On a scale of 1-10, how much negativity is in your life? Negativity eats happiness for breakfast folks and gives us more negative energy throughout our day. Negativity breeds negativity. You may not even realize just how much potential joy it is taking away from your day to day interactions. So what do we do with all this negativity? Well, it carries with it vibes and energetic resonance, it appears to resonate at much lower frequencies than say joy or satisfaction. So let’s start here to evaluate where you are energetically. Negativity feels bad. It’s not a place of freedom or peace, it actually loves company and friendships who feed it can serve as temporary release values of the pressures that come with it, but often times don’t produce ultimate changes in circumstances or situations that we believe are causing the negativity.
Steps to truly release negativity from your day to day:
You have a choice to respond with negativity. Usually criticism and judging go hand in hand with this mind-set. But, you do have a choice to not criticize, not judge.
People do not make you negative. Circumstances do not make you negative. Negativity is a response that you choose. Yes, there are circumstances that are frustrating and can invoke sadness, and even anger but you still get to choose how you respond. That is up to you.
In order to get some relief from the lower level angst and internal conflict that can coincide with negativity, you cannot ignore it, you have to know how to battle with it. Battling the negativity is the best way to begin to change it, but it starts with you. It doesn’t start with changing the circumstances that you believe are causing the negativity. Count your blessings, literally. Someone out there will always have it worse than you.
Realize there are thoughts associated with the negativity, “If I only had a car that worked”, “If my boss wasn’t a jerk”, “If my kids behaved at school, if I were a better person”, “If I had more money”, “If I didn’t have this physical limitation” then I wouldn’t be in this pit of negativity and sometimes despair.
Evaluate the company that you keep. Someone once told me that they had a friend who was just as negative and unhappy as they were and when they got together they just wallowed in the misery together, each being equally unhappy but better off because at least they weren’t alone. Wow! What a thing to settle for! Consider what type of friend you are and what types of friends that you have. Choose to be around friends who are joyful and positive and choose also these attitudes as well.
Realize that the negativity is there to assist you. I know that sounds not-quite-right, but it’s so true! It’s pointing us to something that we need to pay attention to. It’s there for a time to keep up safe, but left that way, it can be quite depressing and sad. So, honor the negativity but asking yourself some questions about it. You might ask, “How might this negativity serve me”, “What could be the real root of this negativity?” And, give yourself the gift of good counsel if you need help working through the thoughts associated with it.
The important thing to realize in all of this is that our emotions and feelings are not wrong. They serve us on some level and are there to help us. We are in control of how we respond to day to day circumstances. You are not stuck, like you may be tempted to believe. We always have choices and realizing those choices are there and seeking out possibilities of response can help to release negativity and it’s lower level dissatisfaction from our life.