It’s not a judgment on the state of the world. It’s a judgment about your approach to it.

When your opinion or your approach does not agree, you feel bad. Your power, in a real sense, gets cut off. This divine energy is trying to lead you down a better path, and you are resisting. That’s what negativity is: resistance. You are resisting.

This doesn’t mean that if something bad happens, and you feel bad, that the reason you feel bad is that this bad thing is actually good. In some cases, that might be true, but what it really means is that you are interpreting it in a powerless way. When we see things in the world that are “bad,” and we feel bad, it is because they symbolize powerlessness.

In many cases, we want to see things as bad because they give us an excuse to say “I’m powerless” and then not take the actions that we need to take. We can feel we are too little to make a difference. We can avoid being the fullest and proudest version of ourselves. But those are choices, and we can make better ones.

The Hot Cold Game

As a child, many of us have played the hot-cold game. Someone hides something, and it’s our job to find it. We are only given clues like hotter or colder. We are not disappointed when someone says “cold,” because it means we have to turn about 180 degrees and head in the opposite direction. We appreciate the negative guidance, and in fact, it’s fun to discover and find the way. Feelings are like that.

When you feel bad, it’s not that something is wrong; it is that you are not constructively using power. There is a better, more enjoyable path that you are refusing to see. The greater the negative feeling, the more you are being stubborn, and the more the possibility there is for positive movement forward in your life.

Can You Feel Even Worse?

Instead of running from and avoiding negative feelings, when you feel bad, embrace it. It’s guidance. The more you avoid it, the stronger it will become. The more you can embrace your negativity, the more you will change your life, and the faster it will change. Be as honest as you can. Ask yourself, “Can I feel worse? Is that really the worst that I can feel?” When you do this, you will get to your deepest beliefs. Remember, there is always the recast procedure. Find every little grain of negativity so that you can identify your deepest beliefs.

The Barrel is Shallow

Many people fear this approach, thinking that the barrel is never-ending and they can get into a never-ending spiral of negativity. The opposite is the case. The more you face your negativity, the more you will realize how shallow it is. In fact, you will often get to the point where it’s humorous.

Get Unstuck

Once you identify your beliefs, you can find new positive beliefs and then act as if those positive beliefs are true. Imagine what a person who had the belief would do. Ask what they would do in your situation and do it. At first, you might not be used to thinking this way. But stick to it. The ideas will come. Giving up implies that the positive belief can’t possibly be true.

Panic Attacks

One of the causes of panic attacks is the denial of feeling bad. People say, “I feel bad. Feeling bad is bad. Feeling bad about feeling bad is bad. And so on.” Instead, don’t run from it, embrace it.

How To Use Your Negative Beliefs

When you find those deepest beliefs, you can simply flip them around.

For example, perhaps you feel that if people don’t like you or don’t approve of you, life is meaningless, and you can’t be happy. You feel that without the approval of others, your life has no meaning. You believe that you can’t enjoy life.

In this case, you can then say the opposite is “I enjoy life.” While at first, it may not seem like that could be possible, if you focus on it, you will see that it is.

You can make that easier by then asking yourself, “If I had this new belief, how would I feel? How would I feel if I enjoyed my life? Make a list of your feelings. Maybe ask “Is it even possible for a person to enjoy life? How would they feel? What would they do?”

As you do this, your mind will attract thoughts and ideas for action. The more you can generate the feelings, the more thoughts will come to you, and the more ideas for action will come to you. Be persistent and open-minded. Remember, those actions are your recipe to move forward.

The final step is to take those actions. Act like the person you want to be by taking the actions that you have identified. That is your receipt to change your life.

Not About Fake Positive

Sometimes when people hear these things, they think, “Well, I wanted to go to this place today, but my car broke down. Well, I guess that’s good because maybe something bad would have happened if my car were working and I went there.”

While that is potentially true, it’s weak. Avoiding a negative is not a positive; it’s just a milder negative. Instead, see the situation as genuinely positive. In fact, see how it’s actually better than what you would have expected.

Do pretend that it’s good when you don’t see it. Even if it’s not obvious what the positive is, insist that it must be there. Keep an open mind.