Exploring the Dark Side a Bit More

I got some awesome feedback about my post Knowing The Darkside. Seems to have rung a bell with many people, not all of which were Wiccan I might add. I wanted to take it a bit further only to enhance what I said with some different ideas. My primary focus in this post is going to be about the feel good New Age movement of The Secret and “positive thinking” and “law of attraction” stuff. First off in general most Wiccan’s, including myself, believe in the principle. The difference is that we don’t really water down these principles into “think happy thoughts”. We know better.

EVERYONE and I don’t care who you are, or how spiritually evolved you are… you have negative thoughts. They happen to everyone and on a daily basis too. Negative moods and thoughts are definitely coming from our darkside… however, we have to recognize these emotions and for good reason. And not only that, we can USE these thoughts and emotions because they are often the key to our own creativity and intelligence.

What can we use negative moods for? Knowing fear, anxiety, depression, sadness etc are positive things, they allow us to recognize these emotions in other people. Fear, for instance, is also an important emotion. Sometimes it is a defense mechanism and it isn’t one that should be ignored. Feeling fear around a certain person is a sign, and maybe if we recognize it instead of suppressing it then we can stay out of harms way. We feel these types of negative emotions for a reason so to shun them away would be foolish. We have to find the source of them, and then address them. When we recognize the why and how of “negative feelings” then we can make positive changes in our own behavior, or even avoid a possibility dangerous situation. Emotions and feelings are connected to our intuition, and sometimes a negative reaction turns into a positive thing. There are tons of examples that could be stated or thought of.

Negative thinking can often be beneficial if it causes you to examine problems more closely. Through examining the problem or the potential, you can find a solution. Before attempting to alter a negative mood, you’ve got to know the cause of it and why it is happening.

Sometimes you also have to find the fault with something in order to see the “potential” problem it can create. Sometimes spotting the “potential” of something in advance can prevent you from making foolish decisions. In business for example, you may have a creative idea, but you then must examine it and find the potential problems to know if it is truly brilliant or not. That’s how you avoid failure.

Rice University did a study on how negativity and bad moods actually make people far more creative and productive than positive happy thoughts. Imagine that! Negativity can be MOTIVATING in our lives. http://www.explore.rice.edu/explore/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=9163

In another study… People in a positive mood such as happiness were shown under experimental conditions to have relatively unreliable memories, and show poorer judgment and critical thinking skills. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=4420

A study done in Australia provided research that shows “positive thinking” doe NOT help to fight cancer. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/24/2068339.htm

Negative thinking is no good in and of itself….. the same is true for positive thinking too. Connecting the two together is one key to being balanced. Negative thoughts that occur all the time are a message…. that you need to stop and analyze them.

Thinking positively all the time can bring emotional and social benefits, that is true. But there are many situations where making friends and feeling good is not enough. Positive thinking can literally be self indulgent and even delusional because you lose a sense of awareness to problems, you can stop seeing reality. You’ll never even see a problem coming if you pretend everything is a happy day. Positive thinking basically makes you FEEL good, not DO good. Your awareness of negative things/problems is what causes you to gather data and take action….. rather then to accept something on blind faith. Spiritual growth is a lot more then feeling better about yourself too. Nobody actually needs “positive thinking” in order to grow… not if you have and use your intelligence.

Using your intelligence means you have to have a balance in your thinking. When you do, it would be called “Rational Thinking” that isn’t neither positive or negative. Or perhaps it is Critical Thinking where finding fault guides us to successes. This is where things such as “The Secret” and the “Law of Attraction” can fail miserably when misunderstood by the masses. It’s nothing more than pop psychology and fluffy spirituality in my opinion. Why would you want to transform, manage, or release your negativity….. when it can benefit you in many ways? It’s a part of who we all ARE, it’s a part of the our darkside which is a fragment of our core being and one of the great mysteries.