Why You Resist Looking On The Bright Side

Have you ever done something wrong and then been irritated when someone told you to “look on the bright side?” Sometimes it just feels better to wallow in the sorrow of our own loss/failure without letting anything positive taint it. It’s like we don’t want to accept that anything good could come from the bad we caused.

In those cases, it almost feels good to feel bad.

But have you ever been on the other side? Have you ever found yourself talking with someone who went through something really difficult and you can just see down the road a little more clearly than they can, and you know that this thing they’re going through is going to make them stronger? Better? Wiser?

*Photo Credit: Dawn Ellner, Creative Commons

We can do this for other people but it never comes naturally when we think about ourselves. Here’s the problem with that:

If you never allow yourself to see the good that has come with the bad, it makes the bad even worse.

That’s the invitation we receive every time we fail.

The invitation to say “yes… and…”

“Yes, it’s bad. Really, really bad… and I’m never going down that road again.”

“Yes, I regret dating that jerk… and now I am clearer on what I want in a boyfriend.”

“Yes, I shouldn’t have yelled at my son… and now I have a chance to ask for his forgiveness and grow our relationship.”

“Yes, my divorce was the most painful thing I ever went through… and I was able to learn who my true friends were.”

It’s not about softening or even denying the truth of the situation.

But it is about realizing there are other things to be grateful for. Something beautiful is always coming from something that is broken and so we say “yes… and…”

Why You Resist Looking On The Bright Side is a post from: Storyline Blog