The Coach and the Self Are Having an Argument
Mindfulness Myth #4: Accepting vs Surrendering
This post picks up the thread from Mindfulness Myth #3 on positive thinking.
The Self went from walking to leaping, left leg, right leg. She had that slide to show the Coach with her findings about positive thinking. She didn’t suspect she’d have to accept significant amendments.
The Coach sat her down on the porch and fetched the bottle of cider.
“Tell me, what’s new?” she asked.
The Self couldn’t contain her excitement, so she told the Coach the story of the two neighbours she’d just met. One couldn’t see the problem; the other couldn’t see any way out. It was most unfortunate, she felt, that people often used positive thinking as a proxy for wishful thinking, which was why others claimed that positive thinking was whitewashing. But she had understood that thinking positively involved seeing both the problem and the scope for solutions. She’d even nicknamed it solution-oriented thinking.
She produced the slide she’d prepared, scribbled on a piece of paper.
Then she looked up expectantly, eyes twinkling with excitement.
The Coach raised her eyebrows, smiling.
“A very neat slide is that, well done.”
She took a sip of the cider.
But? the Self almost said aloud.
The Coach may have heard and went on unperturbed.
“But tell me, positive thinking? What’s that?”
The Self could feel her lower jaw sink. What was the Coach asking?
“Erm, positive thinking! You must have heard it a thousand times; everyone keeps preaching it like the new salvation!”
The Coach grunted, amused.
“Oh yes, I have heard it indeed. But every time I do, I wonder what the positive stands for.” The Coach waved a mosquito away.
The Self was speechless.
“I suppose you don’t give in to negative emotions,” she whispered, realising at once the logical trap.
“I see,” the Coach nodded, even more amused, “so you’re a positive thinker if you dodge negativity. I, for one, was thinking of positive as reassuring, maybe? Light-hearted? The right thing to do? While the so-called negative emotions are the opposite?”
The Self was fidgeting in her chair. Did she have to explain everything to the Coach?
“Well, no, Coach, look, it’s like this: positive thinking is often misunderstood; it’s the people who misread it for whatever suits them in the given situation.”
“No wonder they do, I suppose,” the Coach replied, smiling and downed her cider.
The Self only just managed not to roll her eyes.
“People should be helped to understand that they’re taking it too superficially. That’s not what positive thinking is all about, in reality.”
“How do you know?” the Coach enquired, amused.
The Self stopped fidgeting. What question was that?
“An idea is as good as what it’s taken for, isn’t it? Unless you have evidence of what the concept originally meant.”
The Self shrugged. She just wouldn’t give up on positive thinking. She felt it was treated unfairly.
The Coach bent over to reassure the Self as if she’d heard her thoughts.
“I know you find it hard to accept, but positive thinking is fuzzy, misleading, and limited. Don’t get me wrong, it helps to opt for a view that empowers us to take action; develop that skill, but don’t sell me positive thinking as if it was the way to - to what? To be cheerful? To avoid pain? To see problems in a more balanced way? Or even as the way to solve the problem altogether?
Positive thinking doesn’t make it clear what to use it for, and that’s why, as you say, people are using it for whatever comes in handy. Whenever at a loss, they are tempted to say, oh, I’ll look on the bright side, and everything’s going to be fine.”
The Self sat still, completely lost.
“Maybe, yes, but it’s clear as to what you should do: reframe a bad situation by putting it in a more positive light,” she countered.
“You think so? And how far can we take this reframing? It doesn’t say. Reframe those thoughts too often, and you’ll become reckless. Something that the old Greeks called hubris - and there’s always a price for it.”
The Coach lighted a scented stick to keep mosquitoes away.
“And then, this positive-negative toggle - how helpful is it, and how truthful? It legitimises only cheerfulness and reassurance to the detriment of anything else. But cheerfulness can be deceptive, while anger can be a useful red flag and a driver for change. The duality is built in when you talk about positive thinking, and you can’t counter this by teaching people to think beyond it. Accept that.”
The Self felt uneasy. Was the Coach demanding she accepts things she didn’t believe in?
“So if you agree that positive thinking is fuzzy and misleading, then you need to accept that it’s only of limited help.
“Even more: it’s a false goal to embrace, I’m afraid.”
The Self stood up and started pacing the porch, scratching her forehead. Why was positive thinking a false goal, and where was all this conversation going?
“Well, I suppose it offers a stance in the face of adversities, so in that sense, I guess it’s helpful, provided we apply it carefully,” she retorted peevishly.
“That’s the rub,” the Coach arched her eyebrows and leaned forward.
“When facing a challenge, what counts most is not so much how you view it, but what you do about it: once you’ve gained that view, how do you act on it? Do you search for solutions? Do you give up and move on?
“Whether you see the problem in brighter or darker colours, what matters is the consequence you draw from how you see it.”
The Coach waved the scented stick in the air to spread out the cloak of sweet smoke.
There had to be another cider bottle somewhere in the pantry.
“Think of your pessimistic neighbour: his biggest mistake was not that he didn’t see any solutions; we’re all human, and the truth is a tricky matter. But he couldn’t live with it. If he’d accepted that the fence couldn’t be mended, he wouldn’t have been despairing but moved on instead.
“It’s not the truth but the alignment of your actions with that version of your truth that matters most. If you decide you can change it, change it, find solutions. If you decide it can’t be helped, leave it. Or accept it as it is, and move on from there. That’s it.
“People become unhappy when they get stuck trying solutions that can never work because they wanted to think positively when the situation couldn’t be helped,” the Coach said, winking at the Self.
“Or they get unhappy when they see that the problem can’t be solved, but they don’t move on by opting out or truly accepting it. They keep bumping against the same wall and get stuck in perpetual resentment or pain.”
The Self was sitting again, head bent and pouting; she wished she could tear up the Coach’s arguments.
The Coach remembered now where the last cider bottle was. She stood up abruptly and opened the tool cupboard behind her long chair. On the bottom shelf, somewhere in the dark recesses at the back, there had to be the bottle she’d got last Day of the Dead at the market.
The Coach squatted with a grunt, and then she exclaimed:
“I knew it!”
She stood up again, holding a dusty bottle.
“That’s my prize for thinking positively!” she said, waving it in the air with a grin.
The Self put on a wry smile to disguise her discontent.
The Coach sat down again, pondering.
“You’re still unhappy. But can you accept that the word positive leads people to wishful thinking?”
It took a few moments until the Self nodded, head bent. Yes, it must be that bloody word.
“And you can also accept that looking on the bright side is not always the point?”
The Self heaved a deep sigh. Why can’t one casually use a half-empty phrase in day-to-day life?
But okay, it wasn’t always the point. She nodded again, reluctantly.
“And then, do you still think it’s a goal worth aspiring to?”
The Self raised her eyes at long last and faced the Coach.
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right,” the Self agreed, pressing her lips and squeezing them into a wry smile.
The Coach nodded.
“Try without frowning, without pouting, and without sighing, maybe?” the Coach suggested.
The Self glanced at the Coach surprised, then scoffed. Really?
The Coach didn’t respond but kept waiting.
The Self bent her head again, seeing there was no way out. Yes, actually, the Coach was right; positive thinking felt most of the time just like a slogan. A misleading one at that. This didn’t mean that it was all wrong, though, did it?
But she’d got tired of the argument. She raised her head and replied, “I guess you’re right. Well – “ the Self dangled her head in resignation.
The Coach’s smile broadened.
“Now you’re surrendering for the sake of closing the argument. But you can try again without all that,” the Coach said gently.
The Self was intrigued. Was she surrendering?
Yes, she was, actually. She felt cornered and pushed to give up.
But why was she clinging so tight to positive thinking, after all? Maybe it is as the Coach says.
“Come here,” the Coach said and stood up.
The Self joined her.
The Coach stopped just before the door to the house.
“You see this threshold?” she turned to the Self.
Yes, that was a threshold, all right. The Self nodded.
“Good. Let’s say this is positive thinking. You keep looking at it from all sides, wondering if it should be higher, lower, or maybe more polished.
“Now take a step over and let’s get in,” the Coach said as she stepped over the threshold.
The Self followed, not sure what that meant. They both stopped short.
“You see?” the Coach turned around to face the Self. “It’s behind you now. You know it’s there, but you’ve put it behind and are starting from here,” the Coach said. “It is as it is,” the Coach said, stressing each word slowly.
“So can you start from here?” The Coach turned towards the house, with her back to the Self.
The Self stood still.
Of course, it made sense.
It was as it was.
Positive thinking had, indeed, a polarising, misleading name and lots of people did understand it that way. Dealing with challenges took much more than a positive evaluation. The end.
“Yes,” the Self assented, smiling, “I agree. It’s really just a false goal.”
The Coach acknowledged with a nod, then turned around and headed for the small living.
The Self realised she could now move on.
“Coach? You said that when you can’t change something and can’t opt out of it either, you need to accept it. How on earth do you do that in practice?”
The Coach turned back, facing the Self, beaming with her affectionate smile.
“You’ve just done it,” she answered. “You’ve just accepted that positive thinking is rubbish,” she added, heading through the door.
The Self stood still, dumbstruck. She needed to replay the conversation to the moment when acceptance had taken place, so she could capture what it was.
It must have occurred just after the moment when she’d felt she was surrendering. No frowning, no pouting, no scoffing – just the facts.
Another thought struck her. She watched the Coach busy making tea. Had the Coach been arguing about positive thinking the whole time just to teach her what accepting felt like?
Acceptance doesn’t drop from the sky. You are hooked on a belief first, repeatedly oppose any counter-evidence, surrender unwillingly, resign yourself to it – and finally, if you’re blessed enough, truly accept. You stop frowning, pouting, or sighing.
Hold on! Did this mean that accepting was a sort of letting go?
And you?
Have you ever crossed over from resigning yourself to a situation you disliked originally, to accepting it? Can you go back to that moment and re-create it when you need it?
I wanted to showcase the inner journey to acceptance, instead of explaining it. For me, it’s the picture of a threshold that I put behind me and start from there. Do you have your own mental picture that helps you cross over to acceptance?
We all want to believe, at times, that we have accepted something, when we’re in fact only resigning ourselves and carrying on with our lives. You don’t need to answer this, just think: are you carrying something inside, with a smile, but still hurting?