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Archetypically, we make associations of goodness with positive and badness with negative.

There is no such thing as a positive or negative thought or emotion.

Mindfulness is simply observing what one is thinking and/or feeling without judgment and without labels.

We’ve all heard it, “Don’t be so negative!” Or “Try to be more positive!” We learned to give each other these false consolations and advise them this way from generations upon generations of thinking that told us that we should always keep smiling. Keep our chins up. Look on the bright side of things. See the good in people. Hold our heads high.

More recently, the idea of “negative thinking” became a way of describing those difficult, painful, anxiety-provoking thoughts that take us down the rabbit hole where depression might take hold. And as we in the mental health field continued to use those terms, they became a part of psychotherapy.

It’s opposite, “positive thinking,” is also now useful for facilitating a form of emotional regulation. And while emotional regulation is certainly a very important aspect of mental health, it is very difficult to separate the terms positive and negative from their archetypal heritage of goodness and badness, making it hard to self-regulate using those terms.

A related spiritual perspective has taken hold, in which positive thoughts and emotions lead to positive life experiences and negative thoughts and emotions lead to negative life experiences. As a mental health clinician, I have worked with many people who have been taught to use this kind of magical thinking and experience anxiety and depression as a result of not being able to control their thoughts and emotions accordingly. Of course, they could not control them because the only form of such control would be repression—which only leads to more anxiety and depression.

No Such Thing as Negative Thoughts or Emotions

The truth is that there is no such thing as a negative thought or emotion. Yes, there are difficult, even very difficult thoughts, such as catastrophic thoughts, or assumptions about what others are thinking, or even suicidal thoughts. And, of course, there are difficult, even very difficult emotions—painful, grievous, angry, sorrowful emotions. But, while many of these difficult thoughts and emotions will need to be understood with self-empathy and with healing and recovery facilitated, none of them are negative.

The term negative carries such archetypal associations that it implies that there is badness inherent in these thoughts and emotions. And that association makes it hard to detach badness from negative, which means that when we have difficult thoughts or emotions, we should push them away. And if we don’t, we are somehow being bad. This means that our own thoughts and emotions can be considered to be our enemies, which can lead to significant distrust in our own inner world.

No Such Thing as Positive Thoughts or Emotions

There is also no such thing as a positive thought or emotion. The term positive implies a kind of goodness that carries such archetypal associations that, while we might not notice this association consciously, we might assume that when we are thinking or feeling these so-called positive thoughts or feelings, we are being good. This can lead to a form of toxic positivity.

Being good or bad children, who grow up to be good or bad people, with good or bad motivations, that come from good or bad thoughts or emotions, are notions that have been passed down for generations, even millennia. And they are profoundly attached to the terms positive and negative. And that is why I choose not to use the terms negative or positive at all, particularly when they apply to thoughts and emotions.

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Mindfulness Works Better

Rather, when it comes to emotional regulation, I find that mindfulness works better. Mindfulness allows a person to just observe what they feel and think without pushing one thought or feeling away in favor of another. Mindfulness is simply observing what one is thinking and/or feeling without judgment and without labels.

Such mindfulness allows us to sit with whatever comes up. We just sit with it, allowing it to be what it is. Of course, this does not mean that we literally sit. It means that we allow the emotion or thought enough time to become fully known to us. At this point, we do not even try to name these emotions. Not until they have told us what they are.

Once the emotion or thought has fully revealed itself, then we will be able to clearly name it. And then we might be able to take authentic action to bring the thought or emotion to its fullest expression. But as we are sitting with it, we are holding the tension between the thought or emotion and the action. We sit, we listen, we hear, we accept the revelation given to us by the thought or the emotion, and then and only then do we act.

Of course, when thoughts or emotions feel very overwhelming, it might be hard to just “sit with” them. But we don’t have to think about sitting with a lack of motion. In fact, exercise is a form of expression of emotions and the kinds of thoughts that lead to those emotions, without having to name them until they are ready to be named. Journaling is another method a person might use to allow the pen or the fingers dancing over the keys of a computer or phone to just bleed onto the page without trying to repress or suppress anything.

Poetry writing uses imagery and symbolism to facilitate the revelation of what is going on in the inner person, often in such powerful ways. Story or narrative has the same kind of potential. And, of course, therapy. The power of finding a therapist with whom we resonate and who can sit with us as we sit with our own thoughts and emotions cannot be overstated.

Our thoughts and emotions are meant to be messages to us, for us, and about us. Sitting with them allows us to honor our own inner world enough to learn more about it and find ways to live life more authentically.

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