5 Ways to Quickly Generate Non-Toxic Positivity
Everyone prefers to feel good over feeling bad.
Finding positivity is about learning/discovering ways to feel okay, calm, centered, and good. Yet you and I live in a fear-based society that feeds on a steady diet of negativity. Fear is a tool employed by many different leaders, so-called leaders, demagogues, celebrities, and the like to keep people in line. Similarly, sensationalism sells and gets more clicks on social media. This can make it appear to be far easier to live in fear and negativity than to find positivity.
Today being a Monday, most people are going to work after a weekend off. Somewhere along the way, it was widely accepted that Mondays should be loathed. The reason that I began to write these weekly blogs about non-toxic positivity was because I came to this conclusion: Why start the work week in negativity and set that tone when you use active conscious awareness to find and/or create positivity and allow yourself to feel better?
Hence the weekly posts about elements and aspects of positivity, both direct and indirect. Since I like to find and create these for me and my life, I decided that sharing this idea can help you do the same.
To that end, I’m offering some simple means to generate non-toxic positivity. But first, a quick bit of clarity.
Toxic vs non-toxic positivity
The use of toxic positivity has made genuine, non-toxic positivity seem hard to distinguish. It causes many people to automatically dismiss all positivity, genuine or otherwise.
The difference between toxic and non-toxic positivity is easy to recognize. Toxic positivity tells you to ignore, disregard, walk away from, and turn a blind eye to any and all negativity. If you walk around with rose-colored glasses and blinders to negativity, focus wholly on positivity, and ignore all else, you’ll be in a great place.
It’s impossible to live without negativity. It can, will, and does occur. There’s nothing you can do about this truth – save choose how to react when it occurs. Shit happens. People die. Friends leave you. Jobs are lost and stolen. Life will unexpectedly turn to shit. Welcome to the human experience.
Genuine, non-toxic positivity begins by recognizing shit has happened. You recognize and acknowledge the world can be an imperfect, illogical, and even awful place at times. Bad things might be happening/have happened, and they’re not to be disregarded.
Then, you practice mindfulness to be consciously aware of yourself. With that active conscious awareness – here and now – you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is facing positivity or negativity, and what you are and/or aren’t doing. Then, you get to choose to change any or all of these to shift focus to genuine, non-toxic positivity.
Hopefully, the clarity of this helps make sense of what follows.
5 ways to quickly generate non-toxic positivity
Many, many things generate non-toxic positivity. The following 5 are things you can do with little to no effort, more than once a day.
- Smile/Grin. Seriously, just take a minute and smile (in private). You don’t need to laugh, you don’t need to have anything in particular to smile about, simply smile for a minute or so, and see how you feel.
- Breathe deeply. Take at least two minutes to breathe deeply, intentionally. Focus on your breathing, and let the air in and out. You’d be surprised how just breathing and not doing anything else will make you feel.
- Sit or stand more erect. Consider your posture. When you slouch and slump, there is no energy flow. When you stand up straight or sit up straight, you energize your core, and you would be surprised how that will improve your mood.
- Stretch. Roll your neck, roll your shoulders, stretch out your arms and legs for a minute or two. This is the only body you have, and if you’re like me you might tend towards abusing it. Stretching doesn’t just keep your joints and muscles strong, it also helps you relax and feel more flexible.
- Disconnect. Go offline for a few minutes. Take a short walk. Step away from whatever you are doing and reset yourself. This can be less than five minutes, and I’ve always suspected this is part of the allure for smokers. You get away from it all for a few minutes to get your nicotine fix. For non-smokers, you also need a few minutes to get away and take a break from things. Leave your computer, tablet, and phone behind for 1 to 5 minutes, and free yourself.
Simple, easy, and quick
None of these things need to take more than 1 to 5 minutes. All of them will allow you to feel better. I know that I prefer feeling good over feeling bad.
It seems so very simple, and yet it’s neglected all too easily.
There are other options out there, of course. But rather than getting caught in the negativity of the world at large, you can generate positivity for yourself. From there, you might find you can do much, much more than you think.
Using these 5 ways to quickly generate non-toxic positivity isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you can do something active with non-toxic positivity, that doesn’t take long, you can find and make the time necessary to act on it for your betterment. Knowing that there are little, simple, quick things you can do to feel good, you have tools at your disposal to improve your day, week, month, and beyond.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and forty-eighth (548) 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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