Fear of Positivity

There has long been, in the Christian world, a fear of positivity.

I can remember my friends in seminary bristling at the idea of presenting faith in a way that was positive and affirming, as opposed to combative and demanding. If people feel free and unashamed, so the thinking goes, they won’t live out of their values. They will simply pursue pleasure and become increasingly hedonistic (self-indulgent).

I sort of partially agreed with that. I never was too keen on the idea of intentionally shaming people into obedience, but I also carried some fears about “what might happen” if people feel “too free.”

This is an area where counseling has really helped grow and expand my faith. Carl Rogers (a seminary drop-out and a famous therapist who I’ve mentioned often in the past few years) believed the exact opposite to what I’ve described above. He believed that *people grow when they feel free* (not when they feel pressure to conform). And he spent his career quite successfully researching that.

Both in my role as a pastor as well as my new role as a counselor- I can say I believe he was quite right. When I find myself trying to steer someone in the direction I want them to go, they back off and double-down on whatever their problem area is in life (whether that’s drugs, sex, or whatever). When I’m more intentional about exploring what people want for themselves and removing my ideas from the picture, they tend to move towards thriving (which often means moving away from a self-indulgent type of life- which often means living “more faithfully”).

It’s often thought that positivity is just the realm of psychology and that it has little to do with faith. It’s also often thought that the Bible itself lacks positivity (and this is why we should shame people into faithful living- because this is the “biblical way.”) *Both of these ideas are wrong.*

Over the next few days, I’ll show you just how positive the Bible can be about faith. I’m hoping this will help us all embrace a new way of being and seeing that still has ancient and deeply rich theological roots.

Positive Emotions Open Our World

If you have not read anything by Barbara Frederickson then stop what you are doing and read something. Or watch a video of one of her talks. Her work is a gift. She has long researched positive emotions and the role they play in our lives.

I used to roll my eyes at the positive psychology movement. I thought it was shallow, and only about making us feel good and asking us to ignore our pain and hardship in the process. I was wrong. Very wrong. And, largely, I was wrong because I had not actually spent time exploring what people in this field are actually saying.

In fact, they don’t ask us to ignore anything, or suppress anything. This movement, if anything, is about expanding our emotional range rather than shrinking it. What people like Barbara Frederickson teach us is that we can actively pursue positive emotions in order to broaden our experience of our lives. Positive emotions lead to greater creativity.

Positive emotions lead to greater resilience. Children perform better on math tests if they think of a positive memory before taking a test. Doctors make better decisions about complex cases when given a bag of candy just before having to make the decision. (A weird experiment if you ask me- but helps us see that even a tiny boost in positive emotions can have an unexpectedly large, positive impact.)

Positive emotions create more trust, they lead to better compromise, and they increase our ability to focus on the needs of others rather than just ourselves.

Given all of that information, we may be limiting ourselves if we are not actively seeking to add positive experiences to our lives. We may be limiting our emotional range, our creativity, our flexibility in relationships, and our ability to serve our loved ones and our community.

What can you do, today, that will give you even just a small boost of joy?