~A Change Is Gonna Come~

I suck

I fail at life

I will never…

You are right, you will never…not if you don’t think in a different mindset rather than a negative mindset.  Being negative brings you down and keeps you down.  I feel thinking in a negative mindset is common for a good deal of people because they are comfortable being there.  We have a habit of retreating back to thinking in negative manner when life gets hard or overwhelming.  We understand negative thinking. We understand how we will act and react to our environment while being negative. We may not enjoy being cynical or pessimistic, but we understand it.  It’s our safety zone, we understand being negative.

Your perception is the difference between a moment or situation being a negative moment/situation/feeling or bad moment/situation/feeling.  When moments are bad, you have the ability to see both the good and the bad sides of the moment.  I feel being able to stand back and view a moment as bad is healthy.

Here are two examples of thinking in terms of a situation being BAD vs NEGATIVE

Running out of gas. BAD thinking

Yes it sucks running out of gas, but minus the inconvenience of running out of gas, nothing horrible has happened. You get gas, your day is not ruined, you still have all your limbs and yourself.  That’s Good.

Running out of gas.  thinking in a negative mindset.

‘Of course this would happen to me’ ‘Can I never catch a break’  ‘My life sucks’  I think you see the direction I’m heading.

You are busy wasting energy on a moment in life that doesn’t require that much energy.  You are busy grouping gas in with all the other static in life that you think about. You react the same to running out of gas as you would a major life-altering event.  Sure running out of gas does suck, it’s BAD, and that’s all.

Parent diagnosed with an illness. BAD thinking

You may not be able to wrap your head around this grey area as swiftly as the gas example.  This will take some discipline on your end.  This requires a certain level of awareness of yourself and your surroundings. From this experience of a loved one being sick you learn about life’s hardships, challenges and yourself.  You discover you and you transform.  You are going through a life changing moment that will shape you forever and that’s good.

Parent diagnosed with an illness. thinking in a negative mindset.

‘I am ruined’  ‘I can’t handle this’ ‘My life sucks’  Being negative controls you, makes you blind to reality around you.  Rather than stepping back and observing what is happening, you stack the world against you, making it harder and unimaginable to get out of this moment.

By viewing life through negative eyes you are not even giving yourself a chance to tackle an issue with an open mind.  You cop out and use words that reinforce your behavior and mindset.  As I had mentioned, being negative is easy, because it is a common escape.  It hides our vulnerability and hides our fears that we can’t yet face, or so you think.

While coping and grieving it is easy to load up on negative words and thoughts that enable you to live in a world you have created. It’s a fabricated world you have crafted, built to protect yourself from a changing life you knew, weather you know it or not.  As I keep saying, a good deal of people understand how they react and think while being negative. You create a world built on strong words such as ‘I suck’ ‘I am a failure.’  Words that you say enough times you believe what you say.

Loving yourself and knowing yourself is not a short easy path that leads to nirvana or fulfillment instantly. It is hard, confusing and overwhelming   WHIch is why I feel people are comfortable living in a negative mindset, they understand it and create what they want to hear.  Being open and objective, you have to de-construct yourself, learn about yourself, figure yourself out. You have to learn how to live in other peoples shoes and view a moment, a situation or choice with an open mind.  You have to look at all of humanity and find a balance between the world you know and the real world.   While taking in all of life you have to balance and understand what works for you and makes you, you.

While my father was sick I would spend days, weeks, months being negative.  I would use that mindset to empower myself, feeling entitled to run away from all real feelings.  This negative mindset was also fueled by my jealousy of others living what I deemed a ‘normal life.’ Jealous of what ‘I couldn’t have’  ‘would never have.’  Truth is I was blind to my surroundings.  I allowed my negative view I adopted towards the world to control me. I would allow myself to explode at people, be miserable, be so busy running and hiding I would go out of my way to do everything but be objective and see life for what it is. I had allowed myself to live in a world of pessimism and self pity. While at the same time I would have moments I where I would be hard on my self wondering why am I being so negative? It was a long, hard road to not just being objective but believing what I saw and felt.

Looking objectively at life, especially when it does seem to favor others at times is hard to do.  It can be annoying even, trying to always see both sides of a situation.  But I do promise, if you start to look at the world in terms of good and bad, rather than positive and negative, that will be a positive change, which is good.  You will slowly realize that you will be able to digest hard moments in life with more ease than previously.  I used this to get through my moms experience going through chemo for 4 years. I started to learn about this negative verus bad by writing what I felt.  Which is what I want you to do.  Buy a notebook that fits in your back pocket and write down your feelings and thoughts.  It will open you up to yourself more and make you more aware of you.  I promise.

Don’t let others make choices for you, make the choice to make them for yourself

~Happy reading

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