Finding and/or Creating Balance with Positivity
Positivity is a great tool for finding and/or creating balance.
Nobody has a life that is utterly fair or easy. Everyone has good days, bad days, amazing days, godawful days, and everything in-between.
When it comes to my life, all I can control is me. That means I can take charge of my life experience, how and what I think, feel, intend, and act upon. Things can, will, and do happen that will cause me to think and feel in certain ways at certain times. But overall, I have control over that.
What does that mean? For example, if I get into a car accident, my immediate, visceral reaction might be anger if it’s not my fault; distress if it is my fault; or a mix of both or some other powerful negative emotion.
Immediately after that initial reaction, I can take back control. Or not. There are three primary choices:
- Just go with it and see what happens
- Let the negative emotion take me down an unreasonable path
- Take back control via mindfulness to be logical and reasonable
It is entirely possible to take all three of these in this order – or some combination. But whatever happens, I am faced with choosing to take the control that I can – or not.
When I recognize that I am having a bad day – for whatever reason – I have the above three options to choose from.
I can continue to let it go and see if it changes via outside influences, the winds, or some other unknown.
The negative feelings that dominate my bad day can show me more negatives to consider, lament, and get angrier/more depressed about.
– Or –
I can practice being mindful and take control over my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions via mindfulness.
You alone control you
When you are faced with a bad day, bad news, or anything else negative – you can choose to do nothing, feel into the negative, or take control and strive to change it.
No, this is not easy. Our society is utterly fear-based. Media of every sort prefers us to stay disempowered, afraid, and negative. Why? So that they can sell us the cure, aphrodisiac, random item we don’t really need, and veritably everything else tangible and intangible.
The less you recognize how you can control your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – the more the outside influences push to persuade you to yield to them. Give in and have the drink, vote for the liar, buy the shoes, keep up with the Joneses – or keep suffering.
Much of the fear you and I are spoon-fed is not direct nor immediate. Most of it is a fear of suffering.
Consumerism is all about buying goods and services to prevent suffering. From Botox treatments (so you look less old and suffer less judgment) to Odor-Eaters (so you won’t be judged for stinky feet) – it’s all about avoiding suffering.
Because of our fear-based society, it appears that everything is off-balance.
Thus, it looks and feels like the whole world may be going to hell in a handbasket.
Is the balance between positive and negative truly off?
No. But because of how media works and the use of fear to sell everything under the sun – we see that more than we see the good and positive.
That doesn’t mean that the bad things happening out there can and should be completely ignored. But we don’t need more than the basic awareness of them so that we can do our part for the greater good. You need to be mindful of COVID so that you wear a mask and maintain social distance so we can stop it. Know who hasn’t only their own interests at heart so you can support good businesses and better politicians.
Most of the suffering we’re sold is specific to us. If we don’t buy this, that, or the other thing, we’ll be abandoned, judged, unloved, and likely voted off the island. Suffering galore will come.
In the words of Paulo Coelho from The Alchemist,
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”
You and I have the power to employ mindfulness. Doing so engages our conscious awareness. That allows us to see what we’re thinking, what and how we’re feeling, what we are doing, and all our intentions. Recognizing that tells us where we are at and what we are doing with it.
But this is not a one-and-done matter. Using mindfulness to be consciously aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions is a day-to-day, situation-to-situation matter.
Often, you can go with the flow and be on autopilot. But when you’re in a more extreme situation, it’s good to know you have this tool.
The most extreme situations can be things like accidents, deaths, losing jobs, getting dumped, and all the other bad/negative happenings over which we have zero control.
Positivity to find and/or create balance
When shit happens, you will experience an immediate visceral reaction. The negativity can be minor and disconcerting – or all-powerful and mind-numbing. Depends on what has happened and all kinds of unpredictable situations and experiences.
Immediately after the initial reaction, you have the power to take control. Thus, you can choose if you will do nothing, head down the negative spiral, or turn it around.
But what about the day-to-day fear-mongering and other negatives? This is where positivity to find and/or create balance can be utterly empowering.
Every single day I choose if I am going to take in the news, discuss situations way outside of my control, and let any other negatives dominate my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Thus, every single day I can decide if I will do nothing, head down that negative spiral, or find and/or create positivity to counter those negatives.
There are ALWAYS positive things to be found. Often, they’re super small and seemingly insignificant. For example:
- I’m alive
- I am breathing
- There are new ideas to be learned
- Books to be read
- New people to meet
- Cats and dogs to pet
- The moon is beautiful
- My cat’s purr is soothing
- I have clean running water
Every one of these tiny matters can be tremendous vessels to build up more positivity. When all is said and done, so long as I live, I can find and/or create positivity.
The more we do this, the more we balance the scales in our fear-based society. And because like attracts like, each of us can contribute to building a logic-base to replace the fear-base.
It starts with you and me. And positivity is a great tool for finding and/or creating balance in ourselves – and from there the world at large.
Finding and/or creating balance with positivity isn’t hard
It begins with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Knowing that you control your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – you can decide to counter the imbalance of negativity by finding and/or creating more positivity. When you take that control into yourself, you can do a lot to handle everyday situations just as well as the unexpected and unpleasant shit that happens sometimes. That ultimately empowers you.
When you are empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and spreads to other people. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity – a feedback loop everyone everywhere can take part in.
Then, together, 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-seventh 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!
