How can we remain positive with less effort? Consider– optimism is our normal behavior. Our natural state of thinking is positive and it is our true automatic response to everyday events. Look at our young children! There live in their optimism. In an idealistic world we should not even have to consider making the decision to have a positive or negative outlook.
Generally people believe that positive thinking is more rewarding than negative thinking. And most people try to entertain the positive in their lives. Even our medical community supports positive thinking as a component to health.
Why then can we be taken over by guilt and anger and sink into the quicksand of our negative thoughts? How can we remain positive with less effort?
We can win the positive negative thinking battle! Our minds are automated to be positive or negative dependent on our past experiences. If a person has had more negative experiences then they will take the negative route more easily and have to do battle with their negative thoughts to remain positive. If a person has had more positive experiences then they will automatically enjoy the positive route.
Negativity or negative emotions such as anger, guilt, anxiety, depression etc. block our positive thinking ability because negative emotions are our negativity. However, negative emotions are just a part of us. They are not bad. What is bad is the shame that we put on ourselves and others for having negative emotions.
I see negative emotions as our shamed childhood kids within us that need to be acknowledged and loved for who they are not pushed away. Each shamed kid within us is us at a different age in our childhood. We not only have an inner child we have an entire family of children within our persona. Each negative emotion or each shamed negative child within us is the root of our negative feelings. The shame that our inner family or our negative emotions of depression, anger etc. carry give negativity the power to overtake our positivity.
The next time you feel angry, anxious, depressed or guilt ridden, acknowledge those parts of yourself rather than trying to rid yourself from them. Once you acknowledge a negative emotion begin a relationship with that emotion by writing or talking with him or her. You need to find out what your anger, anxiety or depression wants to say. This simple technique helps your mind organize its self talk chaos and open a pathway to healing your negative behavior.
- Image by Łukasz Strachanowski via Flickr
Once negative emotions of anger, anxiety, and depression are healed they automatically respond in a positive manner and we do not have to fight to remain positive. When anger heals it becomes our passion, anxiety becomes intuition, depression becomes compassion and our ego becomes our friend.
My work concentrates on healing shame based negativity to live life fully with empowerment.
Lois Hollis
Lois Hollis was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She earned her RN from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Maryland and a BSN from the University of Pennsylvania. For thirty years, Lois gained significant experience as a nurse in various fields of medicine, such as open heart surgery, trauma, neurosurgery, gastroenterology and nephrology. She won the respect and admiration of her colleagues and patients by propelling her career into both research and consulting. Among her many achievements, Lois was instrumental in establishing one of the first hemodialysis units in the country.
In the midst of her career, Lois moved to Virginia, where she married a gastroenterologist and gave birth to three beautiful girls. Despite her many accomplishments, Lois suffered from incapacitating migraines, unexplained guilt and depression. After two decades of living on prescription drugs, Lois decided to enter holistic health, amidst much opposition, to find an answer.
Lois soon discovered that her emotional health was intricately woven into her physical health. Even years before seeking alternative treatment for her migraines, Lois had been on a quest from Freud to Zen to resolve her childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. However she was not able to find a way to completely heal.
Through deep introspection and journaling, Lois discovered that her emotions had lives of their own! Each negative emotion was the cause of a painful emotional experience that was locked behind a wall of shame within her unconscious. She began to understand that these emotions were actually her, frozen in time during her childhood by the shame of the trauma (PTSD.)
Once she reconciled with these emotional children, an amazing cascade of healing occurred which continued to grow exponentially. Anger became her Passion, Anxiety became Intuition, Depression became Compassion and her guilt was gone. Lois felt empowered, migraine free and eager to help others also frustrated by the band-aids of traditional psychotherapies and drugs.
Lois also came to realize that with the healing of her emotions she now enjoyed a deeper soul access and wrote a trilogy “The Universe Speaks” and “Soul Mirror Cards.” Lois has also produced a DVD “Out of Discord Into Harmony” and a 3 act stage play illustrating the interactions of unconscious emotions. She is currently working on a book to heal our shame and narcissism and a workbook on the method of SOULSPEAKS.
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