Negativity
- Jan 19
- 5 min read
“Everyone is familiar with that “voice in the head.” By this, I mean the negative voice. It is mean, judgmental, angry, jealous, envious, salacious, just bad. Sometimes it goes quiet. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that it drowns everything else out. One simple question we can ask: “Who’s doing the talking?”… The voice in our head, the self-talk, is not the voice of a demon. However, it has a very dark origin and is utterly contrary to our well-being. It is the voice of the deepest wound in our soul and body, with origins that are sometimes older than our ability to speak.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“All negative experiences in the life of every human being, as well as the whole world, have a direct or indirect link to sin. And sin brings forth death. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23). In all his life experience, whether positive or negative, a believer acknowledges the work of Divine Providence and the grace of God, which mysteriously leads people to salvation. Because God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Thus, a Christian learns to stay away from sin and do good all the time: That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24). However, it is not at all easy to get rid of sin—that is, to give up selfishness and excessive self-love, which strongly binds us to this world. The battle with sin must be fought to the death. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. (Heb. 12:4), the Apostle Paul writes in his Epistle.” (Metropolitan Serafim Joanta)
“…although I may not have contributed directly to the sin of the person hurting me, I probably have contributed to the general world atmosphere of sin, which in turn affected this person. Of course, they are still free in some ultimate sense, but we can only really see the full extent of their moral status when we take out all the negative influences upon them put there by us and by other outsiders. Do others cause us to sin? Yes, but let us repent of the sin in us, that caused them to cause us to sin. That way, we become free of both our own sin and of the sin caused in us by others.” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“By receiving Holy Baptism, each one of us died and is risen with Christ. In Baptism we have clothed ourselves with the new man who now serves God: So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God (Rom. 7:25). But death and the resurrection with Christ are not just a moment we experience in Baptism, but a process that continues throughout our lives. In essence, Christian life is the continuous performance of the sacrament of Baptism—that is, dying and rising from the dead with the Savior….our life consists of partial dying and rising from the dead over and over again until the final death of the body, and later—until its resurrection. We die a little every day, especially when we have some negative experience. When we ask God for help, the Holy Spirit brings us back to life, and we partially experience the resurrection.” (Metropolitan Serafim Joanta, Olivier Clement)
“…by elevating the concept of a festive union between the bridegroom and his friends in the disciples consciousness, Christ was discrediting the teaching of the Pharisees with its emphasis on rigid ceremonialism and moral exclusivity. Theirs was the negative approach; Christ’s was the positive. He sought to drive home basic principles in the disciples minds and to train their spiritual senses to detect and absorb the work of grace. They would learn the art of personal restraint, not by compulsion, but by enlightenment. Anger would be replaced by forgiveness; revenge replaced by patience; every negative thing replaced by its positive counterpart.” (Matthew the Poor)
“The average lifespan of an emotion is about ninety seconds. However, when we replay painful memories, or when we ruminate over unpleasant feelings, the lifespan of negative emotions increases. Through unhealthy thought loops, negative emotions can become compounded and self-perpetuating…Most human thought, if unchecked, is negative and critical.” (Robin Phillips, Albert S. Rossi, PhD)
“It is very difficult to do a “negative” thing. It is why when we struggle to quit an addiction, we find it difficult. It creates an absence that longs to be filled. The same is true of intrusive thoughts. Trying “not to think” something is nearly impossible. Again, it creates a negative which begs to be filled and the thought returns again and again….Positive action has life, beauty, truth, and being. It is strong and brings the might of reality to bear on the unreality of darkness.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Repentance is the renewal of life. This means we must free ourselves of all our negative traits and turn toward absolute good. No sin is unforgivable except the sin of unrepentance…Repentance is not just going to a priest and confessing; the soul must become free of all these thoughts and the melancholy that has overcome us due to our crooked paths. Repentance is a change of life, a change of direction, turning toward Absolute Good, and leaving behind all that is negative.” (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)
“Man’s capacity willingly to embrace suffering to the utmost point shows that even in the slavery of his fallen state he remains a person, though an unhappy one. Just as by frankly facing absence man becomes capable of faith in presence, in the same way by facing suffering and not turning away from it with the help of various “securities,” man affirms his freedom in a negative way. This is no romanticizing of suffering as there is no idealization of absence and death; these are man’s worst enemies. But the important thing in human existence is that the only way to abolish these things, the only way to conquer them, is freedom, and this implies freedom to undergo them. The Cross is the only way to the Resurrection, and this does not take away from the Cross its utter shame and repulsiveness.” (Metropolitan John Zizioulas)
“The encounter with the Christ proclaimed “in accordance with the scriptures,” in this manner, effects a similar transformation upon each person. If, as is sometimes said, the “self” of each person is their own past told from the perspective of the present, and that past acting in the present, then the encounter with Christ provides a new, and yet eternal, vantage point from which to narrate one’s own past: we are invited to see our own past retold as our own “salvation history.” In this, nothing is forgotten or left aside, as being somehow worthy only of being left behind, something that we would prefer to forget as too shameful or painful, but which even as “forgotten” continues to work negatively in our present. Rather, everything is encompassed within his economy: standing in the light of Christ, we can see Him as having led us through our whole past, preparing us to encounter Him. He alone knows the reason why He has led each of us on our particular path, for we still walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5.7). But it is a faith that all things are in the hands of Christ, and that “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8.28).” (Fr. John Behr)
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