How Is Practical Positivity Truly Possible in This Crazy World?
Practical positivity is more about approach than anything else.
It is way too easy, currently, to see the world as being on fire.
The news media is all about doom and gloom – because that sells. And so, we’re inundated and bombarded by an onslaught of negative, bad news.
Take your pick – partisan politics, the situation in the Ukraine, COVID, Brexit, teacher and care-worker shortages, supply-chain issues, and more. None of this is pleasant.
For a long time now, I’ve been preaching the positivity gospel, so to speak. Not in a toxic, ignore-and-disregard-all-negativity way. More in a you-get-to-choose way.
While I still believe that positivity is empowering and can do a lot of good – I have a new appreciation for it in a different way. Practical positivity is not seeking to find and/or create positivity to change your life. It’s much more about your overall approach to life, the Universe, and everything.
The role of mindfulness
Allow me to get right to the heart of the matter. Each and every one of us is empowered with the ability to be mindful.
Mindfulness is conscious awareness – in the present, here and how – of who, what, where, how, when, and why we are. This is achieved through being consciously aware of our sensory input combined with our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Being consciously aware – present in and at the moment – is mindfulness. That informs us of both what’s going on around us as well as what’s within us.
Being mindful puts us in touch with all three elements of our greater selves. Meaning?
- Conscious mind. Our mindset/headspace/psyche self in the here and now.
- Subconscious mind. Our values, beliefs, and habits at their roots.
- Ego. How we perceive ourselves as well as how we project who we are to the world.
When we’re present and mindful in this moment, we can see how these are interconnected. And that shows us ourselves in stark clarity.
That’s mindfulness.
For years now, I’ve suggested that from a place of mindfulness, we can choose to move in a direction of positivity or negativity. But that’s not the main reason to be mindful.
Have you ever found yourself thinking and/or feeling something you couldn’t make sense of? Like, it was where you were at – but it didn’t feel like it was truly you and yours? I believe that happens because we are not applying mindfulness.
Mindfulness informs us of our true selves in the here and now.
A clear idea for practical positivity
Recently I explored that positivity and negativity are opposite ends of the spectrum – connected via cylinder (possibly a very flexible one at that). Most of us and our experiences exist somewhere on the cylinder between positive and negative.
Hence why you can have a mixed experience that’s both good and bad, happy and sad, etc. Because, for the most part, we live between the extremes that are positive and negative.
That being written – we come to my question. How is practical positivity truly possible in this crazy world? That is dependent on your choice of approach.
On that cylinder between positivity and negativity, you can choose to approach things looking towards the positive side or the negative. You can decide to work from where you are to find and/or create positive or negative.
I am not talking about specifically seeking something positive or negative – I’m talking about our personal approach. Because I believe that’s really the only way we can work with this.
How does this work? Let’s say I get out of bed in the morning – and my knee locks and then painfully pops. My initial reaction is to get upset. That hurts.
If I pause and be mindful in that moment, I can choose to shake it off or hold onto it. If I hold onto it, that might lead me to approach the rest of my day towards the negative extreme. On the other hand – if I shake it off, that might lead to approaching the rest of my day with cautious optimism. That, I believe, would be a more positive approach.
That’s not to say it’s definite or certain. But I believe approach is something we can choose from our place of mindfulness.
Why am I changing my stance on this topic?
In reading Adam Grant’s Think Again, I started to reanalyze and – per the book – think again about this entire idea.
Do I believe that positivity can empower? Absolutely. But I also recognize that all of us come from different experiences and that circumstances and situations make it both easier and more complex.
What’s more, I also am reconsidering the role of mindfulness. While it can be a tool for change – I think it can be a more powerful tool just for being.
Mindfulness in and of itself can do a lot for each of us. It lets us see who, what, when, why, how, and where we are in this present moment. Why does that matter? Because I believe it’s when we lose sight of this that we find ourselves uncertain, unsure, and conflicted in many ways.
Why rethink this? Because I recognize that for all I do know – there is more that I don’t know. And in shifting my thoughts on positivity in this way, I believe I can make it both more palatable and practical.
I believe that the most practical positivity comes down to approach. When we are consciously aware, we can see where on the cylinder between extremes of positivity and negativity we are in that moment. From there, our next step – our approach – can be towards one extreme or the other.
But not all the way to the given extremes. Why? Because I believe most of us live most of the time between all given extremes.
That is why I am changing my stance on the topic. I still believe in positivity being empowering. But that mostly works from a more grounded, balanced, and nuanced place starting with practical positivity and approach.
Working with practical positivity towards approach isn’t hard
It begins with mindfulness of thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Recognizing and acknowledging that positivity is an extreme on the opposite end of the spectrum from negativity, we can see where we are on the flexible cylinder that exists between them.
When we choose to work with mindfulness for conscious awareness in the moment – at any given time -we can pick our approach towards the negative end of the spectrum or the positive. That is practical positivity for a given situational approach – which potentially empowers me and you.
Taking this approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – I believe potentially shifts the concept in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between those extremes and how that might impact us in the here and now.
Finally, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experience will be. If that empowers us, it might open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and seventeenth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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