Ask and Ye Shall Receive
Negativity or positivity – you receive what you ask the Universe for.
True fact: Spend 2 minutes scrolling through Facebook or Twitter and you will find bad news.
Some will be deeply personal. Someone passed away, a relationship ended, a job was lost, and so on. Most, though, will be broad and utterly impersonal. Politics, the ongoing pandemic, global warming, and on and on.
This can very quickly become overwhelming. I get it. Part of why I have been working to limit my time on social media is to stop myself from doomscrolling. Doing so can be both tempting and addicting.
I work hard to be an optimist. To do so, I’m constantly working to overcome inherent skepticism. The whole reason I started writing weekly on the topic of positivity was to put some more optimism out into a pessimistic, cynical, skeptical world.
Why? Because what you focus on you get. Like the Law of Gravity, the Law of Attraction is a natural law that works whether you believe in it or not.
Ergo, if you focus on the negatives of the world – that’s what you will see. It will confirm your belief that the world is a shitshow. Conversely, if you focus on the positives of the world – that’s what you will see.
While it really is that simple – there is added complexity to it. The easiest explanation of this is confirmation bias.
What does that mean? Confirmation bias is taking your long-established beliefs and values and seeking information that confirms them. And because we’re dealing with values and beliefs – this is a subconscious act.
Thus, ask and ye shall receive. Ask the Universe to show proof of your beliefs and values – and it will.
But you have the power to change that.
Values and beliefs can be changed
Values, beliefs, and habits are rooted in the subconscious. Many are so deeply rooted that we do not recognize them for what they are. Unless we come across something that makes us question them.
For example – I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1980s. My High School was very white, predominantly Lutheran, and heterosexual.
I chose to go to college in Ithaca, New York. I was quickly exposed to much more diversity.
It did not occur to me – until I met my first gay man – that I had beliefs buried deep that hanging out with someone gay might make ME different. Not gay, per se, just different.
But when I identified this bias and belief, I made a choice. Over the next four years, I went from skirting anything having to do with homosexuals – to tolerating them – to accepting them – to outright standing side-by-side with a friend and others as they came out publicly.
I recognized a value in me that I’d not known I had. With that recognition, I dove into my subconscious to identify it and change it.
Every aspect of you is changeable. And that is achieved by first practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness is not just a buzzword. It is conscious awareness, here and now, of what is both within and without. Greater mindfulness of the self makes for greater understanding of the self – and from there the world you live in.
Mindfulness is comprised of conscious awareness of sensory input via your six senses, here and now. That gets coupled with conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Practicing mindfulness opens you to interpret what you are asking the Universe for. When you know what you are asking for – you gain understanding of what you receive.
You choose to receive positivity or negativity
This statement, to many people, is bullshit.
Some of this may or may not be a familiar inner dialogue for you: I choose to receive positivity or negativity? Like hell I do. I didn’t ask for my crummy boss, my obnoxious children, the terrible health care in this country, or any of the other shit that I deal with daily.
You might be right – you didn’t ask, specifically, for those things. At least, not consciously. But if your subconscious beliefs and values see the world negatively – then yes, you did ask for all of that.
When you hold beliefs and values about the trials, tribulations, and struggles of life – that’s what you get. This is a law of nature – whether you believe in it or not. Like attract like. Consciousness creates reality. Deep down, if you have beliefs and values telling you the world is a nightmare, a never-ending struggle – confirmation bias will find everything it can to confirm that.
Let me be clear – I am not suggesting that a positive attitude or optimism in any way should obliterate nor remove the negativity and pessimism. Toxic positivity does exactly that – it puts a focus on denying, erasing, and ignoring the negativity with rose-colored glasses and Pollyannaism. And that’s just not the truth of life.
Shit happens. That’s a fact of life. And there are all kinds of terrible, awful, horrid shitshows happening in the world at large. Optimism and positivity don’t remove that. But they do alter what and how YOUR personal, individual life experience will be.
You have a choice for what you focus on before you receive it. And whatever you choose to put your focus on is what you will get more of.
Ask and ye shall receive
Most people allow their subconscious to do the driving. Thus – beliefs, values, and habits that don’t necessarily serve them might put them into a negative, pessimistic mindset.
This is why mindfulness is so important. Because it makes you consciously aware, here and now, of yourself. Who, what, why, where, and how you are in this moment is you. Past beliefs, values, and habits brought you to this moment. And from this moment, and the next moment after that, and the next after that, you’re choosing what you are receiving from the Universe.
Choose to focus on negativity – that’s what you’ll see. Focus on positivity – and you open yourself to potential and possibilities.
Let me be clear – this will not impact anyone other than you. That’s because you can’t control anything outside of yourself.
If, in this iteration, you get one chance to live, to exist, to experience the world around you – do you desire to do that in negative misery or positive joy? Or, more realistically – wouldn’t you prefer to live with a more positive, optimistic approach to life, the Universe, and everything? That’s what this is all about.
Ask and ye shall receive. Consciously or subconsciously. But choosing to do so consciously puts you behind the wheel and ultimately gives you control to choose for yourself.
In the words of Marie Forleo – Everything is figureoutable.
I can’t speak for you – but I sure as hell know what I prefer for my approach. And there are days I fail to be optimistic and positive. But when I recognize this – I choose anew for the next day.
You have the same choice. That choice will impact what you receive – but it is always changeable.
Altering what you ask for from life and receive isn’t hard
It begins with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Knowing that your beliefs, values, and habits exist in your subconscious – and may be outdated and steering you negatively – you can use mindfulness of your present conscious awareness to change them. When you are more consciously aware in the here and now, you can choose to focus on receiving life, the Universe, and everything via positivity and optimism – rather than negativity and pessimism. And that ultimately empowers you.
When you are empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and spreads to more people. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity. A feedback loop everyone everywhere can take part in.
Then, we build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That becomes the impetus to improve numerous aspects of our lives for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
You, me, and everybody are worthy and deserving of all the good we desire.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of pure positivity. That positivity can generate even greater positive energies – and that is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred and ninety-third 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.
Please visit here to explore all of 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!
