“And what if it doesn’t work out?” I ask her.
“Oh, but it will work out!” she replies.
While she says this, I can clearly feel the tension in her body. When I gently ask whether she feels that tension too, she becomes quiet. She turns inward for a moment.
“Yes… I do feel tension. It simply has to work out. I don’t want to put any attention on the possibility that it won’t. Before I know it, I’ll create the failure of my project myself.”

Positive thinking is often presented as the key to success: focus on the outcome you want, visualize it clearly, and life will follow. But if you’ve ever tried this and still felt tension, fear, or self-doubt creeping in, you’re not alone. Many people unknowingly push away the “negative” side of their experience and that very act can block the results they’re trying to create.

In this blog, I explore why positive thinking isn’t working for you in the way you hoped, and how including the uncomfortable emotions and unwanted outcomes can actually strengthen your ability to manifest and take aligned action. This subtle shift transforms the pressure of forced positivity into genuine clarity, ease, and movement.

Positive thinking: What you give attention to, grows

You hear it everywhere: whatever you give attention to, grows. Focus on the positive and you’ll create success. “Thought become things”.

It’s beautiful advice. There is truth in the idea that your inner attitude, your thoughts, and your emotions shape the world around you. When you spend a lot of time focusing on the positive, on the idea that your project will succeed, you’ll often realize that success more easily. That has certainly been my experience.

I’ve also noticed that when you connect with a positive result and visualize it, you naturally begin moving toward that desired situation. Often, meaningful coincidences or synchronicities will support you along the way.

So focusing on the positive is definitely not wrong.
And yet…

Where is the tension hidden in positive thinking?

For the client I worked with, this well-intended advice had become a kind of pressure cooker.
You must think positively.
And if you don’t, you’ve somehow called failure upon yourself.

It also tends to work the other way around: you’re no longer “allowed” to pay attention to anything negative, because that would supposedly create a negative outcome. What I often see is that this actually leads to tension and fear, which, ironically, does not support a positive result at all.

From systemic work, as well as from traditions like the Sedona Method (a release-based approach), Buddhism, and non-duality (which emphasizes the inclusiveness of all experience), I’ve learned how important it is to include everything. The moment you exclude, suppress, or deny something, it will find its way back in. Usually in a form that’s not very pleasant, such as stress, anxiety, or a hidden brake on your business or personal life.

In this context, it means you also need to include the negative.
Acknowledge the unwanted outcome you hope won’t happen.
Give attention to the uncomfortable emotions, like fear.
Acknowledge that things might not unfold exactly the way you wish.

Can you include the negative too?

It doesn’t mean you now have to lose yourself in negativity. You don’t need to focus on the negative. But take a moment to notice it. Acknowledge that it exists. Observe what happens inside you when you consciously connect with the negative. Breathe in, breathe out. And if needed, do something that helps you neutralize the reaction, so you can look at the negative from a grounded, neutral place.

By not pushing the negative into the shadows, by not denying it, it finds its place. And because it has a place, it no longer has to show up in disruptive ways.

From here, you can direct your full attention to the positive outcome: the feelings, the intentions, the thoughts. And you’ll notice that this becomes much more powerful, precisely because the negative no longer pulls from the shadows.
After all, everything that receives attention becomes calm, and that applies here as well.

Positive thinking and including the negative

So, if you want to achieve something, don’t focus solely on the positive. Also give attention to the fact that things might go wrong and to the negative emotions or thoughts that may arise.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll find that directing your attention to the positive becomes much easier, and that you’ll reach the results you envision with far more ease.