Polarity, Neutrality and MindFlipOut
I did not create MindFlipOut actually to remove thought friction. I didn't even know what thought friction was when I started this project. I wanted to simply create something with "negative thought catcher" and "positive 'counter' affirmation injector" combined, because I always had negative thoughts floating in my mind making me feel down, all my life.
Prior to that, I had come across some positivity-themed YouTube videos and this method of catching negative self talk and rewriting them to something positive really stood out to me, as someone who cannot keep a journal for 2 days. I was curious if it would work and it did. I immediately felt lighter though the same negative thoughts kept coming back and back and back. I took them all down. Shortly after finishing the entire notebook within a month, I got tired of carrying it around and having to open it before bed to review the day's negative thoughts and flipped positive thoughts. Why don't I do it on my phone?
This got me started and this is why earlier versions of MindFlipOut had "Negative" and "Positive" labels which are now simply "Heavy" and "Light" as not all the looping thoughts are necessarily "negative" I found out.
But the polarity in MindFlipOut is still the same and you can certainly use it to catch "negative" thoughts and rewrite them to something "positive" as before. Now why is this action of "flipping" important?
When we describe "positive" and "negative" people, we often use this analogy: Someone finds a $20 bill lying on the ground. A positive person would get excited like "Yay 20 bucks!" while the other "Damn, only 20 bucks..." When we say this, we maintain a very good balanced view of the both sides and there is almost no emotion to it, simply because it did not happen to us.
As I experimented on myself using MindFlipOut almost every day, I realized that at some point I reach the state described above. I can objectify my own thoughts as if none of the things didn't happen to me, somtimes very quickly, simply by a) rewriting ("flipping") the original negative thoughts to positive by myself and b) reviewing both sides by flipping negative notes and positive back and forth.
When you reach this state, you can truly feel (not just "understanding it in your head") that what's written down on "Negative" (now "Heavy") tab and "Positive (Light)" tab are simply 2 opposite views of a single thing (a thought, an incident, a feeling, a reaction etc.)
This is when your emotinal charge collapses and you feel "lighter" as the polarity is completely neutralized.
— Kentaro