It is sometimes said that we want to prolong the pleasant situations and to avoid the unpleasant. It’s very tempting to mentally swat at the unpleasant situations or experiences as they arise. I don’t hold any extreme views in this regard, but I do think some caution here is a good idea.

The problem that can happen is that once you swat at the bad thing and let’s say you get rid of it, you’re still left believing that the thing you just swatted at is something that can sometimes happen, and maybe even should, which isn’t always a good thing.

So for example, this body of mine had zits for a while, and it seemed like the more I was popping them, the more they appeared. It was as though my body was saying, “You seem to enjoy popping those things, so here are some more then.” I’ve had much fewer problems once I started thinking that I have healthy skin, no matter what it looks like, and minimized any popping. Now I hardly have any zits at all.

Let’s say there is situation I do not want. It’s tempting to only focus on removing it. But it’s at least as important to focus on a situation that I do want, a kind of good situation which simply leaves no room for the situation I don’t want.

The reason for this is that the othered side of mind can be really arbitrary. Once I had a dream where as far as I could see, up to infinity, I saw these hideous locusts everywhere. This is a clue. The mind has no limit in terms of imagining obstacles. I really realized something in that dream. Normally my instinct would be to swat at the locust. This is fine if there is only one or two. OK, but I am studious and stubborn, so I can swat even 10 thousand. But what if it’s endless? What if it’s a self-sustaining process? Doh. Then obviously I have to think differently.

In a way the subconscious mind is sometimes trolling me. If I am dealing with an opponent who is not playing fair, I cannot win in a fair contest. So an infinity of locusts is not a fair and sporting opponent. Competing with them using some sports-like notions makes no sense. The only workable option is to be unfair myself, such as, denying them reality in a summary way, mentally. And, imagining green hills with some trees is more important than imagining how to get rid of locusts, especially if there is an infinite number of them. If it’s just one, I think it’s OK to imagine how to get rid of it, but if I sense it’s going to become a recurring pattern, I have to take a different approach to manifestation than to swat at the bad experience or scenario.

That’s also why when healing, it’s very important to sense health right inside the sick area, as much as possible, in addition to whatever visualization one might use to clean the bad condition out. So if you visualize the bad stuff as a black smoke and you see it leaving the body, that’s OK, but just as important, I think, is to focus on the good right in the middle of the “bad.” It can be challenging to sense pain-free goodness and health right inside something that hurts and looks swollen, but this is highly effective in my experience.

Some challenges are enjoyable. But it’s also possible to face an unwinnable challenge, and if that’s the case, there is no need to play fair. And winnable challenges can sometimes become unwinnable if we swat at them too recklessly and/or with too little wisdom. So I’m not against mental negations, but I do see a case where negations can sometimes escalate into something that’s hard to manage by the ever more copious negations.