Find a positive way forward, there's always one

As stated many times, the path of personal evolution is at its core, about shifting our mental states and attitudes towards a more positive way of thinking. This isn’t just about training and forming positive habits, it’s about transformation, becoming a different person. So much of what we do here is about changing our relationship to our life with a more positive one. This practice point is about making that explicit. We can choose to do this in every moment if we are aware enough to remember.

 

No matter what difficulties we are going through, there are always ways to reframe the situation, to rejig our attitude. We have the choice to either be overwhelmed by it all, or decide that we aren’t going to wallow in it anymore and be a victim of internal chaos or outside circumstances.

 

Deciding to be action based and solution orientated is about the warrior attitude and embracing adversity. If you think you're stuck, it just means you haven’t thought of a way forward yet. Opening one’s mind to all possibilities means being more creative, being prepared to consider anything, no matter how crazy it might seem. Creativity is a quality of a positive state of mind, another reason why we want to cultivate them.

 

Finding a positive and affirmational way forward isn’t about deluding oneself either. We aren’t just trying to wallpaper a pleasant feeling or idea over a situation we don’t like, there has to be an element of truth in how we reframe it. You can’t just convince yourself to like someone if they are a completely abusive asshole, nor can you cherry pick your reality and block out the rest or just persuade yourself that everything is just fine when it’s not.

 

This practice point is about clarity, honesty and authenticity, and finding a way to relate to things from our strengths, from something we believe in, that we can get behind, something that ‘jibes with our vibe’.

 

This was a major realisation for me when one day, I found myself thinking about an extended family member who had harmed me a long time ago. I’d recently re-experienced their harmful behavior and it affected me deeply and left me with a lot of compulsive negative thinking about them. This had affected me over a period of months without me making much positive headway on it.

 

Then one morning in meditation I thought, instead of just trying to force myself to forgive them or wish them well, I realised that all I could do was hope that they acknowledge the harm of their past negative actions, and it motivates positive change in them. I deeply believe in the value of personal change, especially as motivated by righting past wrongs.

 

This change of view had the energy of my whole being behind it, it was something I could truly wish for them, it wasn't just empty words and feelings. From that point on, it resolved this compulsive negativity I'd been experiencing.

 

It can also be about a more measured and reasonable response to life’s disappointments. Just a few days ago, my food shop was out of my favourite brand of yoghurt. There was a moment of annoyance but instead of getting irritated at the shopping centre for not keeping their shelves stocked, which is what I’d normally do, I just thought, ‘Good, I am getting too routine and attached about my food, it gives me a chance to change things up, and it’s not good to eat exactly the same food every day’.

 

This is a skill we can develop over time that can quickly become a positive habit. We take a few moments to consider what real benefit we can get from the reality we’re presented with, how we can frame it in a better light and then crack on! If it’s a bigger issue, it might be something we need to sit on, the answer doesn’t necessarily need to come immediately.

 

We can build trust and confidence in our own reflective process, not be too eager to resolve the problem, and possibly lose the chance for a better solution to present itself. There is a lot to be said for allowing the creative tension to play itself out.

 

A particularly useful practice for a more balanced and positive self view is to look for the positive aspect of our behaviour that expresses negatively, then turn that energy around so it works for us. If we have a strong sense of integrity, we can be judgmental of others and give people a hard time. If we have an incisive mind, we can brutalise people with our honesty and ability to see the truth. These are positive qualities, we all have them, it's just that we may be using them in a negative way.

 

The great realisation is that some of the negatively expressed strengths we have, can be used in very positive ways to not only help ourselves but to quite possibly change other people's lives in profound ways. We just need to shift our intention towards kindness rather than our ego agenda.