Positivity Is a Choice to Empower Taking Control of Our Lives
Positivity is less about how we feel than about how we choose to approach our lives.
How easy is it to feel bad? To find negativity in the world? To see darkness, sadness, and hopelessness?
Too easy. Surf the internet. Watch cable news. Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to start down that path.
Because it is so extremely easy to find the bad and the negative in our world today – they often become dominant. And if they’re not dominating the narratives, they certainly feel as though they are.
Negativity is one side not of a coin, but a flexible cylinder. And on the other side is positivity.
The notion of positivity has gotten used and abused and given a bad rap. Why? Primarily due to toxic positivity.
Toxic positivity is this idea that if you only seek out the positive and blatantly disregard or ignore negativity – all will be well. It suggests that with positivity alone we can live a better, fuller life.
Toxic positivity is utter bullshit. That’s because we cannot disregard, ignore, or pretend that negativity doesn’t exist.
So what’s the point of working on positivity? The point is that seeking positivity in a world dominated by negative messages is a choice. What’s more, it’s a choice to assume control over the only thing we can.
Ourselves.
What we control is limited but important
Do you know what we have control of in this life? Our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
We can control how we think, what and how we feel, what we do with that, and any intentions we have. Apart from that, we can control (to some degree) how we look.
That’s about it. Nearly everything else is not ours to control.
That’s not such a bad thing when you get down to it. Why? Because recognizing that we can take control of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions is one thing. Acknowledging that control is another. But only then can we act to take control.
Often, we don’t. Why? Because we tend to let our subconscious do the driving. And thus, we move through life via rote and routine. We cede control of our lives to our subconscious and old habits, beliefs, and values that may or may not align with who, what, where, how, or why we are – or desire to be.
How do we take control? Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is conscious awareness here and now. It’s a product of the present. Frequently, that conscious awareness is directed without. In this instance, mindful conscious awareness needs to be directed within.
Mindfulness then shows us our mindset/headspace/psyche self, here and now, in the present. That will then inform us just who, what, where, how, and why we are. Then, if that’s unsatisfactory – we can take steps to change it.
This is where positivity comes into play. Why? Because consciousness creates reality.
If we are in a bad headspace, feeling depressed, hopeless, or negative in general – we disempower ourselves.
Positivity, on the other hand, empowers.
Choosing positivity is choosing control
When we choose to seek out, find, and/or create positivity – we’re choosing to take control.
Control of what? Everything that we can control.
Why are we unable to have control with negativity? This is tricky to explain without creating a specific situation.
Here’s an example: Let’s say you are surfing the internet and you read about a senseless foreign war, or a law passed that violates basic human rights. This upsets you and makes you feel bad. Before you know it, you start to come across similar things that increase your negative feelings. You start to find it hard to feel good about anything, sadness dominates, and hopelessness starts to sink icy fingers into your soul.
Just reading the above, do you feel a sense of sadness? Despair? From that feeling can you build any desire to do much of anything but give up?
When we are not mindful this tends to be how we inadvertently react to the world around us. For many people, it becomes easier to live via rote and routine – and let their subconscious mind do the driving so that they need not think about these bad, negative things.
I believe this is why so many people become sheeple. It’s less about being controlled – since, truly, nobody can control anyone else – but more about choosing not to make choices and deciding not to make decisions.
Hence, negativity leads to ceding control of our lives. It often looks like we give that control away to some god or government – but in truth, we mostly just give it away to our infrequently explored subconscious minds.
This is why putting energy into finding and/or creating positivity is less about the good or positive and more about choice, decision, and taking what control we can.
Working past the pain and fear
Why are we bombarded and inundated by so much easy-to-access negativity? Because negativity sells. What’s more, it’s disempowering – which then allows governments, opportunistic individuals, and marketers to take advantage of our need to combat negativity.
When we’re not actively making choices and decisions – and instead letting our subconscious do the driving – we become fairly easy marks. We elect the awful politician, buy the pointless product, and/or pay for the unnecessary service – because we subconsciously think it will reduce potential pain and fear.
To be honest – it might. But not for long, because we have not chosen to assume the control we are genuinely, as human beings, entitled to.
When we make choices and decisions for our lives, we become empowered. When we’re empowered, we will turn more within than without for answers – which “they” can’t profit from. Do you know what happens when we are empowered? We take control.
This is not perfect. Nor is it ever a one-and-done matter. But ongoing choices and decisions for our lives and our life experiences are the paths to control of how our lives are. This is how we can choose what, how, where, why, and who we are while occupying these bodies during our limited life experiences.
It’s not easy. But positivity is a product of choice we can employ to make more of what we have.
Life is not meant to be merely survived. All of us – every single one of us – are here to thrive and experience tremendous potential and possibilities.
And that is an enormous positive – don’t you think?
Choosing and deciding to find and/or create positivity isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct our actions.
When we practice mindfulness and decide to make use of positivity as a choice to better ourselves, we can take control of our life experiences. Knowing that we have that kind of control – and can make choices and decisions to use it to create a life we desire to live – we can choose and decide anything and everything for ourselves more readily.
This empowers us – and in turn, our empowerment can empower others around us. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Lastly, 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. When 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 forty-sixth 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.
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