You are so right, avoiding pain by "thinking positive thoughts" doesn't work, the underlying problems are still there, and most likely doing more damage than if they were looked at, acknowledged. The new age spirituality bullcrap drives me crazy...don't look at problems, just think of something you like. Imagine how you want things to be bla bla bla.
My response to that line of thinking is, if you have a sink full of dirty dishes, and you want them clean, do you just think some positive thoughts about your clean dishes, or do you roll up your sleeves, dive in and do the job.
LOL, oh wow. So true. "positive thinking" or "positive affirmations" is literally self-hypnosis. This is why it's so challenging to talk about meditation because people think about it as "metaphysical" or "spiritual" replacing one belief system for another. Ugh.
Good analogy. Tell a starving child they need to think positively to manifest their desired food. Spiritual my ass.
Yes, you so get it!! We need positive action mixed with positive, confident thoughts. Avoiding problems does not make it go away no matter what the spiritual guru's say!