Current Thoughts and Feelings Are Changeable
Thoughts and feelings are changeable. Whatever you are thinking and feeling is yours, and yours alone, and there is positivity in your power to change them as you desire.
Today is a grey and chilly day.
As I sit here at my desk, pondering what to write about, drinking my 3rd mug of coffee, I am feeling some trepidation and dis-ease. It’s not that I am feeling negative – I just am not feeling a topic in the positivity realm to write about.
I know and have written before, that you cannot and will not feel positive all the time. That’s just not possible. As a human being, you are going to have good and bad days, moments that are amazing and times that are godawful.
Some of these are deeply personal, impacting you directly because of choices you have made, people you associate with, the environment you live in, and so forth. Others, though, are out of your control because they are the result of actions (and inactions) on the part of people and things that happen randomly around you. And then, for added fun and entertainment, things occur far afield from any semblance of control on your part.
Because you cannot be positive at all times, it’s actually a part of positivity to feel uncertain. Dis-eased. Maybe even distressed.
What IS up to you, though, is how long you hold onto it and whether you change it or not.
Lingering thinking and feeling
Mindfulness is when you practice being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. These are, in point of fact, the only things over which you have any real control in your life. What you think, how and what you feel, and the actions you take belong to you and only you.
Shit happens that is going to not be positive. Some is simply frustrating, some annoying, some infuriating, and any other negative emotion you care to examine. Things will happen along the way on any given day to evoke thoughts and feelings. Actions you take can also stir what you think and feel or be the result of thoughts and feelings.
When shit happens to you, or your friends and family, or generally around you in such a way that it impacts your life, you will feel things. Congrats on human nature, this is something inescapable.
However, you get to choose how long to hold onto not feeling positive.
You are empowered to choose from a wide range of emotions in this life. Of course, the color and shape of the emotions vary from person to person. My perception of anger is not going to be the same as yours. But we are equally empowered to choose how long to hold onto any given thought or feeling.
So I could take this grey, chilly day, and my current uneasy feeling, hold onto it and let it stop me from writing or taking other actions I need to take today. Or I can make choices to release this, shunt if off to the background, or let it go.
Thoughts and feelings and actions are yours to choose
How does this choice work? First, it’s important to remember that mindfulness is your awareness of yourself. Specifically, your headspace. You are the only one in there, so you have all the power to choose what fills your head when all is said and done.
When you are coping with everyday things that make you feel not positive, you can choose to let that override and overwhelm your headspace or to take control over them.
These are just some basic overviews of your options:
- Hold onto it. To be blunt, this doesn’t serve you. Sure, there ARE times to be angry about going on in your life…but if it is distracting you from living it’s not serving you. Still, a lot of people choose this, not recognizing it for the damage it does to their psyche.
- Release it. When you are feeling or thinking about something not positive, you get to decide to hold onto it or let it go. Sometimes releasing it can be a matter of mediation, an alternative activity like exercise, shouting, or writing it out.
- Shunt it off to the background. This is mostly applicable to things way outside your control. Until the next election, or I write my Congresspersons, or attend a protest, lamenting the state of the government doesn’t serve my mood. Don’t let it go – just shunt it to a place of less dominance in your head.
- Let it go. This is like releasing it but a bit more direct. You acknowledge how you are thinking and feeling and just drop it. Release involves more time and analysis than just letting go.
No matter what you choose the choice is yours. Also, you might not enter a place of positivity, but rather one of neutrality. That’s still better than holding onto negativity.
Change is constant
Everything changes. It may be grey and chilly outside right now, but the sun might appear through the clouds and the air could warm-up.
Whatever you are thinking and feeling now will only be with you for as long as you hold onto it. You have the power to choose how long that will be.
Even if you choose neutrality, there is tremendous positivity in the power of that choice.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Finding positivity isn’t hard but it does require action
Knowing that you cannot be positive all the time, and thoughts, feelings, and actions are yours to control, you get to choose how long to hold onto things. When you choose to take control of and/or change your thoughts and feelings and be mindful of your actions, that ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to other people around you.
As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more things to feel positivity and gratitude.
Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of positivity that begets even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred-second 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.
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