# slow down



## michaelg (Jan 29, 2005)

okay. this negativity stuff is totally taking over my brain... and i'm supposed to suddenly turn positive? Why does nobody ever mention _neutrality_ - wouldn't it make more sense for me to just turn off the negativity first, and after working on that for a while start adding in positive things?

i mean if I'm so negative now, I can't just invert over to positivity instantly. That's what everybody says to do.. but I haven't been able to do that.


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## GaryUranga (Apr 22, 2006)

I think it should vary from a neutral to positive range, if youre negative enought to actually think you CANT think positive then its somehtign you sohuld work on, start beign a littlemore positive and gradually improve, neutrality is good, but you'd rather be too positive than negative.

Oh and also.. peopel dont like being around negative people, positive people are enjoyable company.


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## Jess (Oct 23, 2004)

*fight it off*

sometimes if you lie to yourself by pretending to be positive ie saying positive things to yourself, then you actually will start to feel that way about the situation...but moreso, you will begin to feel more nuetral because you are digging yourself out of the hole of negativity...going a few notches up into "nuetrality"...well thats my opinion anyways.

I just figure I have so many negative things to say about myself, I might as well outnumber the thoughts with positives even if I dont think them they are still in my head and they can still fight off the negatives. Its like a war inside your head....


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## perfectlycalm (Nov 15, 2005)

m56 said:


> okay. this negativity stuff is totally taking over my brain... and i'm supposed to suddenly turn positive? Why does nobody ever mention _neutrality_ - wouldn't it make more sense for me to just turn off the negativity first, and after working on that for a while start adding in positive things?
> 
> i mean if I'm so negative now, I can't just invert over to positivity instantly. That's what everybody says to do.. but I haven't been able to do that.


Actually I didn't follow the rules by forcing myself to be positive. My therapist told me all of the time to replace my negative thoughts with positive ones, I tried that for a while, but then did things my way. What I did was to try and be myself, I thought that there is nothing more accurate than being myself, I tried to find out who I really am behind the negativity. It's not like me to force myself to be positive and it is not like me to be negative all of the time. I don't want to be fake. I wanted to be out of the negative haze on everything, and I didn't want to lie to myself with an all positive outlook. I made decisions on how I was going to see the world, I don't think there are short cuts to it by not earning it yourself, maybe I'm strange but inserting positive thoughts in my mind without knowing why I was doing it was bad for me and didn't trick me into thinking positive.

I started by turning off the negativity, by cutting out things I'd say to myself, for example I constantly told myself i hated myself and my life, and I constantly told myself that other people hate me, but I decided I wasn't going to say those things anymore. It took me about a month to start getting used to the change and it has become automatic for me now, 2 years later. I like to view things realistically rather than with a positive glaze on everything, and I feel the same way about negative thoughts.


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## GaryUranga (Apr 22, 2006)

negative thoughts are a big fat lie if you think about it too, as I said a range from neutral to positive, no bad things (as negative thoughts are)


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## Softy785 (Apr 16, 2006)

In Dr. Richard's social anxiety tapes he says that we should go neutral first before going to positive thinking. If you go from totally negative to totally positive, it is way too much for your brain to believe and handle, and in the end you'll crash and burn. He suggests telling yourself phrases like "maybe it won't be quite as bad as i thought it would be" or "i might possibly be better at talking to others than i think i am". You have to make rational statements that your brain will accept and believe. Just use lots of "possibly's" and "maybe's"


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## quietpond (May 2, 2006)

I think its impossible to expect yourself to be positive all the time. I have worked hard to become a positive person, but the negativity is part of the flesh and therefore part of being human. You could exhaust yourself if you were nothing but positive all the time.

But I think it is important to uplift each other with positivity. Over focusing on negativity just brings you down, and isn't that the opposite of what we are trying to do? So, yah, its okay to have a bad day, its okay even to rant about it, get it out of your system. But we must allow each other to uplift us when we feel negatively and return the favor when someone else is down.

There is a quote from a song that says "in the end, only kindness matters." We need to just be kind to each other and the positive energy will flow!


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