I’ve swung from denying negativity, to accepting to it, to allowing it (allowing it, in my opinion, is different from acceptance in that it doesn’t immediately assign it a fixed quality or quantification, which is what usually happens when I accept. Allowance just lets it be, without intellectual categorization).
Allowing it, in my experience, expands my internal space and room to focus. At a certain point I can reframe it as I please–it’s a part of me, but it isn’t all of me. I don’t have to identify with it using my entire being, to the point where it consumes me with stress and pessimism.
Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha 
Honestly, that sounds healthy to me. A lot of things in life benefit from just letting them exist, without assigning a value to them.
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Allowing does sound healthy! Like when I try to clear my mind or pray and various odd or negative thoughts pass through- I try to just notice them and allow them to go. Not sure if it’s the same. ☺️
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“Allowance over acceptance”—that hit. Feels like the difference between holding something and being held by it.
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I can’t change fans or haters. I keep on going, writing, doing Art, with the attitude of “Let them.” Let them disparage me. There is no blood. Let them critique me. I will learn from them. “Let them” adore my Art. Now we’re talkin’.
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This is very true. There is a difference and allowing it allows the brain to work on it in the background leaving you free to see the good parts of you.
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as someone who struggles with negative thinking, i found it really helpful. allowing the negativity to exist doesn’t mean we are accepting it, we are just acknowledging it.
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Yoga, 5 mins a day. Doesn’t even have to be DDP.
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I´m reading a book about the jungian concept of the shadow within us, “Meeting the shadow” by Connie Zweig. I have a feeling that you might like it
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What else is there? (that’s a joke)
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great way to articulate this. i read somewhere in one of those asian spirituality books that keeping the negative feeling company is the way to essentially absorb and get rid of it. i like how you said it gives you a way of expanding your inner space and i feel like that’s precisely what’s needed. be well! Mike
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Well said. When we respond to every whisper of negativity, we use up valuable energy and time.
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I really like this one – thank you for sharing!
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