Why It’s So Hard to Stay Positive In DIFFICULT Times (and How to Change It)
When you make a commitment to the Universe to heal, to grow, and to evolve, it doesn’t always look like love and light. Sometimes it looks like everything is falling apart. Sometimes it looks like standing face to face with the very things you’ve spent your life avoiding. This isn’t because God is punitive, but because you asked to be a part of something greater than yourself. That request requires you to meet the full spectrum of who you are and what you carry: the good, the bad, the uncomfortable, and the scary.
It is not easy to stay positive when life gets hard. In those moments, it is natural to feel like you’ve failed—like you’re doing it wrong, created bad karma, or not "spiritual" enough to hold the light. But that isn’t the truth of what is happening. What is happening is this: you are being shown where your strength still lives in shadow. You are being asked to love the parts of yourself that never felt safe enough to be seen. You are being invited into alignment, not through bypassing what’s hard, but by walking through it consciously.
So Why Is It So Hard to Stay Positive?
The challenge of maintaining a positive outlook is not a personal flaw; it is a deeply human one. At a biological level, we are wired with something called negativity bias. This refers to the brain’s tendency to focus more on what’s wrong than what’s right—on what might hurt us rather than what might help. This is a survival mechanism that served our ancestors well when danger lurked around every corner. But in our modern world, this same wiring causes us to fixate on problems, anticipate worst-case scenarios, and loop through anxious, fear-based thoughts, especially in times of adversity.
Alongside our biology, we carry layers of conditioning. We absorbed messages, inherited beliefs, and adapted to the emotional climates we were raised in. Many of us grew up believing that struggle meant failure, that showing emotion was weakness, or that being strong meant holding it all together at any cost. We learned to measure our worth by how much we could endure, not by how authentically we could feel.
So many of the thoughts that drag us down during hard times are not even our own. They are thoughtforms—energetic patterns of belief passed down through family, society, culture, and collective trauma. These patterns repeat themselves so often that they begin to feel like truth. Our subconscious minds look for experiences that confirm those beliefs, even when doing so works against our best interests. To make matters more difficult, these thoughtforms are intrusive. They appear without warning, hijack our focus, and lead us to question our worth, our choices, and our place in the world—usually when we are already feeling vulnerable. They replace presence with projection, and before we realize it, we are reacting to a fear that was never ours to carry.
But those fears are not truth. They are patterns. And all patterns can be rewired.
Shifting the Mindset: From Survival to Sovereignty
When the weight of the world becomes too much, the path forward begins with a pause. With a breath. With a conscious return to the innate remembering that life is always in balance. This breath is in, this one is out. Both breaths independent but dependent on each other and bound as one by the laws greater than the ones ever written on paper. Light and dark are not enemies; they are partners. We only recognize joy because we have known sorrow. We understand strength because we have encountered softness. We experience wholeness only because we have felt what it means to be broken.
These truths are more than poetic. They are spiritual laws that govern our reality:
The Law of Polarity teaches us that everything has an equal and opposite. If despair is present, then so is the potential for joy.
The Law of Rhythm reminds us that life moves in cycles. Just as the tides ebb and flow, so too do our emotions, challenges, and breakthroughs.
The Law of Correspondence shows us that our outer world reflects our inner world. When we shift within, everything around us begins to shift as well.
With this foundation, we can begin to practice new ways of being:
Acknowledge what is, without judgment. It is okay to struggle. Meeting your experience with compassion is the first step in changing it.
Reframe the narrative. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” consider asking, “What is this here to teach me?” This invites curiosity, which helps loosen fear’s grip.
Interrupt the thoughtforms. When you notice a limiting belief arise, say to yourself, “That’s not my truth.” Then choose a new thought—even one that feels just slightly lighter—and repeat it.
Ground into your body. Shifts in perspective won’t take root unless your body feels safe. Breathwork, movement, and touch can anchor you in the present moment.
Invite the 5:1 perspective shift. Neuroscience shows that it takes five positive experiences to counterbalance one negative one. When something painful happens, challenge yourself to identify five positive influences or lessons it brings. This isn’t about bypassing the pain. It’s about widening your capacity to hold both pain and possibility.
Don’t Get Caught Up in “Good Vibes Only” Vibes
Staying positive does not mean forcing a smile or denying what hurts and pretending everything is fine. Toxic positivity—the belief that only good thoughts are allowed is not only inaccurate, it is damaging. You are a human being. You were designed to feel the full range of emotion. That is not a flaw. That is a feature. Our complex feelings and emotions are what we came here to experience, not be consumed by.
You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to feel tired, afraid, uncertain. You are allowed to grieve the life you thought you would have. These emotions are not obstacles to your growth, they are the very path of growth itself. What we resist persists, but what we honor, allows. Negative emotions are not enemies, they’re messengers. When we stop running from them, we finally open the door to authentic healing.
The Universe Is Responding To You
The Universe is not punishing you. It is responding to you. Sometimes, the answer to your prayer for growth is a season of unraveling. Not because you did something wrong, but because space needs to be made for what is right. Because your capacity is being stretched. Because your truth is being rooted more deeply. Because what no longer aligns must be cleared to make space for what does.
Staying positive in hard times doesn’t mean pretending, it means trusting. It means knowing that you are being shaped, not shattered. That the storm will end, and when it does, it will leave fertile ground behind. You don’t have to love the lesson while you’re still in it. But if you can offer yourself even 1% more awareness, 1% more compassion, or 1% more breath, you are already shifting the pattern. And that’s how everything begins to change.
