Optimism Is About Grace, Not Positivity

+ how it heals generational trauma

Most people think that optimism is a positive attitude. I think that’s wrong.

A positive mindset will not help you forever (depth-wise). If “mindfulness” becomes what frustrates you, you have not escaped the trap of control. Eventually, you’ll reach a layer of your psyche where “being positive” doesn’t work anymore and here’s why:

You’re trying to control how you feel on the inside as a way of trying to control what happens on the outside. Forced optimism is not optimism; wanting to feel good all the time even when your mind and soul don’t want to will make you feel guilty for having the “wrong” emotions. But…there’s no such thing as a wrong emotion. Just because something feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Blind positivity is about controlling good emotions and condemning bad ones. Optimism is about liberating the mind from control-mode by recognizing that emotions exist because they demand to be understood:

• Anger demands that you pay attention to where you are being disrespected

• Remorse demands that you pay attention to where you know could’ve done better but didn’t

• Being offended demands that you see the truth in why something is offensive

Illustration by @mendezmendezart, words by Carl Jung

A person who is “always focusing on the positives” but still resents parts of herself is not an optimist. Condemned emotions become more repressed, not liberated, and you can’t change what you refuse to acknowledge. It works like this:

“Positivity” only works with feelings you already feel good about accepting, which means that the feelings you’ve already labelled as wrong will never get attention, even though that’s where the thorn is actually stuck.

A forcefully “positive” person is like someone who is pretending to be asleep: you can’t wake them up because a part of them knows that it’s all a facade and they’re willing to keep faking.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. — Carl Jung