Sometimes You Need to Work Through The Negativity First
Nontoxic positivity is the other side of the coin.
Sometimes it feels like everywhere you turn there’s something negative that comes up. It feels like it’s all too easy to find things that make you angry, annoyed, scared, flustered, and downright unhappy.
Life is never going to be all sunshine, lollipops, joy, and rainbow sprinkles. Shit happens. We all have negativity rear its ugly head. Someone does something upsetting, the government fails to protect the people, you wake up with a nasty head cold, and so on. No matter who you are, what you do, or where you come from, you can, will, and do experience negativity in your life.
The thing is, a lot of the messaging of the world today tells you to blow it off, ignore it, disregard it. Or, far worse, use it to get angry, do bad things, lie, cheat, steal, and whatever else it takes to “win.” What they fail to tell you is that sometimes you need to work through the negativity first, in order to do anything productive or effective for your life experience.
But what does that look like?
How do you work through the negativity?
This is relatively easy. But it begins by being present, here and now, and practicing active conscious awareness. Mindfulness is how you get in touch with yourself, specifically what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and your actions. From there, you gain control of yourself and can direct the things you do, both tangible and intangible.
Once you’re practicing mindfulness, the first step for working through negativity is to recognize it. Yes, you need to look at it and see that person/place/thing/concept that’s making you angry, upset, sad, flustered, or whatever other negative you’re experiencing.
Recognition, however, isn’t enough. Now you need to acknowledge it. Just because you’ve recognized it doesn’t mean that you acknowledge it. You can recognize it, then turn away from it, close your eyes to it, or get childish and run away, screaming, “nah nah nah not seeing! Not hearing!” or the like.
Acknowledging that, yes, you see it there, is how you can now look at it more closely. What, exactly, is this person/place/thing/concept that’s making you feel so negative? How and why is it impacting you?
With that knowledge, now you can work through it. Maybe you need to accept it to move past it. Perhaps you need to do something about it, either mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and/or physically. Maybe you need to make new choices and/or decisions to counter or replace it.
Via your active conscious awareness, you can apply mindfulness to choose and decide who, what, where, how, and why you are. Then, with that, you can work through the negativity.
From there, you can find and/or create (nontoxic) positivity.
Nontoxic positivity is authentic positivity
The idea of the power of positive thinking often overlooks the truth: Shit happens. Life can, will, and does sometimes suck. Jobs are lost, relationships end, injuries happen, people die, good things turn bad, and so on. Nobody lives a life free of pain, sadness, sorrow, and worry.
Nontoxic positivity doesn’t simply recognize and acknowledge this. It works with it. How? By being potential and possibility in any new choices you make. I lost my job; that sucks, but now I can take this opportunity to go back to school/start that business/explore the hobo lifestyle, or whatever. Nontoxic positivity is choices and decisions made for the better after experiencing negativity.
Making the world a better place takes work. Frequently, that begins with you and me. We need to be proactive in our choices and decision-making. When we do that, we can pick nontoxic positivity for our approach.
That’s what it’s all about. Thought and feeling can be positive, but it’s really how you approach this, that, or the other thing that requires nontoxic positivity. Especially in the face of/following negativity.
It does take work. You need to be consciously aware when you make your choices and decisions to do this. And, depending on what generated the negativity, you might need to work through it first, before making a new choice and/or decision.
Be here now. Work to be present, focused on who, what, where, how, and why you are, right here, right now. Only in that way can you apply mindfulness and work through negativity or a lack of any genuine thought/feeling/intent/approach for the better. This doesn’t work subconsciously, nor can it apply to the past or future. It’s all about the present.
You are worthy and deserving of succeeding in that and working through negativity.
Working through the negativity first isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
Recognizing and acknowledging that bad things can, will, and do happen, you can use this to not just see the results but work through them in whatever way you need so that they don’t dominate your mindset/headspace/psyche self and life experience. Knowing that you can use mindfulness to take charge and work with and through whatever negativity you’re experiencing, you can then choose or decide to find and/or create nontoxic positivity to move on and continue living as you would most desire to.
This empowers you. When you’re empowered, that can, in turn, empower others around you. That’s why I share these weekly posts with you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in ways that open you to more potential, possibility, and the like. From there, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you in the here and now.
The more aware you are of yourself in the present, 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 and empower them, too. That is an amazing conduit to help reason overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
This is the six-hundred-fifty-ninth (659) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energy for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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