BeDo

Over the past few months, I’ve been discovering the concept of neutral thinking as a way to process my emotions and experiences. Applying neutrality to my life has meant trying to think in a more judgment-free way, particularly in relation to my wellbeing, mental health and the way I treat myself and others. It is about replacing notions of value such as good and bad with acceptance, compassion, appreciation and respect.

What I’d found in the past was that framing my choices and interactions as having a positive or negative value often brought me shame, guilt and a host of other negative emotions when I felt I hadn’t done well enough. Valuing my behaviours and ideas in this way often caused me to overthink; I needed to perform well and prime myself for potential failure. Considering all my actions in a positive way made me feel incompetent or unworthy if something didn’t go to plan, and had me thinking to myself, “You could do this last time, why not now?”

While it might seem common sense to work towards ridding ourselves of these negative thoughts directed to the self, it is harder to understand distancing ourselves from positive self-talk. For example, I first came across neutrality in relation to thinking about the body, as an alternative to ‘body positivity’. When explaining to a friend, she replied ‘but that’s so sad, we should work to love our bodies, not feel neutral towards them’. But the truth is, for people in marginalised bodies (Black, disabled, fat, etc.), being able to love your body isn’t always possible, especially when people face discrimination and oppression as a direct result of those identities.

While I don’t feel that my body is marginalised in these ways, I often found that being asked to view myself positively or ‘love myself’ seemed to be a loaded request. I felt that other people’s idea of me loving myself necessitated weight loss or dramatically changing my life and body. If not this, then loving myself from their perspective usually required me to somehow overcome societal pressure to shrink my body and ignore what others thought or said about how I looked. I didn’t find either option realistic or obtainable. In fact, trying to affirm to myself that my body was perfect all the time started getting me down because it felt like I was trying to deceive myself into believing it. Attempting to use positive self-talk every time I felt a negative emotion towards myself was starting to drain my energy and left me feeling even worse!

Neutral thinking differs from value-led thinking firstly by acknowledging that we have little or no control over many aspects of our lives. This can include the shape, size and colour of our bodies, the way others perceive us, the ability to appease others, to fit into what society values and so on. Focussing on my lack of power regarding things like these, I began to shift towards understanding that I don’t need to work towards ‘loving myself’, whatever that may mean. I’ve found a new freedom in understanding that it doesn’t matter whether I like my body or not, because my value as a person isn’t tied to my appearance or size, and because my body can do things that enable my life to continue in the ways I want, regardless of how I feel about it.

But neutrality isn’t limited just to thinking about bodies. I’ve started trying to apply neutrality in other aspects of my life too. It has been quite a simple shift in mindset about my place in situations and emotional interactions but has made a notable difference to the amount I can enjoy things. For example, the way I approach studying and being motivated to work has changed. Instead of seeing myself as a good person for being motivated and doing lots of work, I’ve removed the value of ‘good’ and now see myself simply as someone who has done lots of work. Understanding that my value isn’t based on grades I receive or appreciation for projects I worked on means that I can engage with the projects wholeheartedly, without the fear that if I messed up it would reflect badly on my character somehow. It has let me find more joy in working on my projects. On top of that, separating self-judgements from the projects I’m working on means that I can take breaks when I need them without feeling negatively towards myself, and show myself compassion during times where I’m working a little slower than usual.

Another example is my approach to climate activism. Framing my actions to reduce climate change as something that made me a good person implied that if I couldn’t commit to those actions all the time, then I was a bad person who wasn’t trying hard enough. I found that this way of thinking left me feeling like actions to tackle climate change weren’t worth starting if I couldn’t stick to them forever. However, once I stopped viewing these actions as things that made me a good or bad person, I freed myself from the pride and guilt attached to them. Instead, I could focus on what I was able to do in the present moment, without feeling overstretched or like I wasn’t trying hard enough.

In this sense, while positive and negative thinking is usually led by some outcome we expect from our actions, neutral thinking can allow us to be more present with what we are doing and why. It allows me to step back from how I feel about my actions and be more pragmatic about what will or will not happen regardless of how I feel. Neutral thinking has helped me make decisions and reflect on my life in a way that guides me away from self-judgment.

If any of this resonates with you… Here are some tips on getting started with neutral thinking:

1.     Try to limit negative and positive self-thought. For example, after falling out with someone, a negative thought might be ‘nobody likes me, I’m hopeless and won’t ever make friends’. A positive self-thought in the same situation might be ‘everyone likes me, this person is just having a bad day, I’ll win them over eventually’. A neutral thought could be ‘not everyone in the world will like me, that doesn’t make me a bad or unlikable person. I can move on from this’.
2.     Focus on the present situation and your present behaviour, not the past.
3.     Try to make self-talk realistic, believable, and objective to your feelings.
4.     Understand that your capabilities are not a reflection of your moral character. Mistakes or achievements you made did not happen because you are a good or bad person, but because of choices and actions you took.