Episode 12: The Problem with Positive Thinking (and what to do instead)

We've all heard that we should "think positively" when something in our life goes sideways, or when we hit a wall and start asking ourselves, "Why is this happening?" But we all also know that throwing a few good thoughts on top of your problems doesn't make them go away. Positive thinking works - but only if you know how to think positively in a way that your brain actually buys into. This is where coaching comes in. In this episode Coach Stephanie will use her current example of a never-ending spring sickness to highlight the process of going from "Why is this happening to me?" thinking, to the much more useful, "How is this happening FOR me?". This simple process will help you get out of negative or defeatist thinking (which happens to all of us now and then), and bring yourself back to a place of empowerment and energy, so that you can solve whatever problems are in front of you (because you can!).

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the I'm the Problem podcast. I am your host and your coach for the rest of this episode, Stephanie Finnegan. I'm going to apologize in advance. As I record this, I have a cold, which will not go away. So I might sound a little different or a little stuffed up. It's because I am dealing with that. But I wanted to record this episode, because I just want to keep getting episodes out, but also because what I want to talk about today has to do with the fact that I've had this lingering cold. So it sort of fits right into today's theme. thinking and what to do instead. And what I mean by that is this idea of just think better thoughts. It bleeds a little bit into affirmations, which I'll also talk about a little bit in this episode. But essentially, this episode is for anybody who is struggling with something right now, and you're kind of having the thinking of, “Why is this happening to me?”

You've probably heard something along the lines of just think more positively about it or put a positive spin on it or start a gratitude practice and it all sort of sounds like bullshit because frankly it is. It's well-meaning bullshit but it's bullshit. We're gonna talk today about why that's bullshit and what my guidance is to do instead and I'm gonna do this through the lens of something I'm wrestling with right now which is how I like to structure these episodes.

Today I want to talk about the fact that I have been sick for pretty much the entire month of April. We're heading to the end of April 2024 right now. In addition, I had this other thing happen, which is so random, but I used a new eye makeup. It was a clean beauty product that I had never used before and sure enough after having zero problems with all of the non-clean beauty products I've used, I had an allergic reaction to this makeup and so my eye got very puffy and just it's been a whole production to try and deal with that still not totally gone. So I'm like sick, my eye is puffy. This is a month where I've been really trying to double down and focus more on my business. Some of my caretaking responsibilities have picked up and I've just got a lot going on and not that anybody ever has time to be sick, but the whole point is I started to fall into that thinking of like, why is this happening to me? Why this eye thing and this cold that won't go away and I've got all this other stuff going on and no time to deal with this. Why is this happening to me?

And this is where when we don't have a good answer to a question, this is where that kind of knee jerk positive thinking response comes in. So somebody could say to me, “You know, just be grateful that you only tried that eye makeup on one of your eyes and not both. So they both didn't get puffy and have a reaction”. Or somebody could say, “Yeah, just be grateful that, yeah, it's just a head cold and you don't have COVID or something worse”, or someone could say, “Just be grateful that you have health insurance, that you can go to the doctor and get medication when you're not feeling well”.

The reality is this, there's nothing wrong with a gratitude practice. I fully believe in a gratitude practice. And it does help to put things in perspective. And at the same time, everybody's pain and suffering is a 10 for them. So I'm not saying having an allergic reaction to a clean beauty product is some sort of dire crisis. Certainly not in my case. For me, it's more of an annoyance or a nuisance. That being said, in my day-to-day life, it's fucking annoying. It's a pain. I don't want to deal with this. It's uncomfortable I have to take time out of my day to go to the doctor. Why won't it go away? Is it something worse? So I say that to say the knee-jerk positive thinking the knee-jerk reaction to just be grateful isn't all that helpful because in the moment your discomfort, your suffering, your pain, whatever it is, is very real to you and that sort of thinking dismisses those emotions. So that's the first reason it's not helpful.

And the second reason it's not helpful, your brain is smart and your brain is going to choose what thoughts to believe and if your brain doesn't believe the thought like this is no big deal or well at least I'm grateful I have insurance, it doesn't make the other thoughts you have go away. If I think, “God, I'm so uncomfortable because my eye is puffy” or “I don't want to go out in public because I look a certain way and I feel uncomfortable”, or “I don't want to have a client call today because I don't physically feel well and my energy and my runny nose and my sore throat and the whole thing…”, like if I'm thinking like that and then I try and tell myself, “Yeah, but at least I'm grateful I have health insurance so I can get medication” or “I'm grateful that at least it's not anything worse than a head cold”, yes, those things are true, but it doesn't negate the fact that this is a pain in the ass. It doesn't negate the fact that I still don't physically feel well, and I don't want to have a client call when I don't feel well. It doesn't negate the fact that, you know what, sometimes we have to get up and go to work when we're sick, and it sucks. That's just the reality. So thinking positively doesn't erase the fact that you are still uncomfortable or that you're struggling with something. And your brain knows that, which is why that line of thinking doesn't automatically work to make you feel better.

Same thing with affirmations. I don't have anything against affirmations. I don't use them myself. If they're helpful for you, that's great. For me, what I've found is that my brain just calls bullshit on thoughts it doesn't believe, and I'm sure yours does too, because that's how our brains work. And if my brain doesn't believe the affirmation, if it again, like if it doesn't believe the positive thought, it's just not going to land. It's not going to change anything. I can say the same thing over and over again. Like I feel good. I feel better. I feel grateful. And if I still feel like shit, I still feel like shit. It doesn't go away. So for all of those reasons, I don't really believe that the way to feel better is just to think better thoughts. A good coach will tell you that just thinking happy thoughts is not enough to change anything, unless you actually believe those thoughts.

So how do we solve this then? How do we actually move ourselves out of this kind of negative downward spiral, like “Why is this happening to me”, thinking? The way to do this is first by looking at the question you're asking yourself, why is this happening to me? and realize that that question is not a very empowering question, because again, you're not going to get a great answer. We don't know why this is happening. Maybe you can come up with reasons, and maybe they're correct, and maybe they're just thoughts, and we don't really know, and your brain can argue it all day long. And it often will come up with reasons that things are happening to you that you don't have control over. Why did I get sick? Why did I have an allergic reaction? I don't know. Maybe there's something I could have done to avoid all of this, but who knows? I had no idea I was allergic to that makeup till I tried it, right? I didn't know I was going to get sick, and so I was just living my life, and then suddenly I got sick. So what we want to do here is not be asking ourselves questions that aren't useful for us.

So what's a more useful question? A more useful question than something like, why is this happening to me? and slapping a good thought on top of it, is something like, how is this happening for me? In what way is this happening for me? And again, it's not to make something positive where you're actually suffering. It's not to ignore the discomfort you might be feeling, but it's to try and take some power back and just say, okay, yeah, you know what? Bad things can happen, shitty things can happen, whether it's a cold or something much more dire, but you can say, all right, how is this happening for me? And what that does is it implies that there's something in there. There's, even if it's just a little nugget, there's something in there that is benefiting you, that is working in your favor. And it's just a much more useful, powerful place to come from than why is this happening to me, which is a much more victim-y place. And again, there's no real solid answer to that.

So let me get specific here And I'm just gonna use my example again of the month of April and I'm sick and I have my eyes swollen shut and how Is this happening for me? When I ask that question, the first thing my brain says is like, “It's not this is not happening for you. This is just sucks and sometimes you get sick and sometimes you have a reaction to things and this is life and you just got to power through it”. Okay, not the most positive or energizing thought….So I can ask again, how is this happening for me? And then my brain will likely come up with, “I don't know”. Whenever you ask your brain a question like this, it's going to likely come back with one or two responses and then it's going to come back with, I don't know, after that.

And this is what we like to call in coaching, indulging in confusion. Our brains like to indulge in confusion because saying I don't know is quick and easy. And our brains like quick and easy. Our brains don't like to use the extra effort it takes to come up with something like a whole list of reasons why a puffy eye and a bad cold is actually happening for you. So I have a process that I walk through whenever I'm trying to get myself out of some negative thinking and into positive thinking and doing so by asking myself this question, how is something happening for me? The process I go through is this.

Number one, I expect my brain to serve up I don't know as a response. So it might give me one or two good responses to a question and after that it's going to be like, I don't know. I know this is going to happen. I expect this to happen. And so that's the first step is just knowing that's coming.

Number two is I recognize I don't know is not a fact. It's just a thought my brain is serving up because it's my brain's way of like waving the white flag and being like hey I don't want to put in any effort to answering this question.

Number three then once I notice that is I talk back to my brain by being like yeah I know brain I know you don't know but we're going to come up with some more answers anyways. I know, brain, that you don't know why the puffy eye and the bad cold is happening for me, but let's come up with some other answers anyway. And you just sort of push back to your brain the way that you would talk back to a toddler who's throwing a little bit of a fit and isn't going to do what you want them to do. You just sort of keep leaning into it.

And then finally, I just sit quietly and just keep asking the question, okay, but how is it happening for me? Like you just keep asking and let your brain go to work. Your brain is designed to solve problems. So give it a good problem to solve.

So for me, what I came up with, I'll give you a couple of things that I came up with when I did this process for myself in this case. And for the record, I've done this with minor, minor things like a cold and a swollen eye. And I've done it for major, major things as well. And it always works to pull me out of that sinkhole of like, why is this happening to me thinking and to put me into a much better place in terms of my mindset and my thinking that still avoids that sort of blanket positivity that my brain does not believe.

So the reasons I came up that this swollen eye and forever cold is happening for me, here's a couple.

One, this whole episode, it forced me to finally do something that I've been procrastinating for a while, which is finding a new primary care doctor. So I found out in January that my primary care physician no longer is taking my insurance, and I never got around to finding another doctor, which I've been needing to do, and I just kept procrastinating because it feels like such a pain, and who takes the insurance that's nearby that has good reviews? Do I like them? I got to get an appointment, and I've been procrastinating and procrastinating and this episode has lit a little bit of a fire under my butt and I now have a new primary care doctor. So had I not been this sick and this uncomfortable and this confused about what's going on with my eye, I wouldn't have done this and now I have a doctor. So there's one way that this is happening for me, it got me to get my act together and finally get a new GP.

A second way that this is happening for me, this whole episode actually got me to sign up for my next marathon. I am a runner, but I've run probably a handful of times since October of 2022. And as I record this, it's April of 2024. So it's been a minute. I'd been toying with the idea of signing up for another marathon. What happened was on April 15th, which in Boston was Patriots Day this year, which if you don't live in New England, Patriots Day is a holiday we celebrate here and there's a big parade and all of these events that go on. My family is pretty heavily involved. And usually I am participating in those events on Patriots Day. This year on Patriots Day, I was sick and I had this puffy eye, so I did not go and participate in Patriots Day events. And instead, I was at home on my couch and I was watching the Boston Marathon on TV. The Boston Marathon is another thing that always happens on Patriots Day. As a marathoner, I love the Boston Marathon. I don't often get to watch it because it usually conflicts with me watching Patriots Day parades and whatnot. So this year, I was sick. I got so envious and jealous and excited and emotional watching all the coverage on TV and thinking back to past marathons, I finally, for the first time in a very long time, got serious about the idea of running another marathon. So I went online, researched, chose a marathon for this coming fall, went down my credit card and signed up for the marathon. In addition, I texted a whole group of my cousins and a bunch of them have signed up for the marathon as well. So that was another good thing that came out of this. It really got me to actually commit to my next race, which I'm really excited about.

That leads to the next example of how this all was happening for me. I am sort of an all or nothing person. And that means I'm somebody who, if I've barely run in the last year and a half, I sign up for a marathon, I would probably go out and start running hardcore right away, right out the gate, the Monday, you know, or Tuesday after I sign up. The problem with that is that that's the fastest way to get injured. And I've been very bad in the past about gradually building up. I tend just to dive all in and just like hold on tight and hope things work out. Because I've been sick, I haven't been able to start running again the way that I would want to. So instead, this has sort of forced me to gradually get back up to speed. That's been a huge way that this illness is happening for me, is that it's forced me to have this slow ramp-up. And as a result, knock on wood, I am a lot less likely to have injury.

So that's it. Those are some examples of how me asking the question, how is this happening for me, has come back to me with good responses that actually then do genuinely make me feel a little bit better mentally. And when I start to feel a little bit better mentally, then I'm in a much better headspace to take care of myself physically, get done the things I need to get done, and do what I need to do in order to actually move past this sort of moment of feeling like crap, which is what's been going on. And I'm doing that in a way that doesn't just sort of slap some positive thoughts on top of everything. It's not just about thinking better, but it's about thinking genuinely, how is this stuff happening in a way that's actually helping me? How is this happening for me? And then using that to help propel me forward, as opposed to trying to grab onto some affirmations or just some ideas that my brain doesn't fully believe and try and hope that that spins me out of kind of a bad mood that I've been in since I got sick.

So I hope that that's helpful for you. I think it's super normal, again, to feel crappy when you feel crappy. And I think it's super normal to like wanna get out of it quickly. And I understand the knee jerk, just think better. But I really firmly believe that doesn't help. And so if you found that to be the case, then maybe you could try the process that I walked through here. Again, just four easy steps. Ask yourself, how is this happening for me? And expect your brain to come up with, I don't know. And then recognize that I don't know is not a fact and know that it's just your brain wanting to wave the white flag. Talk back to your brain.