Pathwalking 140
Positivity is vitally important to Pathwalking.
Last week I began to explore this, and discussed at length when you know you are feeling predominantly negative what you need to do. After you identify the what and how and why, and determine which aspects of these you have any control over, you proceed to find a way to change the emotion you are feeling.
As I stated before, the means that works for dealing with this today may not work at all tomorrow. What works for me might not work for you. But like many aspects of our shared existence, there are universal archetypes we can delve into in order to explore and find solutions to this.
I touched on the idea of distractions. Sometimes you need a distraction to reset your emotions. It might be mental, like reading a book or playing a video game, it might be physical like a workout at a gym or eating something or taking a drive or such. It might be emotional, like sitting to meditate or closing your eyes and listening to music or sitting beside a body of water and watching and listening to it flowing. It can certainly be a combination of these.
Sadly, all too often a distraction is too momentary, and once you leave it the negativity you have been feeling reclaims you. Sometimes the positivity of a distraction will carry forward, but as nothing has been done about the root of the negativity, more than likely it will not. You were able to get away from the what and how and why that are making you feel negative, but you have not done anything to deal with it at its root.
How do you deal with the root? What can you do about the what and how and why? I have to admit here that I do not fully know the answer to this question. What’s more, as I have stated before, the answer today may very well fail me tomorrow. But there are some over-arching ideas that can be applied in order to achieve the intended goal of turning away from negativity to positivity.
Deal with the aspects of the what how and why you can control. Identify what you can claim control over. What aspects of the what how and why can you control? It may only be a part of one, or the whole of one, or aspects of all of these, but when you can identify what you have control of, you can do something with and about it.
If in the process of identifying what you have control of you realize that the answer is none, then you need to evaluate your feelings on the matter. Getting emotionally invested in something over which you have no real control starts you down a slippery slope, and you will find yourself working with things you can’t do anything about. Getting emotional and negative over things completely outside of your control can happen, but when it does you need to evaluate that, and take back your emotional state.
Seek out help for the aspects you cannot control. Let’s be blunt a moment here – you may be in need of therapy. If you realize you are emotional about things you have zero control over, you might be in need of help. While professional help is critical for many people, sometimes all you need is a sympathetic ear. You might just need to talk it all out with someone, so you can purge the negative emotions and start fresh.
Pathwalking, I state again and again, is an individual process. However, that does not mean you have no choice but to go it alone. There is no shame in admitting you need and then seeking out help. Frankly, there are numerous times that getting help would resolve matters more easily, and it should not be avoided.
Find and create shifters. There are concepts, ideas, and intangibles that should be stored in the memory which serve to “shift” your mood. I can think of no one who does not have a memory that instantly makes them smile. Have some of these readily available, so that you can call them up and examine them in the mind’s eye to shift your mood.
For some it helps to add another element. A taste, a smell, a visual, a touch, a sound that will awaken that memory, and help you to shift your emotional state. There are different shifters for different moments and moods, but this is something easily neglected but really helpful to have in place.
Change your path. Maybe your state of dissatisfaction is a sign. Maybe you are not on the path you should be. Maybe you are so focused on your current path you are not seeing other choices, or maybe you are wandering aimlessly and don’t even realize it. I have said before and will likely say again that paths are always fluid. However, it is REALLY easy to become so enamored of a given path, you put on blinders and walk it even when it is not working.
This can manifest as negativity. You become distraught, you get overwhelmed, you start feeling unhappy far more frequently than you feel happy. If you find this happening to you, you need to consider all of your options, and the path you are on now may be the problem.
The important thing to remember is that you have options…lots and lots of options. No one is trapped unless they allow themselves to become so. If you have fallen into the pit of negativity, and you are having difficulties in overcoming that feeling, remember that you are not alone and there is ALWAYS a way to be found.
Do you feel predominantly positive or negative?
This is the one-hundred fortieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share. Thank you for joining me.
The first fifty-two weeks (Year One) of installments of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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