Why Can Rethinking Be Applied to Anything and Everything?
Rethinking is vital to self-awareness, change, and life overall. It’s also applicable to positivity.
On Monday, February 4 of 2014, I saw something that distressed me. Across social media – Facebook and Twitter specifically – negativity. Lots, and lots of negativity.
People were seemingly just miserable. Lamenting the start of the workweek, stressing out about deadlines and expectations, and utterly unhappy and negative overall.
That got me thinking. What, if anything, can I do to help? Is there some way I can inject some positivity into this bleak landscape?
At this point, I had been sharing my Pathwalking philosophy weekly for just over 2 years. The self-made challenge to do more writing regularly had been met. But I could do more.
Thus, I sat down, and I wrote the first-ever Positivity post. And this has been my weekly project for over 8 years.
What started as an idea to help people move away from expressing negativity has evolved quite a lot. In part because my writing has evolved. Hell, that first post written more than 422 weeks ago is formatted quite differently than my articles are now.
But more than that – my understanding of and approach to positivity as a semi-tangible abstract has changed considerably.
I am always learning. And I read a lot. Also, I do a great deal of self-analysis and work on mindfulness practices. Thus, I am often rethinking things.
Positivity falls into this category. And the current book I am reading is causing a tremendous amount of rethinking on my part.
Before I get into this – let’s explore the concept of rethinking.
Nothing in life is set in stone
A lot of people have trouble accepting this idea.
You have a belief or value. It’s been with you for so long you can’t necessarily trace it to its origin. And it’s rooted deep in your subconscious. Under normal reflection and examination, it has always been and always will be, far as you’re concerned. Might as well be set in stone.
Odds are – it has not been there forever. The belief or the value you cling to was formed somewhere deep in the past – possibly in your young adulthood, but also quite possibly much earlier in your childhood. Because it exists mostly in your subconscious mind – as far as you’re concerned it simply is and always has been.
But when you do dive into your subconscious via mindfulness and your present, conscious awareness, you’ll likely discover that this belief or value you think is set in stone isn’t even remotely so. It may even be something that consciously, in the light of day, you don’t hold to.
Some people hit this and become open to pivot. Others double down, dig in deep, and hold the line because that’s what they know – and they can’t or won’t adapt.
Rethinking is all about adaptation. You see this thing – be it tangible or intangible – and rather than think of it as you always have – you give it a new thought. Take a new approach. Look at it with fresh eyes, literally, metaphorically, and sometimes both.
Even if you actively work on rethinking – you might choose to stick with what you already believe or value. Or you might make no choices at all. Or maybe you blame someone or something for the cracks in your reality you encounter. It’s always a choice.
Now I’d like to share my current rethinking process.
Rethinking can be painful – but only at first
Recently, I downloaded Gary John Bishop’s Stop Doing that Sh*t: End Self-Sabotage and Demand Your Life Back. I read his Unf*k Yourself at some point a couple of years ago. And I’ve written about my struggles with self-sabotage multiple times over the years.
I wanted to take a new look at this, so I started to read. And holy shit – this has been a real eye-opener.
Mr. Bishop offered insight into the main saboteurs one might encounter in this life. And it’s been a real kick in the head for me. I’m at a very interesting point in the book – but I already highly recommend it if you deal with self-sabotage or imposter syndrome or anything else of the like.
Mr. Bishop makes no apology for his dislike of positivity. In fact, he calls it “a fucking disease spreading through society like wildfire.” He goes on to add, “the addiction to it (positivity) crushes everyone else who isn’t quite so effortlessly sprinkled with the magic yay-dust.”
Despite my being a longtime proponent of positivity – as evidenced in 8+ years of writing about it – I am not offended by Mr. Bishop’s perspective. Hell, I agree with the fundamentals of it. Though he doesn’t call it out – he’s mostly writing about toxic positivity. “I’ve also met far too many positivity-heads who become so encumbered by their sugary goodness that they ignored or lived in complete denial of the gravity of their situation. Until it was much too late.”
Frequently I write about how toxic positivity is harmful in its denial of negativity. I agree with Mr. Bishop completely here. But his overall perspective on this topic, past the toxic elements, is causing me to do some rethinking.
What am I thinking about now?
The topic of positivity is not simply thinking and feeling positive. It’s a whole approach to life. At least, it has been for me.
Yet I know that for some people – this doesn’t work. In some instances, it’s a diagnosable psychological matter. In others, it simply runs counter to them.
What’s more – as I’ve been exploring for a while now, positivity and negativity are on opposite ends of a flexible cylinder. Most of us exist somewhere between them – and they are constantly moving.
Realistically, we are often in a more neutral place via our subconscious mind.
What am I thinking? I am thinking that maybe it’s time to readdress my take on positivity. Perhaps it needs to be given a clearer approach based on our conscious and subconscious selves.
One thing I’m rethinking here is that it might be more realistic to strive for subconscious neutrality or indifference. To accept my place near the center of that cylinder – with less emphasis on positivity versus negativity.
When it comes to conscious awareness – mindfulness – it’s how I approach things from where I am now on the cylinder. Strive for positivity over negativity in what I am consciously doing. Choose what I give my attention to and work to not focus on the negatives.
What that amounts to is not allowing myself to fall down negativity rabbit-holes and stay neutral most of the time – while making conscious choices towards positivity like not talking shit about people and steering clear of what makes me feel negative – and accepting myself, warts and all.
How is this rethinking on my part? In this case, it’s about greater clarity. Mr. Bishop’s book is giving me new concepts that are sparking rethinking on multiple topics – positivity included. Rethinking is vital to self-awareness, change, and life overall.
Rethinking isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
When we are open to the possibility that how we think about something might not be set in stone, we open ourselves to rethinking. When we choose to work on rethinking anything at all – we open ourselves to new ideas, change, growth, and all sorts of potential and possibilities. That empowers me – and it can empower you, too. And we can use this to stay more neutral subconsciously, while consciously choosing things leaning towards the positive end of life’s extremes.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – I believe shifts the concept in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between those extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Finally, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experience will be. If that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and twenty-third 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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