BY VICKEY DAVID 

 

BEFORE we practice negating negativity from our daily lives; isn’t it necessary to understand the implications of the word ‘negativity’. Literally, it implies an abstract idea that obstructs the path of progression and, later, stunts the growth of anything or anyone, while spirituality pertains to the belief that ‘negativity’ signifies a sort of harmful energy reflected from depraved and debouched situations that affects the normalcy of psychical functions in any individual. One of the overused and overrated clichés ‘stay away from negativity or negative people’ or ‘be positive’ being optimistic as well as euphemistic’ in life is still being reverberated in several self-help books, memoirs, and other forms of audio-visual presentations, only because negativity recalls and churns an array of unhealthy traumatic narratives buried deep in the psyche yet having their roots spread out far in relations of any individual. In addition to this, the force of negativity is so intense that one cannot easily come to terms with a peaceful life; it is a malnutritious agent that keeps both soul and psyche in perpetual turmoil and ultimately leads to frustration and restlessness. The old feuds, grudges, animosities, fierce arguments, and the like pave paths for negativity by claiming implicitly and subsequently for a prolonged staycation in the lobes of our brain only to surface in the form of disorders. There are two types of negative thoughts: simple and complex.

 

The former is born out of reasons such as rebuke, misunderstanding, discouragement, and all those situations wherein we feel upset and low, while the latter is the conglomeration of many situations like rejection and failure in your aimed spheres, for instance, examinations, competitions, and love-life at the same time. The inability to endure these complex negative thoughts is challenging for any one of us. Nevertheless, there are ways to revisit those negative thoughts tormenting us all day long or, say, years after years without mere chance of overcoming, as if we were eternally in the state of convalescence. The effective ways to keep ourselves away from negative thoughts are enumerated: 1. We need to figure out in a clear-cut manner whether the negative thoughts troubling us hold any significance or not. If they are important, we must understand they are not negative, rather suggest a positive output. And if they are not important enough, we need to avoid considering them trash. 2. Another best way is to take advice from someone we think is a guiding personality who can advise us in such a way that, as Sadhguru says, problems will turn into possibilities. 3. The atmospheres where we grow, study, work, and thrive, as we already know, are not utopian, despite we need to develop a temperament of pachyderm that shields us from the people who often indulge in the activities of taunting and deriding us in all possible ways they can.

 

What the renowned Persian poet Rumi has averred is mentionable here: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself”. 4. Once we have negated some negative thoughts, those thoughts may knock and sneak again into our conscious mind by virtue of some memories associated with previous negative thoughts. In such cases, we ought to practice determinedly not to retrace and revive those skeletons of dead thoughts that result in despondence and dysfunction of mental mechanisms. 5. Last but not the least, through self-controlling and self-regulating habits, we may re-concentrate on the positive things from which we tend to get detached. It can thus be ascertained that negation of negativity is essential if we have some higher set of ambitions and commitments to accomplish by channelising our thoughts from self-negatory mode to self-regulatory mode.