From the Power Principle (Mind-Body-Spirit) approach to health and wellness: what’s wrong with “Positive Thinking”?
A short while ago I was talking to an ER nurse during my shift about the concept behind the Power Principle. After a long and frustrating effort to summarize and explain the concept, the reply that I received was something like this: “So it’s basically positive thinking, right?” My initial reaction was, off course not! Subsequently, I did agree with the statement but with a major clarification that it is true , positive thinking is certainly a part of it, but it’s not the complete picture by far.
So then what exactly is the difference between the two, The Power principle and Positive thinking? This conversation really made me think about the concept of what I have considered my life’s major driving cause, changing lives through the concepts of The Power Principle.
The problem with the expression “positive thinking” is that it’s used very frequently and in a very limited capacity. To most people, it means a brief contemplation of “what if?” followed by, “well, not really”, and then “and now time to get back to reality” of their world. Positive thinking in this fashion is at most an unlikely to succeed, impractical “New Age” concept, and at worst, words of mocking and disbelief. Often “positive thinking” has been associated with “a dreamer.”
The problem with “positive thinking” is that to most, it’s just a phrase, like many other phrases without depth or meaning, without power, without authority, without responsibility and due diligence. It’s an empty sound bite, which is most often used to reinforce the person’s “status quo” of their current reality.
In the Power Principle (mind-body-spirit) approach to health and wellness as well as weight loss, there is a definitive role in “positive thinking”, but mostly as the opposite of the “negative thinking”. Negative thinking is characterized by words and phrases, including: “I can’t”, “I already tried and failed”, “It’s just too hard”, “What’s the point anyway?” etc… It is a major factor in the psycho-social matrix of our society and is being developed and reinforced from an early age by the education system, economic forces, and even within the context of family and community.
As an aside, for example, if someone is selling you a “magic weight loss pill X” the manufactures of Pill x need you to believe that you can’t lose weight, and would strongly discourage independent positive thinking. If you can lose weight without using pill x and are confident in your personal abilities, how likely are you to spend your hard earned money on this “magic weight loss pill”? So for the person who’s making a living selling it, it’s best if you have absolutely have no faith or confidence in yourself or your own capacity to succeed.
Unfortunately, our current health care system is also largely based not on “health and wellness”, but rather “illness and need”. Let’s think about it for a moment, how many people go to a doctor or a hospital because they “want to”? Either they have a chronic medical condition such as Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, Cholesterol etc… that needs constant medical re-evaluation and treatment, or if something hurts or they are having chest pain, headache or another symptom which is concerning enough with regard to their health and life.
How profitable would someone be to a healthcare organization if they were truly healthy and didn’t need any of the services being offered? Would such a person even need to pay high monthly premiums to an insurance company? These are some of the thoughts about the “status quo” in our society, and something to consider.
Getting back to “positive and negative thinking” and how it effects the daily reality; Consider for a minute a silly concept: there is a massive structure, shiny, and seemingly solid, in the middle of a town square. What are the chances that I will be able to pick it up and move it? No chance! I’m not even going to seriously try because I will hurt my back in the process. Well, let’s consider the possibility that this massive structure is actually a prank, an inflated balloon made to look like a metal object. Since as adults and especially teenagers, we “know everything”, most will already arrive with a notion that the structure is made of a solid, heavy material and will not even attempt to touch it.
A naïve child, who hasn’t seen such a structure before, however, will have no problem coming up to it and touching it, and to everyone’s surprise moving it easily. Likewise, the same adult who is sure that the structure is solid and decides to lean against it, may discover that it moves quite easily and may also find themselves falling on their behind in the process.
I am not proposing that everyone will go up to houses or large trucks and start pushing them or trying to pick them up, but rather the point is that by letting go of assumptions of “can’t”, “no” “too difficult” and so on, you may discover that things are not what they seem to be and that your personal power and influence extends far beyond what we have been trained to believe and follow.
Think of the children’s story, The Sword in the Stone, the strongest of men could not budge the sword but the innocent child did not realize that he should not be able to move the sword and pulls it out with ease. So ask yourself what is your sword? Extra weight? A broken relationship? Struggles with work? How about any other challange. Then let go off all of the negative thoughts associated with and around it, and ease it out of the stone. Now you have set the power principles into motion.
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A short while ago I was talking to an ER nurse during my shift about the concept behind the Power Principle. After a long and frustrating effort to summarize and explain the concept, the reply that I received was something like this: “So it’s basically positive thinking, right?” My initial reaction was, off course not! Subsequently, I did agree with the statement but with a major clarification that it is true , positive thinking is certainly a part of it, but it’s not the complete picture by far.
