A friend emailed me recently and while we were catching up she asked, "
why all the positive thinking stuff on your blog lately?"
I didn't think of this as my recent subject matter, but we all know how
scattered multi-faceted this blog is, so it did get me thinking.
I am more about "focusing on what we want" (
in particular how we want to feel) these days than positive thinking -
although if we are more naturally inclined to doom and gloom, the sky is falling, Wednesdays are for whining kind of thinking and can evolve just
that - well, things will certainly be shaken up for us in big ways.
(
I still miss Wednesdays ... sniffle)
I don't think, as Marianne Williamson says "pouring pink paint over our problems and pretending that they don't exist" works either. The stuff we push down always bobs to the surface sooner or later -
although maybe this stuff that is bobbing to the surface is like an inner tube in a fast moving river and actually there to
save us and the only reason we
think we are drowning is that we are clinging to a slippery rock afraid to let go and reach out for it.
Besides I learned long ago that positive thinking alone is not a sure thing to getting what we want.
When I was a kid I was afraid to go into the bathroom because I always thought something scary was lurking behind the closed shower curtain.
(I admit I still peek behind one now and then ... or maybe every time I go in there)
My mother, being a highly creative and highly frazzled mother of 3 children under the age of 5 would ask, "why does it have to a monster in there Cathy? why can't it be something good? does everything we can't see have to be something bad?"
She started asking us what good stuff could be hiding in the shower. "An ice cream truck!", "A fairy!", "A treasure chest!", "A library!" we shouted, my little brother stopped us in our tracks with "Bozo" (we were old enough to know that clowns could be scary, too) - finally my mother clapped a halt to our shouting with a decision.
"No", she pronounced solemnly, "the best thing would be ... the Publisher's Clearing House guy with the balloons and the check". We all cheered.
From that day forward we pretended the Publisher's Clearing House crew was hiding in our shower ready to spring a $10,000,000 check on us.
It kept us from being afraid of the closed curtain (
sort of) but if having 3 kids thinking about
that an average of 3 times a day each for, I don't know, let's say 5 years, which would create (
grabs my calculator) over 16,000 positive thoughts of a Publisher's Clearing House check didn't draw that guy to our front door
I am pretty certain positive thinking alone is not totally a sure thing.
(
of course I am not totally sure my mother ever actually mailed in an entry form)
