How Does Positivity Build and Empower You?
Non-toxic positivity is an essential tool of creativity that empowers you.
You are a creative being. It doesn’t matter if you’re an artist or not. You’re a creative being.
The nature of creation is so broad and vast that it boggles the mind. Yes, the arts and all the elements of them are the ultimate form of creation, but they aren’t any better or more powerful than any other form creation takes.
Making the perfect cup of coffee or tea is creative. Raising a child is creative. Cooking a meal is creative. Learning how to swim, ride a bike, drive a car, or develop any skill is creative. Ergo, you are a creative being.
Unfortunately, many forces in the world prefer that you don’t see this for what it is. They fear you being your best, most creative self, because doing that you will empower you. Empowered people are much, much harder to influence, sway, and control.
Much of this is built on fear. Fear of not fitting in, not having or being enough, fear of missing out, fear of looking idiotic, fear of suffering. That’s why so many of the messages are, at their core, negative. It’s also why this is a fear-based society, because certain greedy, uncaring, unkind people and entities great and small believe they have control by making you and I live in fear.
Empowered people see through that. Then they make choices and decisions to increase their empowerment, share that with others, and break more people out of the fear-based society cycle.
One of the best tools for this is positivity. However, positivity has a competitor pretending to be the same that is not.
What is toxic positivity?
Toxic positivity is a no-holds-barred, allow-nothing-bad-or-negative approach to life. It puts blinders on you to keep out feeling bad, experiencing pain and suffering, and even going so far as to deny anything and everything negative.
It is sold frequently as a cure, a placebo, an all-powerful practice that’s never wrong. One of the more twisted versions of toxic positivity is how The Secret treats The Law of Attraction. The Secret, which I’m a fan of in principle, has popularized the idea that with an exclusively positive focus, allowing ZERO negativity in in any way, you can be, do, or have anything. But it neglects to recognize that work is involved – since you can’t create from the pure void.
Toxic positivity is toxic because of its treatment of negativity, how it disregards and ignores all bad and negative things, and then goes so far as to suggest all negativity is undesirable and bad.
Life is made of good and bad. You can’t know one without the other. Then these extremes are often given too much attention at the expense of the far more abundant “isms” between them.
Genuine, authentic, real positivity is not the end-all-be-all, only-game-in-town idea. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from negativity. It’s a choice of approach and viewpoint often in the face of negativity, or in moving away from bad things.
Genuine positivity not only recognizes negativity, it acknowledges that they must coexist. Often, it is as a result of something negative that you choose to create something positive.
Creating and creativity, of course, will empower you.
How does positivity build and empower you?
Let’s say you have a job that you don’t love, but are comfortable in. Your pay is okay, but not spectacular. The commute is annoying but acceptable. It’s fine, though you wish you were following your passion. But, for now, you keep working.
Then one day you’re laid off. Buh-bye. Your job is gone. A whole lot of negatives come to mind. What will you do now? How will you pay your bills? How will this impact your relationships? What if everything else in your life unravels and comes apart?
These are realistic possibilities to consider. But now you have a choice. Put your focus on how much this sucks and how bad it is that you’ve lost your job. Or use this as the catalyst to find a better job or follow your passion.
The choice to let the negative emotions, thoughts, and feelings control you is disempowering. That’s because you’re not creating, but instead breaking down and maybe even destroying (like if you turn to alcohol, overeating, or anything else destructive after losing your job). Or you can choose to see this as an opportunity and use the negative occurrence of losing your job to take a positive approach and build something new. That’s a choice of empowerment because you’re acting to move forward in a creative way.
This might only involve updating your resume, learning some new skills, and/or practicing interview techniques. That’s still creating, proactive, and thus a practice of positivity. And because you take that proactive action and a positive approach, you’re building more positivity and simultaneously empowering yourself.
It is and it’s not that simple
It comes down to choices and decisions. Specifically, active, consciously aware choices and decisions. In other words, mindfulness.
Only the now, the present moment, is real. The past has come and gone and can’t be altered, changed, undone, or redone. Likewise, the future is unwritten. Multiple factors wholly out of your control will go into its creation.
Here and now, however, you have the power to choose and decide. Shit has happened. Do you choose to stay here, in neutral, and lament the happening? Or choose negativity and mope and wish something had gone differently in the past? Or do you pause and reflect, here and now, recognize and acknowledge what has happened and what is happening, then take a positive approach to build something new?
A positive approach and authentic positivity is a choice that empowers you. It lets you have control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions to use positivity to build anew. That empowers you because it’s all about you.
Sometimes it will feel selfish. But it’s not. Other times, it will feel overwhelming. Let it happen, recognize and acknowledge it, then work to let that go and keep going. Creating, and choosing for yourself rather than letting another do it for you feels good, generates positivity, and builds you up. That, ultimately, empowers you.
Empowerment is how you take the wheel of your life. Driving a car is both simple and not simple. So, too, is driving your life. The result, either way, is you are choosing where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there. Working with creativity – even a little bit – sparks empowerment. Coupled with genuine positivity, the potential and possibilities for you and your life are endless.
Working with positivity to build and empower you 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 negativity cannot be avoided or disregarded, and only you can choose and decide your approach to life, you can use genuine, non-toxic positivity to build, create anew, and ultimately empower yourself. Knowing that you’re the only you that there is – and that you alone can be actively consciously aware and mindful – you can make choices and decisions from a positive approach to take control of your life experience via your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach. Then you can direct your creativity and actions with authentic positivity.
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-fifty-first (551) 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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