Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Miscara, and in today's episode, we are going to talk about the relationship between inner peace and positive thinking.

More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay.

Let's start with a provocative statement.

Inner peace is not the result of positive thinking.

It is the result of meeting yourself deeply, honestly, and in all your shame, until there's nothing left to hide and no more

reasons to run. Inner peace is not the result of positive thinking. Now, there are some nuances to this,

but first, let's just follow this particular thread as if it were absolute.

What I often see, a lot of people who come to my work courses and retreats who have maybe

spent some time in personal growth or a particular flavor of spiritual growth is that there's a pretty heavy

armor of positive thinking. There tends to be a lot of forced gratitude, emphasis on love and light,

or even just a meditation practice that is scanning thoughts for the

ones that are negative and just trying to keep them away just so that we can stay

with the positive and so there's a continuum there of like very clearly

overriding experience with positivity

to a slight compartmentalization of discomfort pain, the quote unquote negative with trying

to be just balanced and aware or looking on the bright side of things.

My experience within that whole continuum, but, you know, especially toward the heavy emphasis

on positive thinking, is that at best what it does is buoys our mood above a whole lot of unresolved pain, grief, fear,

insecurity. And what I find to be the consequence of this buoyed mood is that it is another form of running from

yourself. Now, it definitely feels better to tell yourself a positive story or to think on the

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