How Can Negativity Possibly Be Empowering?
Negativity is an unexpected teacher.
Positivity, the opposite of negativity, is empowering. In a fear-based society, overloaded with fake lack, scarcity, and insufficiency, positivity is necessary. There is, however, a catch. You can’t have positivity without negativity.
The mistake that toxic positivity makes is its utter denial of negativity. Toxic positivity tells you to blot out negativity, ignore it, put blinders on to it, avoid it, and disregard it. That is, however, impossible. Shit happens. No matter who you are, you’ll experience loss, grief, pain, suffering, and all the negatives you can conceive of.
Genuine positivity recognizes the need for negativity. Yes, you read that correctly – positivity needs negativity. You and I live in a universe of paradoxes, opposites, and nuances where you can never eliminate any one thing for another. Thus, positivity does, in fact, need negativity.
This is because positivity is a creator to negativities destroyer. It’s about high and low frequencies, which all energies vibrate at. There will always be a range of frequencies from low to high and everywhere in between.
The black and white of extremes and opposites gets most of the focus in our society. They are, however, extremes and opposites. They don’t exist directly apart from one another. There’s a wide range of greys and colors between any extremes.
Black and white aren’t the only colors. Light and dark aren’t the only illumination options. Up and down has much between them. Pick any opposite extremes, there’s something between them.
What’s more, they’re seldom stable. Yesterday’s good is tomorrow’s bad. For example, JK Rowling. When she came onto the scene with books getting tons more kids reading, she was good. Now, identified as a TERF and probable antisemite, she’s bad.
Hence, negativity isn’t always bad or disempowering.
Are you confused?
I write here about positivity every week. In these essays, I’m espousing the power of positivity for empowerment and how much the world needs more.
Isn’t the idea that negativity isn’t always bad or disempowering contradictory? This is a question of context.
The unavoidable reality of life is that bad things can, will, and do happen. Some are, relatively speaking, minor. Overcrowded airplanes, car accidents, getting something other than what you ordered, and the like. Others are not so minor, not so major, like getting fired, getting dumped, losing friends, and the like. Then you get the major bad things, like death, disfiguration, serious injury, and so forth.
When it comes to how you react to negative events, there’s no One Size Fits All measure. A car accident might traumatize one person the same way the death of a pet or other loved one traumatizes another. This is not as important as recognizing the overall reality of negativity, and that it can, will, and does occur.
Toxic positivity tells you that negativity in all forms is bad and should be ignored or avoided. Genuine positivity, however, recognizes and acknowledges reality, and that bad/negative things are part of life for everyone.
Initially, bad/negative things suck. They’re unpleasant, disempowering in the moment of their happening (and for a variable time after), and are unwanted. There’s nothing good about bad/negative things when they occur.
It’s how long you allow them to impact you where the trouble lies, or empowerment begins.
How can negativity possibly be empowering?
At the time of the bad or negative thing that occurs, no matter the scale, you’re utterly present and in the moment. You inadvertently find yourself in the now, which just so happens to be the only time that’s really, truly, real.
When you learn of or witness a death, get dumped, experience a car accident, or whatever, the moment it occurs you’re wholly present. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of that moment are mindful, although they might be unintentional (thus, not entirely consciously aware. Akin to all the elements that go into driving a car).
Immediately after the bad/negative thing, chances are you will stay in a negative place. You feel bad, angry, sad, hurt, frightened, distressed, lost, confused, and/or other negative emotions or combinations of them. At the time of the bad/negative thing and for an immediate time after it, you’ll find yourself immersed in negativity.
However, you can choose not to stay there. This might take hours, days, weeks, even months and years before you’re willing and able to choose. However, you can choose.
Some people disbelieve that. Shit happened, life sucks, it’ll suck forever, fuck it all. You might have done this before. Yet you can always choose to leave the victim/wounded mentality at any time.
Whatever happened, happened. However long it sucks, it sucks. Yet you have the power to learn from the negativity. You can take what happened and make something new from it.
Thus, instead of being wounded or victimized by the bad/negative thing that happened, you can use it as the impetus for growth and change.
So long as you are drawing breath and alive, you’re capable of choosing new paths, making changes, and taking lessons from negative happenings to empower yourself to change things.
You empower you
Empowerment is not something that comes from without. It begins inside of you. Being empowered is a product of active conscious awareness. You know, mindfulness.
This is accomplished by being present, here and now, and consciously aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, if your approach to things is from a place of positivity or negativity, your intentions, and what actions you do or don’t take. Practicing mindfulness uses these elements of your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self to analyze both your present surroundings (inside and outside of yourself) and your subconscious beliefs, values, and habits.
From there, you can make choices and directions to take the wheel and assume control of your life experience.
Contrary to politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, and some teachers and gurus, nobody can make choices and decisions for you and your life. You empower you. When negative/bad things happen, and you find yourself in a place of negativity, you can choose to change that.
Thus, when shit happens and you’ve had that bad/negative experience, you’re empowered, ultimately, to learn from it. Then, you can seek to grow, change, and evolve from it. Or not. The choice is, after all, yours.
Finally, you are worthy and deserving of this. You’re not merely here to survive but to thrive and experience all the potential and possibilities that life has to offer. This is an abundant universe you live in, despite the many messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Truly, all the intangibles are abundant beyond your imagination, and any tangibles can be replaced or substituted for in some way.
Understanding how negativity can be empowering 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 shit happens, and negative/bad things are unavoidable, you can position yourself to allow yourself to feel bad, while also learning from the negative/bad experience after it’s happened. Knowing that you can learn something from anything that happens, good, bad, or otherwise, you can see how you’re better able to deal with the unexpected and find lessons you can learn to grow and evolve.
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 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 thirtieth (530) 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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