Today’s guest post is from Travis Mamone, a.k.a. The Boy with the Thorn in His Side. He is also the co-host of Something Beautiful podcast, which I had the privilege of being interviewed for recently. Travis is a free lance writer by night. He has a passion to express his heart and struggles. I hope you enjoy today’s post. Psst- I’m also posting over at Travis’ blog today with a letter I wrote to God.
Hey guys, I’m Travis, a.k.a. The Boy with the Thorn in His Side (yes, I like the Smiths). In keeping with Nicole’s deconstruction of the self-esteem movement, I want to talk about the idea of “positive thinking.”
Firstly, I need to point out that I am not talking about cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy, for those who don’t know, is a method of psychotherapy that teaches you to challenge the negative thoughts that plague your mind and ruin your life. I’ve been in cognitive therapy for years, and it has helped heal a lot of psychological wounds. So before anyone raises any objections, when I say “positive thinking,” I am not referring to a legitimate form of psychotherapy.
When I say “positive thinking,” I am referring to The Secret.
No doubt many of you remember The Secret, the big hit self-help book that suckered . . . I mean “inspired” millions of readers. I’ve never read the book, but from what I gather, it basically says if you think positive thoughts and visualize what you want, you’ll send out good vibrations (cue the Beach Boys) across the universe (cue the Beatles) and you’ll get what you want in no time. Or something like that.
Now this isn’t really much of a “secret,” because self-help books have been saying this stuff for years (see Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking). However, as Dave Chappelle points out, try telling a starving African that he just needs to think about food and see how that goes!
Although there is one thing the whole “positive thinking” movement has right: our thoughts do affect us. In cognitive therapy, I have learned that our thoughts affect our feelings, and then our feelings influence our behavior. For example, let’s say you think you’re stupid and you can’t anything right. The more you think you’re stupid, the lousier you feel, and then you won’t make any effort because you know you’re going to automatically fail at whatever you do.
I think this is why the Bible says to make every thought obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). It’s not so that God can shower us with everything our heart desires; it’s because if we aren’t careful we’ll start believing that the devil’s lies are gospel truth.
“God doesn’t love you.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“You’re a waste of sperm and egg.”
I don’t know about you, but I used to believe in those lies. In fact, very recently I was ready to walk away from the faith because I thought that God hated me. Thankfully God stepped in, so now I know the truth.
Hopefully this clears up the idea of positive thinking. Real positive thinking isn’t some Jedi mind trick that will give you everything you want; it’s remembering that you are God’s beloved child.
Have you ever tried to just think good, happy thoughts? Have you ever struggled with feeling like God dislikes you, is out to get you, or has forgotten you? How do you battle lies in your mind?
I’ve never read “The Secret” either, Travis, because I thought it sounded like a lot of hooey, but I won’t deny that the concept behind this book, “The Power of Positive Thinking” and other works like them that essentially rely on what true believers call “the law of attraction” is seductive…especially when people swear that there is such a thing and it works. My mother was a devotee of TPPT and it really did seem to help her, but the book of Peale’s that I particularly remember was “Dynamic Imaging.” Again the disclaimer that I didn’t actually read it, but she and my grandmother did, and the two things I remember about that are: (1) my mother “imaging” me in love and telling me that I was going to lose weight and my skin was going to clear up (as a result); and (2) my grandmother “imaging” a girl for my pregnant cousin, which they both very much wanted. Alas, my cousin gave birth to three boys and I’m still overweight and permanently single. Oh, dear, I’m chuckling again just remembering it, while simultaneously rolling my eyes….
The funny thing is my wife and I were discussing this last night and the Dalai Lama (sp?) is a big proponent of this. He says if everyone in the world thought about the same thing at the same time, that thing could be changed. Basically, since he doesnt pray to a deity, he sends good intentions to people. There’s even stuff you can buy like chocolates and stuff that the Dalai Lama has spent time thinking about, which makes it really good, positive chocolate.
Lucie nailed it. It is the Law of Attraction. I wrote a post back in July discussing it(shameless self promotion edit if you wish Nicole). http://wp.me/p1TFvp-Y Mostly a lot of circle talk but there is a lot of LOA renamed to something more scriptural in the Christian world. The name-it-claim-it movement and the prosperity doctrine to name two. We need to be more careful than to think God can be cornered into answering because we have fulfilled some magical recipe.
Christians are always taking whatever’s popular in the secular world and making it “Christian” for some reason.
I think this positive thinking you about described can be a form of idolatry. It makes us into little gods rather than creations who surrender to the Creator’s will. I have dealt with negative thoughts in a number of ways and will share a few of them. One is recognizing that overly negative thoughts about myself are often a form of pride. If God says he loves me, that I am redeemed and made in his image, who do I think I am to disagree? Also, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a thought and truth, although it is important to distinguish between the two. Another thing that helped me was to identify the reason behind having negative thoughts. This involved sorting through my past a bit. For example, it was easier to believe that some bad things happened to me because I was bad rather than the fact that bad things can randomly happen to anyone. This way of thinking put me in control rather than surrendering to God. I’m glad that you did not walk awaniy from the faith. It’s hard to feel God’s love sometimes. Sometimes we can’t feel it at all. Contemplating the cross (every night for months and maybe even years) as God’s expression of his love helped me internalize it a lot.
Reminds me of something Rich Mullins once said. If I remember correctly, he said that if all we think about is how lowly we are, then we’re still thinking about ourselves too much.