Positivity - how I work on it everday
That makes me feel better because I know for sure that practice makes perfect! And that can be applied to Positivity also. Practice being positive, and you will become more positive.
I think I can take an educated guess that most people would describe me as a happy, friendly person with a good energy. It's been described as joyous recently which I love.
You see what I did there?I kept the positive description only!
What most people probably don't know about me is that I work on being positive.
Being positive does come naturally to me. It's genuine. I am positive and I my energy can light others up with my positivity.
However, when my self-confidence is low and it's my 'time of the month' it takes my practice of being positive to make sure I keep that smile on my face and my enthusiasm up. All that is still work in progress today and everyday.
For years, especially when I was a teenager, my hormones effected my mood. I know that now. But at the time I thought I was a moody and grumpy teenager. As I would infamously say to my friends when I was about to tell them something wrong, "to be perfectly honest" I thought I was hard work! And I told myself that for a long time, so my thoughts fed my brain with the same and that's who I had become for a while.
Like a drainpipe that gets clogged. When my positive vibes became blocked, it could take days to clear. Today I at least know what to do to clear negativity from my entire system but like, I said it means I need to consciously and deliberately work on it. When I was a teenager and in my 20's, I took pain killers, like way too many, in the hope I'd feel better physically, mentally and emotionally. I more often than not, wallowed in my own self pity every month and let my hormones get the better of me. But back then I didn't know any difference. I thought it was normal and that I should be in pain and in a mood.
I got used to it, it became part of me. It was who I was. Or at least I thought it was!Oh and just to point out. As I got older and drank every weekend, alcohol effected my moods further; the recovery time lengthened and my moods got worse as the lethargy often felt unbearable.
It's was and is a vicious circle.
If you let it!
If you are lucky, you are born with lots of positive genes. Some people have to be (I claim no scientific research).
I know now through my Positive Neuroplasticity training that our thoughts develop in utero at 0-7 months and most of them are developed when we are 0-3years. As we grow older we then need to do the work to reverse those that are not serving us.
OTHER PEOPLE
I have often looked at people, who to me, seem to me in a good mood all the time, with smiles on their faces; no signs they are stressed and wondered how they do it? Actually how do they do it? What's their secret? I wanted to know.
When you have to work harder. There's nothing else for it - you have to work hard at it. But work isn't a negative word and hard work doesn't have to be something to dread.
BE POSITIVE
Some one saying 'be positive' is not simple if you're feeling down, stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, worried, upset, concerned and like nothing is going right. Be positive can also sound insincere, lazy and non empathetic. You might as well say to someone "wise up" because it has the same effect which is an invisible silent slap right through your heart that tells you they person doesn't really understand. My advise is always be careful when you say this to someone unless you know the full picture.
When I hear someone saying "be positive" about a difficult situation, I grind (my already badly ground teeth) until they squeak because it's really not that easy. It gets easier when you do the work.
And 'be positive' does not manifest anything either.
WHAT I DID TO CHANGE?
A new approach to my attitude came around 2009.
I knew I had lots to be happy, positive and grateful for but honestly I was finding it too easy to chose the negative, what I didn't have in my life and started to think why I can't I be happy with what I have?
I heard that there was a book called 'The Secret' that could help me attract whatever I wanted into my life.
So I bought it, I read it and I started to believe the universe would gift to me whatever I wanted, because I thought about it; wanted to attract it and deserved it. And guess what? I attracted nothing. Nothing changed and my friends who had also read it, told me of stories of how they attracted the exact opposite of what they wanted. Like some actual disasters (well they seemed it at the time!) The thing was we didn't get it!!! We did not understand that making changes were as important to help move the process along not just thinking about them.
About 2 years later. I read it again.
And this time I got it!I did the 28 day challenge that is in The Magic.
Then for ages, I did nothing again.A few months later I started a daily gratitude practice. At the beginning of the New Year. This is when things really started to change.
I also had the patience to give it time to work.I had decided to chose happiness and constantly remembered that happiness is a journey not a destination. Otherwise I'd be spending my life craving the pleasures of instant gratification only and not experiencing joy along the way.
My daily practice of gratitude is a huge reason why I am able to experience I high degree of constant positivity.
The Secret states that 'Like attracts like'.
Therefore, I applied that to positivity - it attracts positivity.
WHAT, HOW AND WHY IT WORKED?
When I started my gratitude journal I knew that there was a force guiding me to do it. At the time I may have thought I understood exactly what that was. However, I now know for sure. That force was the source energy of the power that is the wonder of 'The Universe'.
We were working together.
The thing is, I made the decision to make a change rather than continue this vicious circle of letting negativity creep in .
Don't get me wrong, my life was good, but there was room for improvement and years of negative thoughts, influences and situations all needed to be reprogrammed and reframed. That meant work and time to let it work.
That's why I think that it worked for me. I worked on it. Every day and I didn't give up.
The major change for me was that I had the discipline to to do it. Every night I wrote and continue to be grateful about things that happen to me over the course of the day. On good days it's easy. On more challenging days it takes more thought but it's worth it.
As I developed my practice things started to change. I found myself reframing and thinking of the positive within situations that I would have complained about. My practice enabled me to be more grateful. I became less interested in things like gossip and bitching. As time has gone on, I attract negativity less and less, which is liberating and a welcomed surprise to the proceedings. I now cease up if it happens but luckily I have tools to protect myself daily. And when negative things happen it is much easier to get over them or see past them.
Gratitude helps enables a constant supply, so that when there are less positive times, I can call in on my positivity bank. On the worst of days (because yes there have been some along the way) I can be grateful. Something that was hard it do a few years ago.
In a way I guess I was changed my life with some positive psychology before I even knew what it was and then went on to study it!
GRATITUDE LEAD TO HEALING
Along the way as I started to attract more positive energy. I began my process as a healer. I started imagining energy and how I could help people and it found me, and that was when my life really started to change.
When more challenging times came (because they did and one with a massive unfair bang) I was able to deal with them with more clarity, focus and the ability to know that there can be a positive outcome if that is what I chose.
We all have a choice. I know that now.We can chose to remain stuck in our ways (of-course I am not talking about anyone who may need medical assistance) or not.
We can complain, bitch, gossip, see the glass as half empty or we can choose to change, be grateful and positive.
BE REAL
Be careful and authentic! Positivity can be fake and I have experienced passive aggressive behaviour in others as I have gone through my journey but I feel that I had to learn that. I experienced someone pretending to be a positive influence in my life but instead they were not telling me the truth and skirting around the issue. This is nearly worse than ignoring it. There are no words to describe how nervous that made me feel. It's not fair, it's not the truth and it made me feel the complete opposite to positive as I picked up the negative energy and thoughts towards me. Trust your intuition, if someone is being fake towards you I bet you, you know. Sometimes speaking the truth hurts but at least it's the truth rather than making someone feel like they've done something wrong all the time or that they're not good enough without saying it. It only leads to paranoia and stress so let's all agree to be authentically positive and we won't ever have to worry about - ok?
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Oh and if you're wondering! Controlling my hormones takes the help of a wonderful kinesiologist and energy healing also helps to keep stress and worries at bay, all of which contribute to how you feel.
Now that I understand my body, I no longer beat myself up about how my emotions can take over and that's the amazing breakthrough you see. That in itself makes me not feel guilty about how I acted. I do wish I'd known what I know now when I was younger but there is no looking back with anger or regret because I have been blessed in my 30's to have learned how to control my mental, physical and emotional state. I also just read a fab book called Love Your Lady Landscape and there is definitely some great advice in it. There are rituals, massages and drinks that could help also.
CHANGE IS GOOD
It is true what they say, you are never too old to make changes - fyi, I don't think I'm old it's just me expressing the importance of change at any age and never live in the fear that change is too hard or late.
Robin Sharma says " Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end"