Negativity

The Right Not to Be Negative
There is a crucial distinction between believing you have a right to be negative and recognizing that you have a right not to be negative. Much of our inner struggle revolves around mechanical disliking, self-pity, jealousy, hatreds, inner falseness, self-conceit, rigid attitudes, and prejudices. The work begins with internal attention. Self-observation is internal attention: a person must see what he is like and what goes on within him, observing his own negative emotions instead of focusing outward on others through reactive feeling. Once these states are seen, the process begins.

Cleaning the Machine
This is sometimes described as “cleaning the machine.” When someone asks, “What should I do? What should I grow?” it is like having a garden full of weeds and asking what to plant. The garden must first be cleared. One must think about what not to do—what must be stopped, no longer nourished, and cleaned away from the human machine. None of us have new machines; we have rusty, dirty ones that require daily, lifelong cleaning. One of the greatest forms of dirt is negative emotion and the habitual indulgence in it. A person who constantly thinks unpleasant thoughts about others, speaks harshly, dislikes everyone, harbors jealousy, clings to grievances, or lives in self-pity carries a mind crowded with negativity. In this practical sense, negative emotions are dirt.

Standing Upright Above Negativity
The work teaches that you have a right not to be negative. It does not say you have no right to be negative—notice the difference. To feel that you have a right not to be negative is to begin real inner work regarding negative states. It is to stand upright amid the inner mess and recognize that it is not necessary to lie down in it. Remembering, “I have a right not to be negative,” lifts you out of the part of yourself that insists you have every reason to complain. Negative parts seek to seize your attention, feed upon it, and strengthen themselves at your expense. The real cause of negative states lies within these parts that persuade through half-truths and distortions. To refuse their rule is to lift yourself toward a higher level of your own being.

By Ellen Pace, LMFT-S, LPC-S

Reference:
Adapted from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol. 1, by Maurice Nicoll (pages 160–162: “Note on Negative Emotions”).