Episode 01 – Positive Vibes Only – Transcript
Hey everyone. Welcome to Twisted Thinking, the podcast that helps you keep your thoughts flexible. My name is Kristin and today we’re talking about a popular saying. I’ve seen it making the rounds again lately and I thought it would be a great one to kind of break down.
It’s one of those sayings we see all over the place, from stores to social media to even some attire and so, I think everybody is going to be familiar with it.
The saying is “Positive Vibes Only”.
Now you might wonder what’s wrong with that. Sounds like a great way to live.
Let me tell you a story and see if you might get an idea of why it might not be quite as positive as it seems.
When I got married the first time, I was very young. We met in October we were engaged in November, married in January and two months and three days later I left.
Now, why did I leave?
That’s not something we’re going to get into today, but I will say that in hindsight one of the reasons was because both he and I surrounded ourselves in this kind of “positive vibes only” bubble.
See, I was in love, and I was swept away by this incredibly handsome and charming guy who said all the right things and made me feel all the feelings and I didn’t want to see or hear anything else out.
My family, with very few exceptions, tried very hard to stay positive around me because the minute they tried to introduce something that wasn’t positive, I checked out. And it was the same with any of my friends.
As a matter of fact, fun fact, only one of my friends – who honestly was just an acquaintance at work – showed up to the wedding. But I didn’t care really. I loved my husband, he loved me, and everything was peachy until it wasn’t.
Soon it became very apparent that both he and I would have benefited greatly from paying attention to some of the things that we saw as negative that people were trying to point out instead of just staying in our bubble.
Not doing so led to so much more pain and trauma than I can describe to you in this episode.
Now I’ll talk about how I’ve twisted some of some of this experience around and made it work for me at another time, but today I just wanted to use him as an example that positive vibes only mentality is not always a good thing.
It seems to be the equivalent of being surrounded by yes men, and that’s what I was doing, and he was doing when we were courting each other I suppose.
We were just surrounding ourselves with yes men. But as I’ve grown older, and I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like it when people just blindly agree with the things that I say or my opinions or anything like that. I want to be challenged and I want to be able to stretch my mind muscle and grow from it and.
If everybody is agreeing with everything that I’m saying, and if they’re just happy and just vapid from all the good times around me all the time, then I can’t do that.
Some of you might be thinking that I don’t understand what the positive vibes only mentality actually is and that it doesn’t have anything to do with advice or the kind of stuff that I’ve described here you.
You might say that the intent behind the saying is that you don’t tolerate the toxic negativity around you.
I have two things to say to that. First author’s intent means almost nothing when it comes to reader interpretation, just look at some of the legal texts or holy texts in the world today.
And second, you’re right. But with a caveat.
The reality is I don’t know anyone who wants toxic negativity around them, but I think we might need to examine.
Why someone is bringing all of their negativity into our sphere?
Are they bringing it specifically to attack your happiness and your good vibes?
Are they actually being toxic?
Are they trying to bring you down and make you miserable?
Is that their goal?
Because if it is that’s a different conversation. But maybe they’re having a really bad day.
Maybe they’re going through an internal struggle with depression or anxiety and trying to deal with trauma and they don’t have any other way of dealing with it.
Are they asking for help every time that they say something to contradict your contentment with life?
Are they asking for you to show them how to be like you?
There’s another quote that I’ve recently run across, and it struck me as a really deep truth, and basically, it’s in direct opposition to this saying, and the quote is by Kimberly Jones and she says, “Don’t let people pull you into their storm, pull them into your peace.”
Pull them into your peace.
I just love it.
I believe that this is the way life is meant to be lived.
I believe we’re meant to pull those who are having problems to us and help them get through it.
I believe we’re meant to pass our knowledge and our wisdom on to anyone who needs it and the best way to do that is by example.
And really, the greatest thing about doing that is that when we show someone else how to do something quite often, we learn, and we grow as well.
I believe if you’re surrounded — If I surround myself with only those who subscribe to the mindset of positive vibes only, and you know, I can’t say anything bad or I can’t have a bad day… Well, you’re not doing a lot of teaching, and you’re really limiting your growth and happiness, and I personally don’t want to limit myself.
What do you think?
I want to know.
Do you think positive vibes only is a sentiment we should be encouraging?
Or do you think we should re-evaluate our usage?
Or do you think we should just get rid of it altogether?
Let me know.
That’s all for today. If something I said caught your attention and you want to continue the conversation, I’d like to invite you to my discord server. It’s free to join, just click the link in the show notes until next time be blessed and stay twisted.