I have played pickleball under these signs countless times for several years now. Until someone took this picture, I had no idea there were so many, “NO’s” above my head! There are nine to be exact. Why didn’t I see them before? Maybe it’s because I’m always looking for the “Yes” in things.
Why do so many people see the negative—even when it’s not there? Psychology says it’s because we have a ‘negativity bias,’ courtesy of evolution. We think about what can go wrong in order to protect ourselves from the bear in the cave. To overcome this bias, we need to purposely find what’s possible in a situation, not why it might fail.
Last week, I removed clients from my roster that I hadn’t seen in awhile. I dashed each a quick text to let them know they were being archived. A few seconds after I texted one woman, she replied: “I only stopped coming to see you because you said there was nothing wrong with me.” I was stunned. Why would there be anything wrong with her?
I read back through her case notes. There was some childhood trauma and a nasty divorce but there was also the promise of a wonderful, new boyfriend. She had some bad breaks and made a few poor choices but don’t all of us? Her children, whom I had observed often, loved her madly. She was right. I found nothing ‘wrong’ with her.
That is how I feel about most all of my clients. I assume they come for counseling to get a different perspective, some advice, or a listening ear. It never occurred to me, that someone would come solely because they felt something was wrong with them. Just because we make bad choices doesn’t mean there is something ‘wrong’ with us. Isn’t life hard enough without us being hard on ourselves?
Now, I’m starting to second guess my client. Maybe she wanted something to be wrong with her so that she could point at it and say, ‘There. There is the issue.’ Meanwhile, I’ll return to my delusional playbook: the one that sees palm trees and blue skies, instead of “NO” signs. There is a bright side to every darkness. The world is in chaos. If you are lucky to be alive with hope in your heart and love in your arms there is certainly nothing wrong with that!
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