Have you ever tried to be more ‘upbeat’ and ‘positive’ in your daily life? Perhaps some positive thinking books you’ve read have you convinced that you could (and should) be optimistic, helpful and enthusiastic at all times? You try and look on the bright side, but somehow you land up feeling like a failure because you can’t make it work all the time? Find out the truth about this fantasy so many buy into and how you can embrace all of yourself, all of others and all of your life.

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Hi,

I'm Dr John Demartini.

In all probability you have been bombarded by somebody in the personal

development and self development or human development area with the

idea of you have to stay positive and if you get down you got to get

back up and stay positive and be positive,

be positive,

positive,

positive.

Well the whole positive business,

the positive movement out there,

positive thinking movement.

I'm just going to go ahead and confront today because I think that,

it's time for that myth to be broken.

In 1983 after doing 10 years of attempting to be a

positive thinker,

going through and going through stages of trying to be a positive thinker,

I noticed that the more I was trying to be a positive thinker more,

I would feel like a failure because I was feeling like I was beating myself up

cause I wasn't obtaining and staying there 24 hours a day.

I mean I did the rubber band trip,

Oh cancel that.

You know,

I sat there and I felt like a hypocrite sometimes cause I was trying to be

positive thinker and then failing from it.

And I just,

I just couldn't sustain the idea of one sidedness.

In fact,

when I asked people,

um,

and,

or tell people,

'you're always positive,

you're never negative,

you're always kind,

you're never cruel.

You're always up,

you're never down.' They don't ever believe it.

And if I say,

'they're always down and never up and never,

and always a negative and never positive',

they don't believe it.

When I say they have times when they're positive and times when they're

negative,

people immediately go,

'Yep,

that's true'.

So there's a certainty factor when we actually embrace both sides of life,

but we're trying to get a one sided part of life just like a one sided magnet.

You're striving for that which is unavailable and trying to avoid that,

which is unavoidable.

So I'm going to break that myth and I've been for 35 years trying to educate

people on that illusion of that myth.

But it's so rampant and it's so assumed.

You know,

Paul Dirac,

the Nobel prize winner said,

'It's not that we don't know so much.

We know so much that it isn't so',

and that's exactly what's going on with positive thinking.

So I'd like to share with you a few insights about that and share a story that

I,

that I went through when I was 28 years old,

1983,

I

had a very fun time doing a research project.

I'd like to share it with you.

What I did is I went through 300

of the best selling books,

bestselling books on the positive mental attitude genre.

You know,

this is all the books you've probably heard of,

'The Magic of Thinking Big',

'The Power of Positive Thinking',

'See You at the Top' and all that.

All the kind of the self help gurus were doing these promotions and trying to

stay positive.

And um,

even though I had met some of these individuals and

different settings,

privately,

not always positive,

they still were promoting the book and I was wondering why is somebody saying

one thing and then living a different thing.

And I felt this hypocrisy was frustrating.

So once and for all I wanted to know why I wasn't obtaining it and wondering how

I was going to get past my hypocrisy and how is this going to get to a point

where I could appreciate myself.

Cause you know the fastest way to disempower somebody

that's unobtainable and then make them beat themselves up and then depend on you

to try to solve it.

It's not a very wise and fair thing for people,

but I guess if people are not aware and they're basically not informed,

they're gullible to that.

So let me share what I did.

I took the 300 bestselling books and I went through page by page

and I literally underlined or circled every positive word in the

book I could find.

I had the idea that if I took the most positive words in the most positive

books or positive thinking books and extracted those out and filled

my day with those positive words,

hopefully according to the theory,

I should be more positive and be up more.

So I took those words and I ended up with 2000 words that

I extracted from 300 books.

Now the first book was loaded with words,

but as you go down to the third hundred book,

you may only get two or three words out of it because most of them you've

already extracted,

and I put them on 3 x 5 index cards.

So 3 x 5 index cards in the top left corner.

I wrote these 2000 words and I put them in alphabetically.

So imagine being two big boxes of a thousand cards.

These boxes that come in a hundred card packs,

and I had two of these boxes,

2000 words,

and the positive word was on the top left.

And then after I shuffled them in alphabetical order,

after I got all the words out of them,

the most positive words I could find,

I then closed my eyes and meditated on each word and compiled

an affirmation or quotation or a statement with

that word in it.

That was the most positive,

most affirmative,

most empowering statement I could think of with those

words.

And I put together a affirmation or quotation compilation

of 2000 quotations or affirmations with the positive word

Italicised in bold.

Now what I did is I,

when I finished that,

I then coordinated that,

I took 2000 of those words and those statements,

I divided by 365 days and it came to five to six

quotes per day.

And then what I did is I put four days,

four days per page,

and I created a 93 page book.

And if you go online actually or your,

your cell phone,

and look up '2000 Quotes to the Wise - Demartini',

It'll bring up a book that I published in 1983,

'2000 Quotes to the Wise',

a day by day guide to inspirational living.

That was the title of the book.

At the time,

1983 I put that book together and it was the most 2000 most positive

words,

2000 most positive affirmations that I could conceive of,

and I put them into again,

five to six per day,

four days per page.

So there's 93 pages each four days with five to six quotes per day.

So it's 20 to 25 or so,

24 um,

affirmation,

quotations per page.

And then I started it from January 1st to December 31st.

So whenever you bought the book,

no matter what day you bought it,

you could go to that day and you could pull up the most positive statements and

words you could think of and you could run those affirmations and statements to

try to be more positive for the day.

And that was the objective.

But I also had another objective,

in addition to that,

I created a chart

and it was a day by day cycle forecasting forum.

That's what I called it.

And it had spiritual,

mental,

vocational,

financial,

familial,

social and physical areas of life.

So if you can imagine seven areas

and then I,

then took it in divided into 31 days cause there could be

31 days in a month and I put seven to eight,

14 to 15,

21 to 22,

28 to 29 30.

And I divided this month into four sections.

So these are weeks of the month.

I didn't draw very nicely,

but you got it.

And then in those weeks of the month,

I'd obviously divided into seven days

and I took each day and I divided into quadrants

and I made this one seven 11,

three and seven.

So that means that every four hours,

I divided the day up in four hours,

from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed.

And then I had a zero,

a +1,

+2,

+3,

a -1,

a -2,

a -3.

So if you can imagine this chart,

what I did is that I could,

I could have a fluctuation going above or below a mean,

and at six something in the morning,

I would get up,

I'd pull out the book,

I would memorize the affirmations and quotations.

At the time I had a beeper in my pocket,

which is a little PPP,

PPP,

cooking beeper.

And I had a little bead system of 108 beads that I figured I would just use

something from um,

religion.

The japa beads of the East or the rosary beads of the West,

what they would chant the names of gods and saints and things to get ideas

into the brain.

So I thought,

okay,

on this pocket I had the beads,

this pocket,

I had the beeper and at six something in the morning,

I would get up,

memorize them,

and at seven o'clock,

start reciting the five to six quotes for the day.

And I would go through the beads and I would recite them a minimum of 108 times

a day.

But in fact,

I would do more than that.

So I was doing between 650 to a thousand affirmation

quotations today,

each day,

uh,

with the most positive words and affirmations that I could think of.

So what I did is I took those and I affirmed them throughout the day.

So I'm literally going through these throughout the day in between the other

work that I was doing,

but doing things in keeping these affirmations running through my head.

And I mean that I did 600 to a thousand affirmations a day.

I did the most concerted effort to be the most positive thinking with the most

positive words that I could select in the English language.

And then every four hours the beeper would go off,

at 7,

11,

3 and 7 and I would monitor and try my best to give an objective

view of how I was experiencing those areas of life.

So for instance,

I would be inspired or despired,

mentally sharp or dull,

vocationally feeling successful or failure,

financially feeling abundant or lacking,

family was a,

you know,

close and intimate or distant,

social would be,

you know,

extroverted or introverted and physically I'd feel vital or feel yucky.

And I would monitor that every four hours.

So at four hours of beeper would go off,

I'd pull out my sheet,

this form that was folded up and ask and write a little dot in

the thing.

So if I felt like I was at a 1 at seven o'clock,

I'd put it there spiritually,

if I felt mentally and I was 2,

I'd put two there.

If I felt average and neutral,

I'd put a neutral,

but I would put,

and darken in that at the number at the time,

how I felt in the seven areas of life.

And then I would put the beeper away,

start the beeper another four hours,

go through the affirmations,

it come 11 o'clock and I go,

okay,

now I'm feeling a little better than that after that 11 o'clock,

I'm up now higher at the time my relationship may be now actually going

down and neutral.

I may have had an argument with somebody,

uh,

socially,

I may be up all of a sudden,

but physically I may be tired.

And I just kept monitoring this four times a day.

And I did this over and over again,

day by day by day for two freaking years,

24 sheets.

I wanted to know once and for all what was happening during that time.

Now,

as I was doing this,

I had lots of fluctuations.

I noticed in the area of my highest values,

because each individual has a set of values in life and I had a high value on

mind development,

spirituality,

vocational

at the time career,

what I was doing as far as teaching and healing and so in the areas that were

higher on my values,

I noticed that the less volatility and I noticed in the areas low in my values,

particularly family at the time,

very volatile there was fluctuating a lot,

but I mapped this thing out and I literally mapped out these fluctuations

in each of the seven areas of life throughout the month and it really didn't

take me but you know,

a few seconds.

It took about 10 to 15 seconds to put all the numbers in each

quarter of the day,

every four hours.

But the total maybe took me a minute out of a day once I did it other than the

affirmation.

So I'm just doing affirmations and I,

I was assuming I would be enjoying this,

but I noticed that I was having a lot of volatility and a lot of swinging

again in the areas that were low in my values and a little bit of volatility or

but never stable.

I was never completely stable and I never was up all the time.

I go up,

up,

up and then down,

up,

down,

down,

down,

up,

up,

up,

up,

down,

up,

up,

up,

down,

down,

up.

I was all over the place.

I was not stable.

At the end of the 24 months I decided that I was going to get my

calculator out.

In those days you had a calculator and map it all out and see what the

numbers,

when I got through with all the numbers,

I ran all the numbers up and down and up and down cause they're positive and

negative and positive and negative and positive,

negative,

positive,

negative and I mapped them all out all the way across each of these.

And even though there's some that had more volatilities and some less

volatilities,

they came out zero.

Now they didn't come out exactly zero.

You probably wonder and that's not probable.

They came out zero zero one zero one two zero zero

three this kind of stuff.

It was basically zero and I'm sure that the variables of me writing things down

and only keeping it to one to seven or one to three,

you know,

I mean,

plus three to minus three was probably why I had it.

Not an exact number,

but,

but the reality is I realized at the end of that that everything I had done,

all the effort I'd done and I had made more concerted effort to be a positive

thinker than anybody I'd ever met on the planet.

I want to know once and for all,

is this real or not.

I had dedicated my life to studying as much truth as possible and about human

behavior and I wanted to learn the principles that

And I was told without me even questioning it,

that positive thinking,

this is what you're supposed to do.

But when I got through this,

I realized it was futile and I was a little bit shaken by that.

I was somewhat depressed because I was so gullible for 10 years of my life and

now two more years of research on the positive thinking movement.

I just assumed it was real.

And when I actually got down to the data and I went,

it wasn't.

Now if you're down and depressed,

positive thinking has a place.

But if you're infatuated in illusion and gullible to other people,

negativity and skepticism has a place.

I say gullibility and skepticism are part of the balance of life.

So what happens is if you're trying to be one sided all the time,

it's like trying to be always up,

never down.

And I ask people if there's anybody that's actually done that sometimes people

like to portray that that's true.

But the real truth is nobody sustains that.

So when I thought about that,

I thought,

well,

there must be some purpose for negativity or it would have gone extinct.

You know,

if something doesn't serve a human being,

it goes extinct.

So I thought,

well,

what's the purpose of negativity?

Because negativity is part of the equation.

And then I realized something,

I realized something very significant.

Each individual lives by a set of values and when they're living by their

highest values,

they're more objective and more balanced and more resilient and more adaptable.

And when they're living by their lower values because of the unfulfillment,

they look for immediate gratification.

They try to get a quick fix of positive and hedonistic pursuits,

and they try to avoid the predator and seek the prey like an animal.

When they're living by their highest values.

They're more like an executive function in the brain and they're more objective

and reasonable.

And I realized that when people are living according to their higher values,

they embrace both sides of life and they don't have to be running away from half

of it.

How are you going to love yourself if you're trying to get rid of half of

yourself?

How are you gonna love your life if you're trying to get rid of half of it?

How are you gonna love people if you're going to try to get rid of half of them,

it's insane.

But people think that they're going to get a one sided life and they get

addicted to the fantasy because it's a dopamine rush and a serotonin rush and

they get proud and they get infatuated with life and then they crash.

Then they wonder what's wrong.

And they typically blame other people for one side and give credit for the

other.

So the false pride and the infatuation or the resentments,

these are all dissociated states in the mind.

And so when I finally got through with all this and summarized this and saw that

negativity was important,

I realized that negativity is a feedback to us to let us know when we're

actually pursuing fantasies of positivity,

it's trying to keep us centered,

trying to keep us balanced.

And also,

and I started doing the Demartini Method,

which is a method I'm known around the world for.

I actually went into people and asked them to go to the moment when they're

actually feeling proud of themselves the most,

most up,

most positive,

most you know,

elated.

And then show them that while they're consciously up,

where their unconscious depression and shame is and it blows their mind when

they uncover,

they really,

Whoa,

I didn't ever,

I never even asked that question.

When we judge ourselves or other people,

we divide our consciousness into conscious and unconscious halves and one side

is skewed and sees one and the other one is hiding the other.

And this is a,

what they call a confirmation bias,

a false positive evidence process.

And what we do is we blind ourselves to the other side and we live in,

the fantasies of pride,

which brings down to,

it makes us crash with hubris or shame,

which makes us sacrifice things for other people.

But once we get ourselves centered and embrace both sides of our life,

we actually maximize our performance and appreciation and love for ourselves and

other people.

So when I did this exercise,

I realized that it was a myth,

this thing called positive thinking.

Now allow me to rephrase that.

If you're really down and you're looking at things and only the negative side,

positive thinking has a place.

When you're looking at only the positive side and you're infatuated,

you need some healthy skepticism.

You need to have some negative thoughts coming in your mind.

But nature is trying to get you in the center.

And when you finally realize that after looking at this research,

there's a homeostat trying to get you in the center.

Just like if you get hot,

your body ends up having sweat and if you get cold it has,

you know,

jitters and,

and a quivering.

So what happens,

it's trying to get the temperature balance.

Well,

our mind maintains this kind of thermostatic equilibrium

us centered because that's where we are most centered.

If we're all elated and infatuated with somebody,

we'll tend to sacrifice for them.

If we're resentful,

we'll try to sacrifice them for us instead of having a sustainable fair exchange

where we have both sides.

So positive and negative thinking have a place,

one is not greater than the other.

You've been taught fantasy.

I've been trying to break that myth since I was 30.

Trying to let people know that that's delusional.

Um,

most people don't question the positive thinking and think you're crazy for

asking that.

But I've now been doing that and the evidence is showing it.

I've accumulated tons and tons of research on this evidence in corporations that

the people that actually think they're going up and they're all elated and

trying to set up this fantasy things,

they depurpose themselves.

And when they go back down and they have the negativity,

they repurpose themselves.

You need both to keep yourself and purposeful.

So I just want to take a few moments to share that because that research project

changed my life back in 1983 when I started it.

And by 1985,

I stopped promoting positive thinking.

I remember the very first day I actually went on a conference and,

and shifted my perspective and did that presentation.

I had 75 people walk out of the talk because they say 'Well we didn't come for

that.

We came to be upbeat and be lifted up' because they were down because they were

setting up fantasies for themselves but also had 75 people come up to me with

tears in their eyes saying thank you for having the courage to say something

that most people are afraid to say.

You set me free from beating myself up cause I've been trying to get always up

and no matter what I do,

I keep having both sides.

So in case you've been sitting there,

beating yourself up,

trying to be a one sided person,

feeling like a hypocrite,

feeling frustrated,

popping rubber bands,

trying to cancel part of your own life,

expecting other people to be up all the time and then beating yourself up or

beating them up because they're not staying this one-sided world and you're

ready to love and appreciate both sides of yourself and other people and life.

Then just remember the principle I just gave you a,

there is illusion and it's time to break through the illusion of positive

thinking and give yourself permission to be whole.