The Problem with “Just Think Happy Thoughts.”
Hearing the advice to “just think happy thoughts” can be frustrating when you’re suffering. This kind of advice often dismisses negative emotions and leads to emotional bypassing.
Positive thinking has its benefits, but it also has a dark side. It can create distance between people. Here are a few reasons why:
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Emotional Avoidance: People feel uncomfortable when others share emotional issues. This can make them feel inadequate or out of their depth.
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Fear of Negative Emotions: Some avoid their own negative emotions. They dismiss others’ pain to avoid discomfort.
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Superiority Through Positivity: Some people avoid their feelings believing to do so is a virtue. They may feel superior when they dismiss others’ struggles.
Positivity can be helpful, but it shouldn’t dismiss someone’s genuine feelings. Misplaced positivity leaves people feeling disconnected, invalidated, or even doubting their own experiences. It can also breed resentment toward the person giving the advice.
What Is a Belief?
Beliefs aren’t thoughts in our heads alone. They live in our bodies.
Beliefs develop over time or erupt after a traumatic event. For example:
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A child growing up in a mildly emotionally abusive environment may develop limiting beliefs over years.
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A single traumatic event, like surviving an assault, can create deep limiting beliefs instantly.
Beliefs shape how we see the world and respond to it. Both gradual and sudden wounds create bodily sensations that drive thoughts and behaviors.
When someone says, “I feel like I’m not enough,” it’s not just a passing thought. That feeling comes from deep in their body. The words are only the surface expression of a much deeper experience.
This is why simple reassurances like, “Of course you’re enough,” don’t usually help. They don’t address the deeper, embodied nature of beliefs.
Memory Reconsolidation
Memory reconsolidation is a process used in somatic and experiential therapies. It creates conditions for real belief change.
The process works like this:
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Recall a memory.
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Update it with new, emotionally significant information.
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Re-store the updated memory in the brain.
The original event doesn’t change, but the brain acts as if it did. This reduces the intensity of negative or traumatic memories. It also helps turn limiting beliefs into more helpful ones.
Therapists help clients with memory reconsolidation. First, we notice familiar emotional pain patterns. These patterns often point to the “missing experiences” that created limiting beliefs.
For example:
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A child needs to feel parental devotion.
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If a parent abandons them, they miss that experience.
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The child may develop a belief like, “I’m not good enough to deserve lasting love.”
This belief shapes their actions, relationships, and worldview for years.
Limiting beliefs color how people see the world and themselves. They often lead to patterns that repeat, even when they aren’t helpful anymore.
Why Do Limiting Beliefs Persist?
Limiting beliefs often persist because they operate outside of awareness. Here’s why they stick around:
- Ignorance of Origin: People don’t know where their beliefs come from. They may think their struggles are universal or blame themselves. This reinforces the belief that they’re not enough.
- Perceived Control: Blaming themselves gives people the illusion of control. If the problem is within them, they believe they can fix it by trying harder.
- Waiting for Rescue: Some blame others and wait for someone to save them. They believe they’re not capable of helping themselves.
These responses may have been useful in childhood or in uncontrollable situations. As adults, they often stop working. Telling someone to “just think positive” doesn’t address how sticky these patterns are.
How to Change Beliefs
This is where therapy helps. People don’t fail to change because they lack effort or intelligence. They struggle because they can’t see their blind spots.
Tools like memory reconsolidation to help people explore and change their beliefs. The process includes:
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Exploring where beliefs come from—through memories or bodily sensations.
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Identifying the missing experiences that shaped those beliefs.
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Creating new emotional experiences to challenge and update limiting beliefs.
Sometimes a belief shifts in one session. More often, dismantling deeply rooted beliefs takes time and ongoing exploration. Therapy provides a compassionate laboratory to uncover these patterns and work through them.
Moving Toward Genuine Change
Changing beliefs takes more than positive thinking or quick fixes. It requires understanding how beliefs control to our bodies and behaviors. And vice versa.
Using approaches like memory reconsolidation, therapy creates real opportunities for transformation. Together, therapists and clients honor the depth of the client’s experience. They create an environment where the client can understand their patterns and make different choices.
True change takes time, but it’s worth the effort. With patience and care, we can shed limiting beliefs and move toward a more authentic life.
