Just Call Me Pollyanna...

​ I’m not someone you’d ever have called an optimist. Perennially attracted to dark things and sentiments, I scoffed at those who talked about being positive as idiotic Pollyannas. They annoyed the crap out of me, those people who couldn’t stomach the other side of the coin, those who were relentlessly positive to the point of ignoring the opposite. I also felt (and still do to an extent) that it’s important to understand the shadow so you can appreciate the light, rather than simply turning into it blindly and eschewing those dark parts of oneself. I definitely appreciated the term “toxic positivity” once came around, as I felt like so many of those annoying “think positive!” folks were swimming around in that. 
 
The older I get, the more curious I have become about actual, authentic positivity than I ever before. Don’t get me wrong – I still believe you need to make peace with all parts of yourself, make friends with your shadow. However, I’ve also come to believe “thinking positive!” isn’t all bullshit. 
 
It started in my 40’s, as perimenopause saw me suffering from raging insomnia – the kind where you fall asleep fine, but wake up two or three hours in and can’t fall back asleep. This went on for years. I felt very fortunate to live in a state that had legalized marijuana just prior to this milestone, and weed is one of the few things that reliably makes me fall asleep. But unfortunately, it’s the psychotropic stuff with the THC that works the best – which I don’t necessarily mind, but also, too much THC and the paranoia kicks in, sometimes to the point where I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m going to DIE RIGHT NOW. So trying to fall asleep was always a double-edged sword: on the one hand, weed makes me fall asleep, but on the other hand, if I don’t fall asleep right away I end up having to deal with my own anxiety monster amplified on the THC...which means I usually go down a fast and furious bad spiral, where I obsess on one thought and continue down the scary and horrible rabbit hole, and can’t sleep anyway.
 
Faced nightly with this “OH SHIT! I’m going to DIE!” feeling, the rational part of my psyche took over one night. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try and spiral in a positive way, as the negative way was so jarring and frankly, exhausting. So my experiment was, initially, if I’m in a bad thought spiral, can I shift it the other way? And of course I answered myself with something like, “Right, you wanna be a stupid Pollyanna?” “No, I just want to get some sleep. So what if I’m being a stupid Pollyanna – what if it actually works?” “Yeah, but what if you go around, being all positive, and then you’re blindsided and you DIE?” I laughed, and said, “Well, at least I’ll die and not feel horrible while it happens, so maybe it’s a win-win?” My shadow self grudgingly agreed, and I tried it. That’s the thing I’ve noticed about my reaction to pot – once I obsess on a thought train, I usually follow it. What if I try obsessing on good things?
 
So one night, I tried it. I felt myself going down the familiar, dark path as I lay in the darkness, and saw what was happening, I course-corrected and made myself turn the thoughts around. What if I don’t die? What if I live, and tomorrow, have pancakes for breakfast? Oooh, do I want sweet or savory pancakes? Mmm, if I make savory pancakes, what kind? Shall I top them with sauteed mushrooms and bacon? Sour cream?
 
...and just like that, I started obsessing over what kind of delicious breakfast I’d have, and completely forgot about the dark spiral. As I mentioned above, I’ve always tended towards the more pessimistic turn of thought, so during this period, still often found my thoughts going dark first, but each time, once I recognized what was happening, I realized I had the choice to go the other way, and in the interest of sleep, I did. 
 
After a couple years of this, I realized my thoughts were actually something I could manage and have influence over. It was like a muscle I had learned how to build and flex. By and by, I discovered my thoughts were not even starting in the habitual dark place anymore, most of the time. This was a huge revelation, and another bonus after many years attempting meditation, I discovered that to be much easier upon trying again, because I’d already been working hard at managing my thoughts, and that managing my thoughts made many things SO MUCH EASIER – not just being able to sleep, but in general, my moods over the last couple of years are generally better and more even-keeled. I contemplate things before reacting, rather than just lashing out, which is especially useful on social media platforms, but also in real life, at work and with my friends & family. 
 
So, while I still despise “toxic” positivity, I’ve come around to see why turning your thoughts away from the abyss (even when you feel like you’re selling out!) is actually super beneficial to mental and emotional health, and that it’s okay, even in the face of the world feeling like it’s always on fire, not to always jump to gloom and doom. Even if we succumb to the darkness anyway, at least it wasn’t such a gloomy, anxiety-ridden slog arriving there. So there’s THAT. 

---