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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........

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