Overcoming Negativity
Negativity begets negativity.
It inundates us at every turn. We are constantly being bombarded with negative messages, negative reinforcement, woe and lack and scarcity and no no no.
Read the news about all the bad things happening in the world. Pay attention to politics and be overwhelmed by negative campaigns. Listen to how readily we talk about what we do not have, what we cannot have, and how terrible this, that or the other thing is. Negativity comes easily.
Well of course it does, you might argue. Look at how horrible this is? See how awful that is? How can we not be negative when so many are suffering in so many ways? We’re overweight, overworked, underpaid, facing daily struggles with depression, government inaction, corporate greed, class warfare, etc, etc, etc.
And thus we spiral into this routine. Down and down we go, as the negative information begets more negative information, and the energy of the negativity just gathers more power.
Once again, one of the central tenets of my personal philosophy – consciousness creates reality – comes into play. All the attention we give to these negatives adds proverbial fuel to the fire. And in many respects – this adds literal fuel to the fire.
We feed off of much of this negativity. Read any Facebook posts lately that irked you? Found yourself getting angry with someone because of a narrow point of view, which itself has been taken from someone else’s narrow perspective? Raises your hackles, doesn’t it?
We all face this, constantly. In this day and age, with instantaneous news and information everywhere we turn, the constant barrage of negative reinforcement is virtually unavoidable. And when you try to look at this more closely, it can be truly intimidating. How can we possibly NOT be affected by this?
Consciousness. We have to work on our own situational awareness. How many people walk around, day by day, hardly aware of their surroundings, let alone their own thoughts and feelings? People work hard to suppress thoughts and feelings, choosing to drink, take drugs legal or otherwise, overdo it at the gym, veg in front of the TV for hours on end, surf the internet, get lost in a video game world, or any number of easily addictive distractions.
What if, instead of finding a distraction, we actually stop and think? What if we take a moment to become aware? Is that really so awful that we need to turn to a distraction? What do people think will happen if they actually try to know themselves, their thoughts, and their feelings?
I have blogged about all of this before. Whether it was in regards to accountability, fear, blame, energy, happiness…it all comes down to the same thing. Consciousness. Consciousness is awareness. And if we are aware, we have knowledge. We KNOW.
So what? You may ask. Why should it be of any importance that someone be conscious or aware? That won’t stop the negativity.
True. It won’t. But what it WILL do is make you conscious OF that negativity. And if you are conscious of it, you can actually do something about it, rather than just reacting to it.
Ah good, you might say sarcastically. More crunchy-granola tree-hugging hippy, hookey-spookey crapola.
When you feel negative, feel bad, do you find it easier to draw more bad feelings and thoughts and things to you? When you feel good, do you find it easier to draw more good feelings and thoughts and things to you? I’ve yet to meet anyone who can answer “No” to these questions.
And so I postulate – if we are more aware of the negativity inundating us, we can work to be unaffected by it. We can start by remaining neutral, and not reacting to it, not spreading it further. If more people did that, we could lessen the negative impact, and make room for something else.
Which is the next step. From a neutral position, you can now work to move towards positive. Positive energy. Positive thoughts, positive ideas, and from those positive feelings. You can then go forward and spread THAT as far and wide as possible.
If we begin to ignore or pay less attention to the incessant negativity; if we stop spreading it, stop talking about it, stop giving it so much energy and attention, we can turn it off, turn it around, and bring out positivity.
That’s impossible, you might reply. C’mon, do you really think you can undo all the negativity with positivity?
Yes. These are opposite sides of the same coin. When one is up, the other is down. They are both immutable forces of nature. They are in a constant struggle for dominance, to win our hearts and minds, so to speak.
This cannot start on a large scale – it has to start small. Each and every one of us needs to individually work to be more conscious, more aware, and to not be affected by this negativity. We have to work to ignore, neutralize, then turn around to a positive.
And what would happen if we do this, you might question?
Imagine this: A given political candidate begins his negative campaigning against his opponent. Rather than talk about it, read about it, or give it attention, we ignore it. We don’t feed it, we don’t fuel it, we pay it no mind. He thinks he’s not shouting loud enough, and gets louder. We continue to pay it no mind, pay no attention. Instead, we focus on other things…our families, our friends, our lives in general.
The negative campaigning ceases to be effective. It stops. Instead, the political candidate starts to focus not on the imperfections of his opponent, but on his own strengths. He tries to open a dialogue with us, rather than talk at us. This would of course force his opponent to do the same…and a major negative reinforcement goes away.
Far fetched? Perhaps…but only because it is easier to focus on someone else than on yourself. It is easier to knock someone down than build yourself up. And that fire is so very easy to feed.
Maybe slightly easier to imagine:
A certain news network only ever seems to give us bad news. They only report on negative things, tell us how awful that person, that nation, that group of people is. They are constantly inundating us with negativity, feeding it like a bloated, feral animal. What would happen if we turned it off? What if we tune them out, stop watching, stop talking about the stories they give us? Their ratings go down, their advertisers pull out, and they have to either change, or they’ll be history. So they stop the attacks. They start finding a more positive spin to put on things, and they begin to look for solutions, rather than emphasizing the problems. Once they do that, we give them our attention again.
Once again, far fetched…but not implausible.
I know that bad things happen. And certainly we need to be informed. But there is a major difference between informed and inundated. We do not need to be bombarded and overwhelmed. And we do not need to react before we think about the situation, and truly be aware of it.
We have the power. Each and every one of us. We can empower ourselves, or allow ourselves to be disempowered by…take your pick. But if we start to keep in mind that negativity begets negativity, and conversely positivity begets positivity, we CAN make a choice. And when we make a choice, we can make a change.
Are you aware of your thoughts and feelings, right at this moment?
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