Can A Negative Experience Be Used for Positivity?
Life is a matter of balance and choices.
For every extreme, there’s an opposite extreme. Up and down. Small and large. Left and right. Black and white. Tall and short. Good and evil. Positive and negative.
Often, these extremes are personified as opposite sides of a coin. The problem with this is that coins are flat, and most things exist not at either extreme end, but somewhere between them.
Take black and white, for example. Between these extremes is every color you can imagine. Then, beyond that, there are many shades of grey. This is true whether viewing black and white as literal colors or figurative opposites.
For this reason, I equate these extremes not as opposite sides of a coin, but instead as opposite sides of a cylinder. Taking the coin analogy and necessarily stretching it.
But there’s one last twist to this. Extremes are not constants. Good today can turn to evil tomorrow. Thus, the cylinder between the extremes is flexible.
This also reflects on the reality that there is only one constant in the entire universe: Change.
The reason I’m laying out all of this for you is because it’s necessary for understanding how a negative experience can be used for positivity.
The short of it is that you choose – from wherever you exist on the cylinder between extremes – which way to face. Thus, when something negative occurs, you choose to continue to face that way – or turn towards the positive.
It always comes down to choice. But before we get into that, let’s address an important reality of life.
Bad things happen
It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you have, or anything else at all in life. Bad, negative things do, can, and will happen to you.
Relationships will end, friends will depart, loved ones will die, jobs will evaporate, plans will fail, and so on and so forth. Yes, this is all harsh – but it’s the truth.
This is where toxic positivity gets it wrong. We cannot avoid, deny, or pretend this isn’t the way of life. Nobody can or should exist in positivity all the time.
Why? Because when shit happens, it presents an opportunity. It can be a chance to learn, grow, and evolve. From bad things, we can be encouraged to take new steps, seek different options, try new things, and so on.
The problem is, some people see bad things as being their right, their curse, their punishment for something or other. They experience something bad and anticipate more bad to follow.
Believe it or not, the Law of Attraction is real, and consciousness creates reality. Remain facing negativity and you’ll get what you ask for.
No, I’m not suggesting grief, trauma, and the like can or should be ignored. But neither should they be the defining factors of your life. However, some people choose to be traumatized and victimized as their identity. I get it, some shit went down – but it only defines you for as long as you allow it to.
Leaving behind trauma and grief might require professional help. But it is always possible. A negative experience can be used for positivity.
How can a negative experience be used for positivity?
Let’s say someone you love dearly has died. It feels like a piece of your heart was ripped out, and your grief is terrible.
Do whatever grieving is necessary for you – there’s no wrong answer here. But in time, as you’re still here, you must move on. And I’m fairly certain that your loved one would not want you to wallow in pain, but instead see you live on.
Hence, you can take that pain and use it to do something you might previously have felt you couldn’t do. Perhaps that loved one’s death spurs you to action, to change your life so that you can live more for both of you.
This might seem extreme, but it’s an example of how a negative experience can be used for positivity.
This is not a disservice to a lost loved one. On the contrary, you’re honoring them by making a new start and living despite them being gone.
This is just as true for less devastating and traumatic things. A lost job can be the impetus to entrepreneurship, new educational choices, training, or choosing to do something more worthy of you.
The reality of nearly every negative experience is that it provides an opportunity for growth, change, evolution, and the like. Yes, that can truly suck on a lot of levels. But sometimes it takes extreme measures to make good and necessary changes in your life.
Some personal experiences with this
I’ve experienced this phenomenon first-hand, more than once.
Almost 24 years ago, I was hit by a car while crossing the street. My injuries were severe, and there was a distinct possibility for permanent damage and necessary – but unwanted – changes to my life. While this was painful, deeply unpleasant, and awful on many levels, I didn’t allow it to negatively define me. Instead, I chose to find positivity from this accident, and used that to better myself, my approach to life, and my desire to experience as many possibilities and all the potential as I can.
I could’ve focused on the negatives. There were plenty. But instead, I made the choice to use this negative experience to find and create positivity on multiple levels.
Less devastating, but nonetheless upsetting, I had what I believed to be an amazing relationship fizzle out. It’s not that I won’t be accountable for my actions – I take full responsibility for my culpability in the happenings of my life – but I don’t know what I did. A communications breakdown left me in the dark.
This sucks. But rather than let it dissuade me from future relationships, I’m moving on and letting it go. What’s more, rather than let the negative experience color future relationships (intimate or otherwise), instead, I’ll make certain to be as open and honest a communicator as I possibly can.
Yes, in both above instances, there was pain – physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. There was suffering. However – I made a choice. Can’t avoid, disregard, or pretend a negative experience didn’t happen – so why not seek to find and/or create positivity from it?
No matter the degree of negativity – you always have a choice along the way.
Be mindful that you have choices
It’s all too easy to allow grief, trauma, sadness, and negativity to dominate your life. It certainly doesn’t help that we live in a fear-based society that hyper-focuses on artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Additionally, it doesn’t help that we’re frequently encouraged to fall into groupthink, live our lives by rote and routine, and not be mindful.
But we all have a choice. Each and every one of us can choose to be more actively consciously aware. Conscious awareness opens us to being more present, here and now, and mindful of who, what, where, how, and why we are.
Mindfulness is active conscious awareness. It’s employed by recognizing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and what you are and aren’t doing. But it takes effort to be actively, consciously aware.
You’re empowered to employ mindfulness so that you can take a negative experience and use it to build positivity. But only if and when you actively choose to do so.
I’m going to generalize here, but if you’re living and breathing, you always have choices available. They might be imperfect, but they exist. You, and you alone, can choose to apply them. Or not.
When you recognize and acknowledge any choices available to you, you can take a negative experience and find and/or create positivity from it. It might take some time and effort, but in my experience, it’s always worth it. And so are you.
Finding positivity from a negative experience isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that negativity is unavoidable, shit happens, and you will go through negative experiences in life, you can be more capable of taking them and reshaping them into something positive. Knowing that you can use mindfulness to see a path from a negative experience to positivity – and that a lot of space exists between these extremes – you can choose to do the necessary work, let it go, and move forward.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and ninth (509) 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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