What is Positive Intention and Why does it Matter?
Positive intention gives us hope and is practiced with mindfulness.
Lots and lots of people are struggling.
After 2 years of a seemingly never-ending pandemic, an ugly, pointless war in Ukraine, the dark impact of reactionary conservatives in politics and business, and increasingly illogical anti-science and anti-reason campaigns, I know I’m exhausted. And so is virtually everyone else I know, too.
No matter how strong you are, you can only take so much. Everyone reaches a point of saying, “That’s it! No more! Enough!” And yet – it feels like even with the slightest reprieve, another shoe will drop.
What’s more, the 24-hour news cycle is a constant stream of negativity. Domestic terrorism, gun violence, and talking heads are in your face all the time. And as if that’s not enough – the internet, a great channel for sharing information, is often abused and overrun with propaganda and false information.
Being virtually gut-punched constantly takes a toll on everyone. And that is why positive intention matters more now than ever.
Just want is positive intention? Before I define what it is, I’d like to clarify what it isn’t.
Toxic positivity versus real positivity
Most of us have been exposed to toxic positivity. And like any toxic chemical, that’s going to have a negative impact on you. Rather than physical, it’s more mental, emotional, and/or spiritual.
What is toxic positivity? Toxic positivity is the notion that a positive attitude – while ignoring and disregarding all else – will make the world a better place. If you just think and act positively, all the time, you can improve the world.
There are so many flaws with this idea. And what’s more, practitioners of toxic positivity tend to berate, shame, and disempower you if you fail at practicing positivity.
Let’s get real. Nobody can be positive all the time. Period. Shit happens. You get dumped, fired, in a car accident, dismissed, forgotten, and other negative things utterly outside of your control happen. And your negative feelings in response to these are completely valid. Toxic positivity invalidates them – and that’s part of what’s wrong with it.
Real positivity recognizes and acknowledges that shit happens. You will have bad days. Negativity will dominate your life from time to time. But – real positivity is a choice. Over time, you can continue to feel negative and let it be your dominant life experience – or find and/or create positivity where you can.
This can’t and won’t eliminate negativity. Because that’s not possible. And, what’s more, real positivity recognizes that it’s not a coin with heads being positive and tails being negative. It’s a flexible cylinder you spend most of your time somewhere between those opposite extremes.
And this is where positive intention comes in.
Positive intention is a gateway to hope
Let’s say that you have been hit hard. Something’s gone down in your life that’s hurt a lot. You’ve thus spent a lot of time feeling negative.
This might be direct – losing a loved one, for example. It might be indirect – watching idiotic, hurtful laws being passed in other states than where you live, for example. The negative feelings these generate are both wholly valid. What you feel is what you feel.
However – you will have a choice. Give in to the negativity and lose hope? Or find and/or create some positive intention and the hope that comes with it?
This is where positive intention comes into play. Let’s be honest – nearly nobody can just turn around from feeling negative to feeling positive. When you have been sad, depressed, angry, hurt, or otherwise negative – you can’t flip a switch and be positive.
But once you recognize and acknowledge how you feel – and that it’s negative – you have a choice. Seek positivity and the hope it offers? Or stay in the negativity and lose hope?
If you intend to turn it around and get out of the negative experience, positive intention is the key. It’s your intention to find, create, have, and experience positivity that will let you find, create, have, and experience positivity. And regain hope.
But how does positive intention work?
Practice mindfulness
What happened has happened. The thing that made you feel negative has occurred. And now it’s a thing of the past.
That usually generates one of three responses. Either you worry that it will happen again or be worse, come to believe that it’s the way of the world and you can do nothing about it, or that maybe there’s a way to change it.
You cannot undo, redo, change, or otherwise alter the past. It’s done and over. Neither can you predict nor change the future. It is not yet written. But right here and now, in the present, you can take control of your life experience.
This is done via conscious awareness – or mindfulness – of who, what, where, how, and why you are. But not just in the literal sense – it’s about recognizing your inner being and your mindset/headspace/psyche self.
Mindfulness is you being consciously aware, in the present, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That opens the way to you taking charge and – if your thoughts and feelings are negative – taking control and changing them with positive intention.
And this is all about intent. Because you intend to turn from facing the negative end of the cylinder to the positive end that you can control here and now.
With positive intention comes hope. Because rather than being in and seeing negativity all around, you are choosing to find and/or create positivity. And that is where hope lives.
Hope is how we can each, individually, make changes to our lives that might be able to have an impact on the greater good and collective consciousness of the world.
And all of us are worthy and deserving of all the good we can experience.
Seeking positive intention isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you determine that you want to feel hopeful rather than hopeless after experiencing a negative situation, positive intention lets you alter your direction and focus to take control and seek and find or create positivity and hope. Knowing that you have that power within you – but that it’s okay to not be okay, too – you can use positive intention to make a choice. This empowers you, and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Choosing for yourself tends to lean positively.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – 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 impacts us here and now.
Lastly, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. If that empowers us, it can also 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 thirty-fifth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.
Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive a free eBook.
Follow me here!
