Things went wrong. Don’t be fooled by the silver lining.

When things in our lives go badly, it can be extremely painful.

Losing a job, a loved one. Making a terrible choice that impacts our life for years or decades in profoundly unpleasant ways. Being victimized in some way—sexually abused as a child, slandered at work or in the community, convicted of a crime we did not commit.

No matter how hard we try it seems impossible to overcome and recover from.

Part of the genius of our mind is an innate understanding of how much reality our system can take; we don’t get any more than we can constructively process.

When faced with intense emotional pain, our brain responds with several types of coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are healthy psychological responses that our brain utilizes to protect us from psychological pain that is too much to handle and from layers of reality that we are not yet ready to deal with.

This intelligence knows that at this specific time, at this specific stage of our development, the lesser evil is to shroud the truth—for now—until the right time in the future when it’s okay for us to see it.

One of the most common coping mechanisms that we use and that has been passed down from generation to generation is the concept of the silver lining.

This type of thinking—focusing on the apparent positive in a bad situation and not realizing that things just went wrong—is greatly limiting and can be damaging in a number of ways.

Every time something bad happens we try to see the good in it, we run the risk of subconsciously attracting more bad things into our life.

If we program our self into thinking painful, traumatic experiences have all sorts of benefits (or are part of our process of spiritual growth and development) we are very likely going to find our self having more painful, traumatic experiences.

On some level our system knows that we are lying to our self with these rationalizations.

Our body knows that something bad happened, but our mind is telling us that it was actually a good thing and part of the divine plan for our life or some such nonsense. We are in conflict with our self and in denial of reality.

Once we accept in our mind what our body already knows, we can feel the release of the tension, the uncoiling of the inner conflict and the liberation that comes from moving out of denial into acceptance of reality. Our whole system—physical, emotional, mental and energetic—functions better and more smoothly.

This can free up a tremendous amount of stuck energy that we can redirect towards creating the life we want. Achieve greater levels of joy, abundance and enlightenment.

As we move out of denial, we will become more physically healthy and vibrant. We will develop greater mental and emotional capacity to deal with reality as it is.

Compassion is the single most powerful healing force on the planet, until we are able to see the reality of our situation, we may be deprived of this powerful healing energy.

It is incredibly difficult to apply self-compassion toward an undesired situation if we are too focused on the silver lining and in denial of reality.

Not only will we be unable to soothe our suffering, it will be less likely that others will give us compassion or that we will be able to accept their compassion if they offer it.

Finally, becoming accustomed to seeing the silver lining in any situation, may impair the effort necessary to discern for our self what is actually best for us.

Even if we are able to see what is best, we may be less likely to go to the great lengths often necessary to follow the proper course. We avoid the outcome we know to be right excused by the guise of “everything happens for a reason.”

We will pre-emptively rationalize and accept the lesser result and more often take the path of least resistance, even in those cases when it is the wrong path. Our convictions will be weakened and we will become more passive in our approach to creating the joyful life we are truly meant to live.

I am a firm believer in the power of positive thinking and making lemonade when life hands us lemons, so to speak.

I am, however, also a firm believer that developing a more accurate recognition of reality is critical to bringing greater happiness and positive outcomes into our own life and into the planet.

What pain is being covered up by the silver linings in your life?

What difficult reality is shrouded behind the stories you have been telling yourself and that others have been telling you for all of these years?

Edward Mannix is the author of two books and facilitates individuals in achieving their physical, material, spiritual and emotional goals. This article is adapted from Chapter 1 of his first book—Reinventing Truth: A New Map of the Spiritual Path and Reality As It Is—which is available on Amazon. For more information about Edward, his writings and his work here.

~

Editor: ShaMecha Simms

Like elephant Spirituality on Facebook!