[shandor]

> The trouble with suppressing negative thoughts in the long run is that, eventually, reality may force you to confront them all at once and under far more difficult conditions.

I guess the whole point, and better way of putting the original idea is to resolve the negative thoughts. If the thoughts are trivial, just suppressing them is mostly resolution enough, since trivial thoughts are most probably not going to come back.

If the underlying reason for the negative thought is major and has staying power due to reality (e.g. you lost your mother when you were young), I think it's probable that the thought pattern is not going to go away if the reality underneath is not resolved (e.g. to actually learn to cope with your loss).

Because eventually, reality will force you to confront these things at some point, because it's, well, reality. If you just keep suppressing these negative thoughts, they will just keep coming back and you're not really winning that much.