M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 13

An Open Letter to the Squirrels in My Brain

You can eff the eff off already.Photo by Bailey Couture on Unsplash

Dear Squirrels in my brain,

First, yes, I know you might actually be brain weasels. Whatever. A rodent is a rodent (vermin are vermin). In either case, you sit there in my head, chittering and chattering away, spewing bullshit at me. And I do not appreciate it.

There are four distinct areas of my life right now that I’m working to improve. My health, my fencing, my writing career, and my self-esteem. This unsurprisingly ties my mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing all together, minus a nice bow. The last thing I need while working on these is you giving me all your crap.

You can go ahead and eff the eff off already.

I know you’re the manifestation in my head of my subconscious doubts. This includes issues with self-esteem, beliefs that might or might not be mine, values in the same seas, fears, and more. You cajole, you whisper, you tell me quietly I’m not worthy, insufficient, not good enough, and doomed to fail. Sometimes your voice takes on a nagging quality not unlike a certain someone. Other times, you sound a lot like me with zero confidence, no conviction, and depression.

I am here to tell you off. You don’t serve me, you’re a lying liar that lies, and I am going to do whatever it takes to make you eff the eff off.

That’s enough of that, squirrels in my brain

I have had more than enough of you telling me that I suck. Enough is enough with all the unworthy, undeserving, uninteresting, unlovable bullshit. Nope, I am done with you causing me ongoing, low-level anxiety.

I frequently find myself with this frustrating, distressing, unpleasant sense of something being off. Not exactly dread, not exactly fear, not quite a sense/feeling of being lost. Just a sensation that something is missing, something’s incomplete, something is lacking. Yet, nothing tangible is there, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I feel this – or where it’s coming from.

Except when I meditate.

Yeah, you didn’t count on that, did you? I pause, I sit for 15-20 minutes, just breathe. Wouldn’t you know it, there you are. Fucking squirrels in my brain, chattering among yourselves and chittering bitter nothings in my ear.

It’s worse than that, though. You’re embedding that bullshit Into my head, heart, and soul.

If I just go about my day, let the patterns carry me, you go unnoticed. But as soon as I slow down, pause, and spend any time at all looking within, there you are.

You make me feel insufficient, unprepared, and unable to do the things that I can do. And I am done with you and this bullshit. You can eff the eff off, thankyouverymuch.

Pay attention, squirrels in my brain

Let’s talk about some specifics.

My health

I have been exercising regularly for some time now. Rarely do I eat fast food, fried food, chips, and other bad-for-you stuff like that. I meditate, take my meds, see a therapist, and work hard.

But there you are, chittering away in your little squirrely voices. Making me question why I can’t seem to take the weight off, questioning where I am getting it wrong, feeling undeserving of affection because of my perfectly imperfect body. No wonder I am stuck here, it’s all in my head. And you’re the problem.

Shut up. I am not always going to be fat, always unable to shed weight, always behind the 8-ball. You’re wrong, and we’re done.

You know what? Enough. I am tuning you out. I know I can do this and I am going to – while ignoring you.

My fencing

I have been fencing for more than 30 years. No, I know full well I was never one of the ultimate, elite fighters in the group. Nor do I apply the most historical techniques. I might not have the fanciest award, but that in no way lessens my worth. I’m still teaching and leading in the community. I do not suck at this, and am a skilled combatant.

Listen here, squirrels in my brain. I know, intellectually, that the only person I am competing with is me. You shut up and let me take that to heart and release the nonexistent judgment of others that gets in my way.

Photo by Yannick Menard on UnsplashStill with me, squirrels in my brain?

We’re halfway there.

My writing career

Stop reminding me that my book sales are not where they “should” be. Do you know what “should” looks like? No, you don’t. Quit insisting I should “get a real job” or stop pushing with my fiction writing.

Maybe I’m not great, but I am a damned good writer. I’ve finished 17 books, published 14 of those, and am publishing 2 more before the end of the year and another next year. I’d say that’s not nothing.

I am writing more, my skill is improving, and I know that I can do this. So you can stop being all judgy and annoying.

My self-esteem

Yeah, this one is all about you damned squirrels in my brain. If I slip at all, fuck up, make a mistake, fail my roll, or whatever, you chime in. See? See what we told you? You suck!

But that’s just not the truth. I am a good person. I help other people in any way that I can. Time and time again, I strive to inspire, empower, and be a beacon of light and hope in the world.

Your chittering bullshit might tell me I am unworthy, undeserving, and blah blah blah. But you’re wrong.

I know I’m imperfect. Guess what? EVERYONE is imperfect. Perfection is a myth and in the eye of the beholder. So, squirrels in my brain, you can stop striving to tear me down. I have had more than enough of you.

We’re done

This is to inform you that I’m evicting you from my brain. Squirrels in my brain and brain weasels are not welcome here. It is not unjust, unfair, or some odd prejudice. It’s me setting boundaries, staking my claim, and letting you know that I will not be your whipping boy, punching bag, or doormat anymore.

I know I’m blocking myself because I cannot attune my vibrational frequency with the Universe. I know you can’t do it from the void, and I’ve done the necessary work as such. The problem isn’t me, it’s you damned squirrels in my brain, relentlessly spewing toxic bullshit.

So, we are done. You go right ahead and eff the eff off. No, you know what? Fuck the fuck off, huh? Let me be direct. You and your little vermin concepts are not welcome. I know who, what, where, how, and why I am. You are not part of me, you’re just byproducts of outdated info, criticism both constructive and destructive, misguided tough love, the beliefs of others, bad advice, pop culture, and other things that are not me.

I see you. And you will no longer make my psyche your home like the uninvited guests who refuse to leave long after wearing out their welcome.

Thanks for nothing, squirrels in my brain. Yeah, you know you offer me nothing but self-doubt, fear of suffering, and other bullshit. So, this is goodbye. In the words of Mom on Futurama, “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Because I don’t want ass prints on my new door!”

No love,

Me.

This is the six-hundred-sixty-seventh (667) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post An Open Letter to the Squirrels in My Brain appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Never Know How the Day Will Go

You choose if that’s a source of comfort, joy, fear, or trepidation.Photo by anthony maw on Unsplash

Everybody has bad days.

That’s how the world works. Shit happens. Random happenstance comes to pass. The best-laid plans might go brilliantly or horrifically. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

There are so many factors that can and will impact you every day. Weather, traffic, the whims of other people, the passage of time, and way more things than I care to list here. Yet all these things, and more, can, will, and do impact your life every single day.

Here’s the largest issue with this: there is nothing you can do about it.

You cannot control other people, traffic, weather, time, and on and on. They exist beyond you and your ability to control them. Thus, to all intents and purposes, you roll the dice every day. Will you roll a natural 20 and have an amazing day where it all goes right? Or will you roll a 1, and have a terrible, horrid, no-good day? Most likely you’ll roll a number between these extremes.

Let’s make this more complicated. If the day is divided into morning, afternoon, and evening, does that mean you re-roll for each? Could be. Given 24 hours in a day, and being awake for 12-20 of them, could you be rolling the dice every hour, every minute? Yup.

You never know how the day will go. You can plot, plan, and approach with all sorts of expectations. But you can’t control anything apart from that.

What you can control is your approach to it.

You choose how you approach your day

Have you ever woken up, and almost immediately strained a muscle, tweaked your back, stubbed a toe, or the like? Did that lead to a further downward spiral, and before you knew it the day seemed to go from bad to worse to “are you fucking kidding me”? I know I have.

Despite this, you are choosing how you approach the day. If it begins poorly, and you allow that to dominate your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions, odds are the day will go poorly.

Alternate scenario:

Have you ever woken up, and almost immediately felt refreshed, excited for the day, ready to take on whatever came your way? Did that lead to an upward rise, and before you knew it the day seemed to go from good to incredible to “fuck yeah!”? I’ve been there.

If you allow the positive energy and emotion to dominate your day, that can positively spread through your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions, and odds are the day will go well.

In both scenarios, things outside of your control can swiftly change everything. The bad day can turn good with unexpected praise, the good day can turn bad with unexpected criticism.

Anywhere along the way, however, the choice is yours. Do you approach the day from a place of misery or a place of gratitude? You choose, throughout any given day, how to approach the day. Hence, if you’re in a good place or bad place, you choose where to be, remain, or change.

No matter what you choose, you never know how the day will go. Life is too unpredictable for that.

Photo by Robin Jonathan Deutsch on UnsplashYou never know how the day will go

Planned or unplanned, anticipated or stumbled into, you simply never know how the day will go. You can plan your day out to the minute, set all sorts of things into motion, and then, via random happenstance, chance, or circumstance, it all goes wildly better or horridly wrong.

One of my greatest joys is medieval rapier combat. I’ve been fencing for over 30 years. I recently entered a tournament and started out excited to see how I’d do. But a warm-up fight went very so-so. My first tourney bout I lost. A fight I was pretty sure I’d win, I didn’t. My day got no better from there.

I felt bad about myself, my skill (or perceived lack thereof), and my performance. I stopped after the tournament, and rather than do pick-up fights – since I was already not in the best headspace – I put my gear away. The rest of the day I spent with friends.

Then I had a phenomenal conversation, hung out with more friends, and got some good news. That helped me reset my position, choose to alter my approach, and rather than let the bad experience related to my fencing dominate the rest of my day, I refocused away from the negative.

I had no idea how my day would go. When the answer was “not great”, rather than let that be the end – and my approach for the rest of the day – I chose my approach differently. It ended up being a good day with people I enjoy, fun, laughter, and more.

Because you never know how the day will go, you can choose and decide, via mindfulness, what approach you take. That can make all the difference, and you can employ it at will via mindful choices and decisions.

You never know how the day will go. Choosing your approach isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that you never know how your day will go, and no matter what you plot and plan, things outside your control might change it, you can choose your approach. Knowing that the unexpected can, will, and does happen – to you and everyone – you can recognize and acknowledge this. With that, you get to choose how to alter your approach, face the day you’ve gotten, and work with it to improve it.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-fifth (555) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post You Never Know How the Day Will Go appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Will F*ck it Up

Then you’ll f*ck it up again. But you choose to learn from it or not.Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

In my 20s and 30s, I had no idea who I wanted to be. Because of that, I had a tough time staying in any given job or relationship.

There are a few interesting patterns you can see when you look at my life. For example, I’ve never lived in the same home for more than 10 years. Same general neighborhood, sure. But never the same home. Part of that was due to an inability to commit to anything.

Why was I unable to commit? Fear of failure. An equal fear of success. Fear that I would miss out on something better if I was in this job, that relationship, or living in that place. All sorts of what ifs, real and imagined, swimming around my head.

Overall, it was always about one thing. That I would f*ck it up. It didn’t matter what “it” was. Job, relationship, car, home, plan? I was terrified that I would f*ck it up.

And I did. Because you will f*ck it up. Frequently.

When this happens – and trust me, it will – you have a choice. Learn and grow from it or seek to place blame, deny, and shrink from it. The choice of what to do, where to go, who to be, and everything else involving you and your life is utterly, wholly, and completely up to you.

What did you learn or not?

It is utterly impossible not to f*ck it up along the way. Nobody is perfect. Or, more accurately, everyone is perfectly imperfect.

I spent almost 2 decades defining insanity (as in the famous quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”). Same wobbly, halfway decent job prospect, same half-assed attempt at a relationship, same partial commitment to calling a place home, and so on. Looking back, I can see why I was always at a crossroads and feeling disconnected.

Eventually, I learned. I stopped trying to fit into the monogamy box and started accepting I was polyamorous. Rather than keep accepting the same crap jobs, I sought and took better ones, then began to write and publish more. I found what home means, more than the address.

Yeah, I was able to f*ck it up lots of times. For a long time, I didn’t learn jack shit from that. Then, via mindfulness, therapy, and self-awareness work, I came to understand.

That’s great. Does that mean I won’t f*ck it up anymore? Nope.

Photo by Daniel Tafjord on UnsplashYou will f*ck it up

You, me, Trump, Harris, that amazing celebrity, your family, friends, and everyone else on Planet Earth – all 8 billion (8,000,000,000) people – will f*ck it up from time to time.

It doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, what you do, if you’re a good person or a bad person – you will f*ck it up. To what degree and extent will vary. Might only be a little, might be a whole lot, or anywhere in between.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to do was learn this truth. Because you will f*ck it up, but you choose to learn from it or not afterward. Yet it’s part of life, of the human experience, and you can’t do anything about that.

I work hard to get shit right in my life. Yet, I still f*ck it up from time to time. I know that when that happens, I have a choice. Learn and grow from it. Or seek to place blame, deny, and shrink from it. The former empowers you and creates potential and possibilities. The latter disempowers you and leads to ineffectuality and fearfulness.  

The choice, of course, is yours. Via mindfulness, you can see what that looks like.

Mindfulness when you f*ck it up

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You’re the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner of your sense of wellness and wellbeing. The power to empower yourself comes via active conscious awareness, which is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is awareness of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and what you are or aren’t doing. These elements only exist, here and now, in the present, in your conscious mind. They are also the only things over which you have complete and total control.

Nobody else can think, feel, intend, or act for you. There’s nobody but you who chooses to approach your life from a positive or negative place. All that is in your power to do with as you please.

When you f*ck it up, you decide what comes next. You choose to learn, seek to place blame, or simply keep going and maintaining your insanity.

Recognizing and acknowledging that you will f*ck it up is surprisingly freeing. That’s because it shows you that you are not a bad person, because everyone can, will, and does f*ck it up along the way.

Mindfulness, being present here and now, shows you that you’re not alone. And though you will f*ck it up, then likely f*ck it up again, so does everyone else.

Can you see how you are not less than anyone else when you f*ck it up because we all f*ck it up?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-sixth (666) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post You Will F*ck it Up appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can Turn That Off and/or Put It Down

The power of disconnecting the tech that equally divides and connects us.Photo by Maxim Ilyahov on Unsplash

Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Ever feel like there are too many connections, too many demands on your attention, and an endless sense of go-do-go? Do you ever feel like you can’t get away and you seldom find peace?

I do. It’s not an all-the-time, highly regular occurrence. But there are plenty of times when I’ve felt if I didn’t stay connected or made time to check on friends and family online – even when I needed to back away – I was somehow disrespecting them.

It often feels like we are all too connected. Social media is so prevalent in what happens, that groups and organizations, personal and professional, rely on them to pass messages, share info, and more. It might even start to feel like you have little to no choice because if you don’t connect you’ll miss out.

This is where the cutesy notion of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – is not so cute. It turns into a destructive, disempowering, distressing sense that can easily make you feel unwanted, undesirable, and unconnected.

However, the truth is it’s utterly healthy for you to disconnect. It’s tremendously positive and good for your mental health to turn that off and/or put it down.

Let’s take a look at why.

The connectivity disconnects us

The reality of the technology we have, plus the workings of social media, is that it doesn’t connect us nearly as much as it divides us.

The impersonal connection has taken precedence over personally connecting. People post things online to share who they are and what they’re currently doing. But then, comments can take that to all sorts of undesirable and unpleasant places.

If they posted something that can be at all divisive – say supporting one politician or another – that can turn ugly, fast. Before you know it, a whole aspect of that person you thought you knew is gone.

To some degree, this can be good. People’s true colors will come through. But to another, this can create echo chambers of confirmation bias and cause misunderstandings that can do all sorts of harm. It gets pretty crazy pretty fast.

What’s more, social media is usually a snapshot of a moment in time that somehow gets treated like the end-all-be-all for this, that, or the other thing. People get bent out of shape when response times are slow, people seem to not be paying attention, and the like.

As much as this technology provides unprecedented connectivity, it simultaneously disconnects us.

This is a huge part of why it’s good and positive sometimes to turn that off and/or put it down.

Photo by Plann on UnsplashTurn that off and/or put it down

It might seem, on the surface, super obvious. Yet it has become increasingly less so. When you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and like you have too many demands on your time, energy, and attention? Turn that off and/or put it down.

Turn off the computer or TV. Put down the smartphone, iPad, or similar device. Pause, reflect, disconnect. Just be.

You don’t need to take a weekend off, a week away from Facebook, or a month off TikTok. Take 5 minutes. Turn that off and/or put it down. Walk away. Be free and in the moment, here and now, wherever you are.

I don’t need to be available 24/7. It’s unnecessary to check, recheck, and scroll Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media site every time you sit down. The world doesn’t need frequent or even regular updates about where I am, who I’m with, and/or what I’m doing.

Realizing this can be incredibly freeing. For many people, smartphones and tablets have become tethers or leashes. Stray too far from them and risk suffering dire consequences.

How dire? Realistically, not at all. Despite their invention in 1992, smartphones and this level of connectivity are barely 30 years old (the first iPhone, which arguably started the current generation of smartphones, came out in 2007). Ergo, not so long ago, you weren’t available all the time.

Disconnecting the tech that equally divides and connects us is a major boon for your mental health. In this crazy, nonstop world, sometimes you just need to turn that off and/or put it down for your overall sanity. Maintaining your sanity – and all the self-care related to that act – is enormously positive. Doing so says you and your time are of value, and not dependent on the wants and needs of the world around you.

Taking the time to turn that off and/or pit it down isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that you don’t need to be always connected and available 24/7, and that you can take a mental health break and step back without dire consequences, you can choose to turn that off and/or pit it down. Knowing that the world will keep turning, that you can pause for your mental health by turning off, putting away, and setting down the technology, you take charge of your life and where/how/why/when you connect to people, no matter who they are. This is incredibly important for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-fourth (554) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post You Can Turn That Off and/or Put It Down appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can’t Do Anything For Them

A harsh reality and an open door at the same time.Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was such a thing as political discourse in the United States. While there have long been two dominant parties, they still offered up individuals who ranged within their sides.

Over the past few decades, they’ve become way more partisan and contentious. What’s more, people who should have zero place in the mix are elected officials (despite utter cluelessness regarding process, procedure, the Constitution, and the oh-so-important governing part). They’ve gotten behind all sorts of ludicrous policy ideas that help a teeny, tiny few – i.e. their donors and corporate overlords – and moved further and further from actual governing and getting anything truly useful done. Trickle-down economics is a great example of this bullshit.

There is a place that trickle-down worked that’s not economics. People who normally only get involved enough to vote now position themselves into a seemingly deeper role. They dig in deep and are immovable in their position (even when it’s utterly against reality). I’m looking at you, Cult of Trump.

Before this turns into a whole political thing, there is a far deeper lesson to be learned from this. Because while politics is a very obvious place to see people entrenched in something from which they live in echo chambers (and don’t see them for their many flaws), this is true of overall human nature. Confirmation bias is tied directly to our individual perception of reality.

Different boats, same ocean

There are common places in “reality” we all agree on. The sky, the earth, water being wet, fire being hot, ice being cold, and so on. From there, however, variations begin to appear. Too hot to me might be perfect for you. Loud enough for you might be too loud for me. That smell I love you might loathe. Same reality, same general perception of it, but different impression.

From there it gets really fuzzy. As soon as you dial into your world, and the people, places, and things within it, reality becomes way more unique and individualized.

Einstein explains this quite well with,

“Reality is merely an illusion albeit a very persistent one.”

Some, however, take that illusion to the point where they live in a reality that’s counter to fact. They believe concepts that are demonstrably untrue. They take the illusion aspect of reality off the rails and somehow take a channel to a different ocean.

More specifically, I think they’ve found an island in the ocean of reality. And storms real and imagined have driven them to this.

While I’ve stuck to the political element to explore this, it’s not just politics where this happens. In everyday life, people will position themselves in reality in a place that you or I see as not real.

For example, the abused who stay with abusers because they think they can help them or believe love means abuse. Workers accepting bad conditions and crap pay because they’re certain they aren’t worth more or better. Families staying together because they’re blood despite horrible toxicity or worse.

No matter how clearly you see the lies and flaws in their perception of reality, you can’t do anything for them.

You can’t do anything for them

I’ve been watching someone I care about remain in an utterly toxic relationship. It’s mentally, emotionally, and spiritually abusive. They make noises about moving on but then don’t. Another quote, which may or may not be from Einstein, is relevant to this:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Because I love this person, I hate watching them suffer. Yet I know that I can’t do anything for them.

I can point out what I see, my perspective, how it makes me feel, and how I’m concerned for them. Further, I can give them ideas and suggestions for how to move forward. Odds are, this will piss them off, upset them, and run counter to my intent of helping them. They might even dig in and try to create a resolution with greater force.

I can’t do anything for them. And that makes me sad. I don’t like seeing them suffer. However, if I try to do anything for them, I’ll probably alienate them rather than help them.

Whether it’s a friend, loved one, colleague, or a cultist, you can’t do anything for them. If you’re an empath at all, that’s distressing and unpleasant. I want to help make this world the best it can be for everyone. It galls me that I can’t do anything for them.

However, despite this being a harsh reality, recognizing and acknowledging it opens a door.

Photo by Nick Fewings on UnsplashMindfulness and doing for you

When you stop trying to do anything for them, it feels disingenuous. At least, at first. But the truth is, it frees you to open the door and work more on who you can do anything for.

You.

This isn’t selfish. Self-care is healthy. It’s not massages, mani-pedis, or retail therapy, however. Self-care is applied conscious reality to be your most genuine, authentic self.

Mindfulness is the key to this. When you practice active conscious awareness, you can see what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is positive or negative, and what actions you do or don’t take. Mindfulness empowers you to change any aspects of this that aren’t true to you or working for you.

You’re not selfish for taking care of yourself, especially in light of the truth that you can’t do anything for them. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. If you don’t do for you, who will? While you can’t do anything for them, they can’t do anything for you, either.

This is one of the darkest, most distressing realities of our quick-fix, instant-gratification, pill-popping society. The focus is turned so far outwards that any inner focus is quickly mislabeled as selfish. The truth is, however, it’s not. Because while they can show you a thing or two, maybe, they can’t do anything for you just like you can’t do anything for them.

It’s good that you can’t do anything for them

The truth is, it’s a good thing that you can’t do anything for them. Why? Because you don’t live in their head, heart, or soul. Further, if you’re anything like me, you have a lot on your plate to live your life as it is. Do you truly want to take on their shit, too?

Admittedly, this can be infuriating. Especially when you see a loved one hurting in a bad situation, a friend being worn down by a horrible job, or an acquaintance voting against their best interests or the freedoms of the people they love. It would be great if they could perceive reality like you do. But they can’t. And you can’t do anything for them.

This, however, frees you to do more for yourself. Take that class, write that story, read that book, join that community orchestra, or whatever. Live your life, because it’s the only one you have, and you deserve to live it.

The meaning of life is to live. That means having experiences, learning things, seeing things, doing things, meeting people, good, bad, and everything in between. You can’t do anything for them as they live their life, but you can do everything for you.

Remember, true selfishness is actions done knowing you will cause pain, hurt, and suffering – but not caring about that. All other acts called selfishness are based on the perception of reality of others. (Also, look how many people out there who call others selfish are themselves utterly selfish. Looking at you, greedy billionaires paying few to no taxes).

Applied mindfulness

Be here, now. Use mindfulness to take stock of your inner self and adjust to suit your needs. You can’t do anything for them. Recognizing and acknowledging this opens the door for you to shift focus on yourself and your life. That lets you be empowered, and that means you get to best choose your own adventure.

You’re worthy and deserving of walking through those doors. Go for it and see what new experiences you can have.

Can you see how it’s good that you can’t do anything for them?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-fifth (665) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post You Can’t Do Anything For Them appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Does it Really Mean to Let Go?

Recognize and acknowledge how you might be holding yourself back.Photo by lucas Oliveira on Unsplash

It’s far too easy to hold onto negative intangibles. Hurts, fears, hatred, anger, distress, sadness, and on and on. Part of life is that shit happens, and you have no control over vast swaths of this.

There are lots of books, speakers, and articles about why you should let go. Letting go releases you from that pain and suffering. It’s a seemingly simple concept that is surprisingly difficult to work with.

There is also something of a challenge presented by the idea that you can let go but must also remember what you learned. While that’s great in a lot of respects, it also causes an unfortunate paradox that gets in the way of truly letting go.

I’ve struggled with this for a long time now. Despite several years of striving to work with greater mindfulness, self-awareness, and conscious reality creation, there’ve been lots of negative intangibles tied to events in my life that have remained clinging to my psyche. This has caused me a deep-seated sense of unease. I tried to let go, yet found it was still there when something happened connected to the past shit that triggered the negative intangible.

A new idea presented itself to me that is incredibly simple but explains why I can’t truly let go. Now I have a better idea of what it means to really let go.

You don’t need to be right or justified

When you argue with someone, you often seek to prove yourself. I’m right, you’re wrong. Likewise, when shit happens and/or someone does something you can’t make sense of, you feel the need to be justified.

For example, someone you think loves you just stops communicating. Out of the blue, they ghost you, stop being there, cease answering texts, or whatever. They told you they loved you, and you love them. So, what the actual fuck?

You did nothing wrong. All your actions towards them were kind, compassionate, and loving. Yeah, it hurts that they have ceased to be part of your life, but you search and search and find no fault on your part. You feel justified that you did nothing wrong.

Yet, if it happens again, you once more seek to be justified to prove you did nothing wrong. This, however, leads to any fault in a relationship – especially when you’ve done nothing wrong – causing you to prove you’re justified.

Before you know it, the pattern repeats. And you have not let go as such.

The need to be right and justified will cause you to hold onto something you would prefer to let go of. Because this is subconscious, it’s easy to lose sight of. But if you’re anything like me, you develop patterns and repetition. So, you rinse and repeat, and though you intellectually desire to let go, your need to be right and justified keeps you holding on.

This is an important starting point. Recognition and acknowledgment mean you’re empowered. Now what?

What does it really mean to let go?

First, you recognize and acknowledge that you do not need to be right or justified. Why? Because that doesn’t let you let go of negative intangibles like hurt, sadness, fear, and so on.

However, it’s important to note that this will put you in conflict with the collective consciousness of society. Unless you pause, reflect, and truly look for it, you probably don’t see the pervasive nature of how much being right and justified is emphasized in our culture. It’s gotten so bad that opinion increasingly outweighs fact because of self-righteousness disguised as being right and/or justified.

To move past this, remember that you, and only you, are in your head, heart, and soul. There’s little to nothing you can do for anyone else out there. But I digress.

After you’ve recognized and acknowledged your need to be right and/or justified, what can you do? De-emphasize it. Accept that right and justified are not important. Why? Because all they do is leave you in an endless loop from which you’ll likely spiral downwards.

Not so long ago, one and then another lover just stopped talking to me. Texts and messages online ended, and they went incommunicado. There was nothing I could find that I’d done wrong. It was easy to justify this. Yet in doing so, all it did was perpetuate my hurt.

They didn’t hurt me, I hurt me. Yeah, it wasn’t very kind or compassionate of them, and I can be right about that till the cows come home. That doesn’t let go of the feelings. Being right and justified about my position keeps them attached.

To let go, I need to stop caring about being right and/or justified. That’s what it really means to let go.

Photo by Liana S on UnsplashIt all comes down to action

To really let go, I must accept that it’s not important and doesn’t matter that I’m right or justified in my feelings. I simply need to see that it happened, has come and gone, and it’s time for me to move on.

There are actions available to me that will help me let go for real. Action, however, isn’t necessarily physical. It can be a matter of using active conscious awareness – mindfulness – to look inside yourself, and from within, at the situation at hand. Identify what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and if you are approaching matters positively or negatively.

From there, you’re empowered to change your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach. You alone control this.

How? Action can take various forms here. You can do one or more of these to that end:

Write it out in a journalMeditate on it (close your eyes, focus on this exclusively, and walk through it in your mind for 2 minutes minimum)Discuss it with a therapist or other confidantWrite it on a piece of paper then shred it, burn it, or otherwise destroy itTalk to yourself about it. Speak the words while you think and feel it through

These are just a few examples of actions you can take to really let go. No matter what the thing is that you need/desire to let go of.

What comes after that?

What do I do after I let go?

Take a moment and relish the sensation of the freedom letting go produces.

When I finally got this – and really understood what it meant to let go – it felt incredible. I felt the tightness in my chest (mental, not physical) released. That sense of dread I can never quite identify or release evaporated. It felt as if I could breathe more deeply.

Simply put, I feel better overall.

I have no doubt that things will happen that will bring this back to mind. I’m only human and shit happens. However, recognizing this in this way, I have a better handle on my intentions.

This applies to a lot of different places in my life. No longer holding onto the need to be right and/or justified is a game changer. I can move past some pretty annoying and undesirable bullshit to be, have, and do the things I desire to.

It’s so simple. Yet it’s also deep and unexpected. I can move forward with a fresh perspective and feel like I have really let go of this unwanted stuff.

I hope my insights here can help you do the same.

To really let go of something you’re holding onto isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that you’ve been focusing on proving yourself right and/or justified, it becomes evident that this prevents you from letting go of whatever intangible matter you desire to let go of. Knowing that you can take action to stop justifying and proving yourself right, you can then genuinely let go of this, that, or the other thing, release its hold on you, and then move on in a new direction without that excess weight, pressure, and/or tension.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-third (553) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post What Does it Really Mean to Let Go? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Fake it Till You Make it?

Because now is the only time you can act upon.Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

I’ve been writing fiction most of my life. My first work, a 50-page illustrated sci-fi story, was completed when I was 9 years old. I tried my hand at multiple other creative outlets over the years, but always found writing creeping back into my life.

After self-publishing a couple of my novels in fits and spurts, I took the plunge for real in 2020. That year, I put 6 books out into the world. Since then, I’ve been writing, editing, and publishing books far more frequently.

I always wanted to be a published author. And I am. There should be no caveats to this. Fact is fact.

But, due to long-held beliefs on the part of others close to me, as well as some still rooted deep within me, there are caveats to this. I’m self-published, which means no traditional publishing house took my work and put it out there.

Sometimes, nagging doubt and the current state of my earnings from my books makes me question if I’m truly an author. Despite having 13 fictional titles in the world at large, I’m not fully earning my living off my writing.

So, I have a choice. Allow the doubts, long-buried beliefs instilled in me by others, and outside messages about what makes you a published author to alter my path. Or stake my claim, revel in being a published author, and keep going on this path I believe is the right one for me.

Ergo, fake it till I make it. But am I really faking it if the work is being done?

Choosing your life paths

There are lots of ideas and fictions in the world about having a singular purpose in this life. While I do believe that we all have gifts to share with the world, and what Paulo Coelho calls our “personal legend,” our singular purpose is not our only purpose.

That’s because change is the one and only constant in the Universe. Change can, will, and does happen – like it or not. It’s inevitable. You often have zero control over it.

Due to the inevitability of change, your life – and what paths you take – will change. A lot of that is because who you were in your teens isn’t the same as who you are in your 20s. Who you were in your 20’s isn’t who you are in your 40’s, and so on.

That’s not to say that elements don’t remain similar along the way. I’ve been writing since I was a pre-teen. The style, subject matter, and uncountable other elements of my work have changed along the way because I’ve changed. I think 9-year-old me would look at 52-year-old me and wonder how we’re the same.

All along the way, throughout life’s changing course, you get to choose your paths. If you allow yourself to make those choices. Lots and lots of outside influences would prefer you choose as they want you to. How many people were told by a well-meaning parent what they should do with their life along the way? Some followed that, and if it wasn’t their passion they found themselves unhappy, discontented, and sometimes dispirited.

Choosing not to actively choose a path is a choice. When looking at especially challenging paths, sometimes you find you can’t walk it if you don’t act as if you’ve already conquered it.

Fake it till you make it

Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is recognition of what’s happening within your head, heart, and soul. This is achieved by recognizing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if you are taking a positive or negative approach, and ultimately what your actions are.

However, this only works in the here and now. The past has come and gone and is unchangeable. Similarly, the future is unwritten and might not play out as you’d intend it to. Working from and in the now, the present, is how you effectively take what control you can of your life, your paths, and yourself.

Ergo, to manifest who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be, acting as if you already are that person will put you on that path. If you’re there – but not quite there – you must fake it till you make it.

What does that even mean? For me, it means first accepting myself as a published author. No, I didn’t get a deal from Random House, Tor, or some other traditional publisher. But the world has changed and that matters a lot less than it used to. I’ve got 13 novels out there. I’m adding 3 more before the end of 2024. Ergo, I AM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR.

Fake it till you make it, for me, means removing the caveats. Be on this path, writing and publishing, and stop letting the doubt about being self-published and sales not yet being where I desire them to be and stake my claim. This is my path, and I am on it.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on UnsplashYou deserve this

Brain weasels are annoying, chittering, lying liars in your head. They’re often the residue of people who might have been malicious, could have been well-meaning, or just utterly random, telling you how you are lacking, unworthy, insufficient, undeserving, and the like.

That’s inner dialogue issues. Just to add further insult to injury, you and I live in a fear-based society. Much of that focuses on lack, scarcity, insufficiency, and false notions of worth and deserving. Whole swaths of our so-called leaders don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves and convince people to do things against their better interests via fear.

Choosing your own path in life can be daunting. When you buck the status quo, or you do something outside the “norm”, you might feel like you’re constantly being looked upon askance. Are you worthy and deserving in the eyes of him/her/them?

The truth is that this doesn’t matter. What matters most is being true to yourself. If your path is not common or akin to anyone else’s, that’s okay. You deserve to walk it.

However, you interact with people because you don’t live in a vacuum. So, you might need to fake it till you make it both for yourself and how you impress upon others.

Know that you needn’t be any of the artificial labels emphasized in the world today to be worthy and deserving of choosing, walking, and succeeding on your path.

Fake it till you make it and no longer need to fake it

While the end goal is worth striving for, more often than not you’re on a path from point “a” to point “b”. The journey itself is where you will spend most of your time in this life.

If, as I postulate, the meaning of life is TO LIVE (as in do things, be things, experience things, learn things good, bad, or otherwise), you gain lots of insight on any given path you take. The unexpected will constantly present itself. It can be an obstacle, an alternative way of thinking, or a solution that didn’t previously occur to you.

The path is where you live and experience all the potential and possibilities life has to offer. When you live in a state of constantly being not quite who/what/where you desire to be, you’ll be regularly struggling. That’s why so long as you work to lose weight, you always need to lose weight. If you’re only ever almost where you desire to be, you’ll always be not quite there.

When you fake it till you make it, you tell the Universe that you believe in yourself, in your end goal, in the potential and possibilities of life. This is how manifestation works. Fake it till you make it doesn’t mean being phony. It means doing the thing(s) you do to be who/what/where/how/why you desire to be. It’s not a fallacy because you are, in fact, putting in effort and energy to manifest it.

That’s why you fake it till you make it. Because that tells the Universe you are taking action, puts your head, heart, and soul in the game, and puts you on a given path. It’s not bullshit and does not harm anyone, especially you.

This is my path

I don’t have a contract with a traditional publishing house. Nor do I have a literary agent. And I don’t need either. I’m the published author I always desired to be. That’s why I’m putting out 3 more books this year. I’m not lying, I’m not full of shit, but to an utterly harmless degree, I am faking it till I make it.

In my head, heart, and soul, I know this is the path I desire to travel. It feels right to me. Maybe I’m not yet at my end goal, but what I am learning and experiencing along the way I wouldn’t trade for anything.

This is my life, and I’m living it to the best of my ability. I will make it and not need to fake it because I believe in myself and the path I’ve chosen. You can do this, too.

Do you fake it till you make it when you know what you desire in your life?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-fourth (664) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Why Fake it Till You Make it? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can Always Choose to Give Up

But where’s the fun in that?Photo by Kevork Kurdoghlian on Unsplash

Life can be hard. Some days, you probably wonder why you even bothered getting out of bed. I know I feel that way sometimes.

Everyone has days where it feels like no matter what you do, you are behind, failing, losing ground, and/or otherwise struggling. No matter what you do, how much you give, all the ways that you try, it feels pointless and not very worthwhile.

The truth of the matter – of any matter – is that you can always choose to give up.

This can be on many levels and in many shapes and sizes. It can be temporary or with great finality. This can be a matter of positivity or negativity. Whatever the case might be, you can always choose to give up.

But where’s the fun in that? Realistically, what would life be like if you never struggled, everything was handed to you on silver platters, and you faced no challenges and no real opposition? It wouldn’t be long before you’d be bored. And boredom would lead to feeling even more frustrated than you feel when you’re struggling.

Believe it or not, how much you struggle in any given situation is often your choice. When you pause and reflect on a given experience or situation, you might be amazed to learn just how much harder you have gone about making it than it needed to be. Sometimes this is because of outside influences; other times it’s based on your values, beliefs, habits, experiences, and the like.

No matter what, you always choose.

You always choose

According to various scientific studies, human beings make about 35,000 choices a day. You read that right. You make over 35,000 choices a day. That’s a lot of choices, right?

The vast majority are utterly subconscious. Either/or situations or inconsequentials that are on the regular. Most of these are almost unconscious. What tooth to start with when brushing your teeth. In the shower, where you begin to wash yourself. The temperature of your shower water. Which foot to put first in front of the other. These are so highly automated that you likely give them no genuine thought at all.

This is a good thing. Could you imagine if you needed to be conscious of 35,000 thoughts a day? It’s mind-boggling. Fortunately, you have more room for making conscious choices due to rote, routine, habit, and subconscious automation.

These also have subconscious elements attached to them. You feel hungry, you choose to eat. Do you choose simple sustenance or something tasty? That’s a conscious choice you can make. Or not.

If, as multiple scientists postulate, human beings make approximately 95 percent of their choices unconsciously and/or subconsciously, that means we make about 2000 choices a day consciously. That’s still a lot of choices, but when you consider that you’re awake 16 hours a day, that’s an average of 125 choices an hour, or a little more than 2 choices per minute. That’s far more reasonable, right?

The point of this is that you always have choices available and get to choose. This is true of almost every situation, at least when it comes to your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach.

Where does giving up enter into this?

Photo by Bob Osias on UnsplashYou can always choose to give up

I’m not going to make a distinction between quitting and giving up. To all intents and purposes, they’re the same. At least regarding the idea I’m sharing with you here.

When life offers certain challenges, you can always choose to give up. However, how and why you make that choice will impact you in many ways.

This becomes a matter of active conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness. The question that activates mindfulness is: what do you want to give up?

If the answer makes you unhappy, challenges you, or forces you to question yourself, odds are, giving up is not the choice you truly desire to make. If, on the other hand, the answer feels like genuine relief, makes you feel lighter, calmer, and better, odds are, giving up in this instance is the right thing to choose.

While it may or may not have been Einstein who said it, this is still an important notion:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

When you are always bombarded by messages about never quitting, never giving up, never surrendering, and the like, you’ll push on. Sometimes, though, you do so long past the point of reason. Try, try, again. But maybe not the same thing over and over and over.

Slight variations make the thing different. No variations, however, and repetition lead to the above quote. Sometimes you will reach a point where you should give up. But not because it’s too hard, impossible, or too much of a struggle. Give up because it’s time to do something new. Something different.

Just remember that many achievements in the world were attained because someone who wanted to give up chose not to. You alone know the answer for you.

Do it for your sanity

I get it. Sometimes it really feels like it’s just too hard, not worth it, and possibly insane. How many times can you try this thing with variations to it? How many variations are there available to you? What mystical elusive element is taunting you and keeping you from succeeding?

When you give up without questioning if you should, or your why, that’s not actually giving up. It’s giving in. You are surrendering to forces that in and of themselves are neither positive nor negative. They are the yin and yang, the plus and minus, give and take of the Universe at large.

Giving in is a matter of caving to the pressure. You’re defying yourself and saying, “Yup. Too hard. I can’t. I’m unable. It’s beyond me. Fuck it, I shouldn’t have bothered,” and the like.

The truth is that life is challenging. Yet it’s the challenges, the hills to climb, pools to swim in, obstacles to overcome, paths to trek, and the like, that are what life is all about. You can give up and give in, but where’s the fun in that?

You’ve overcome that feeling before. You pushed past the struggles, the voices that told you that you couldn’t, the question of whether you should have even bothered to chew through the restraints and start the day. When you have, and you succeeded, you were elated. You did it! Achievement was achieved! You proved all those naysayers, real or imagined, wrong. It all felt worthwhile, and likely you now look back fondly on it. You may see that it was a fun adventure. Or at least an adventure.

You can always choose to give up. But never do that without really questioning why. Today’s challenge is tomorrow’s solution and/or success. The choice is yours.

Using active conscious awareness if you choose to give up isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that life is often challenging, and you can choose to give up, you get to decide if you’re mindfully making that choice for your own good or if you’re giving in to pressure and not choosing for yourself. Knowing that you make lots of choices and decisions a day, and can use mindfulness to decide if you will push on or give up, you can take control and work out if you will choose to give up for good or bad reasons. Then act from there.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-second (552) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post You Can Always Choose to Give Up appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Unconditional Love Comes with No Conditions

Love in all forms is bigger and more empowering than you think.Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

The number of false narratives in the world on the subject of love are many. Much of this comes from the idea that love can cause pain and suffering.

Not true. Love, in and of itself, can never cause pain or suffering. By itself, love is the ultimate creator, source of wellbeing, empowerment, and any and every good thing you can think of. All by itself, attached to nothing, love is never hurtful, harmful, or bad.

The keyword above, however, is attached. In other words, when love comes with conditions, that’s where the problem is. Love itself is unconditional and in more abundance than every subatomic particle in the universe. Conditional love, however, and attachments placed on love, are where it all goes wrong.

Before I go deeper into this, I’d like to offer an important matter of clarity. You are love. Not the product of love, not capable of giving or receiving. You are love.

There is only one you. You’re unique. You’re 1 in 8,000,000,000 (8 billion). You alone are here on this planet to experience your life and all the ups and downs therein. You beat a lot of odds to be you, here and now. The simplest and least conditional explanation for this is that you are love.

Any and all conditions attached are artificial.

The lies of conditional love

Some of the conditions that get attached to love are innocuous. They might be well-meaning. Unfortunately, some are unkind and uncompassionate, and create a false impression of what love truly is.

This begins with your family. Growing up, you were taught various things, many of which were valuable. Saying “please” and “thank you”, sharing, learning how to interact with others, and the like. Hopefully, you were loved by your family.

Still, some of that love was likely conditional. If you did something unacceptable, bad, or inappropriate as deemed by a parent or caregiver, conditions might have been placed on love. This is also true if you did something desired, good, and appropriate according to those authorities.

Punishment was sometimes a condition of love. Any time a command, suggestion, or the like was followed by “or else”, that was conditional love. Sometimes this was unintentionally conditional. Sometimes, though, it was only by meeting a given condition that you got love.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t end in adulthood. Dating is often fraught with conditions for love. If you don’t give enough time, spend enough money, buy enough gifts, or lots of other notions, love gets withheld. It can also be much subtler. Touch withheld, expressions of love made, and gaslighting are all mental, emotional, and spiritual conditional love.

The worst of this comes from the nature of our fear-based society. Advertising frequently presents you with conditions for receiving love. Buy that product, purchase that service, spend the money, or you fail to meet necessary conditions and get no love.

All of this, however, is a lie.

Unconditional love comes with no conditions

Genuine, unconditional love comes with no conditions. One of the best places to see this is with animals.

Despite cats being aloof, they give unconditional love. Dogs are even better at showing this. They don’t care what you do, so long as you are there. They will love you simply for being.

Unconditional love is love that simply is. That’s why you are love. Because you simply are. There is no need to do something, be something, have something, or otherwise. Love is abundant beyond reckoning, and it has no conditions attached to it that aren’t entirely artificial.

Love in all forms is bigger and more empowering than you think. It’s not the fairy tale notion of kisses turning frogs into princes or waking sleeping princesses. Love is the sun shining on us, the moon and stars lighting the night, and acts of kindness, compassion, and empathy.

Love cannot and does not cause pain, suffering, hurt, or anything else bad that gets attached to it. It’s the attachments of conditions that are the cause. When you get dumped, for example, a condition of love was not met, so it’s denied you. Due to your failure to provide a given condition or conditions, the love that was between you and your ex has been removed.

The pain and suffering from this has nothing to do with love itself. It’s the condition that existed that has been used, abused, and implemented in one form or another. This can be both unintentional and with malice of forethought.

Love, however, is never the source of pain, suffering, or any other negative.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on UnsplashReleasing the conditions       

You and I have been trained to believe that conditional love is real love. It’s become accepted that conditions on love are how it should be. Whether given or received, conditional love is the predominant idea of what love is.

This is not true. Love is you and you are love. Unconditional love is the truth behind what love is. In the world we live in this can be hard to believe. So many messages imply and outright state that conditional love is true love.

When you look more within and less without, this becomes easier to recognize. Looking within is an act of conscious awareness. That’s mindfulness. Mindfulness tells you what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is positive or negative, and what you are and aren’t doing.

When you practice this, you begin to see the conditions attached to love. You further see them for what they are and how they are not the truth. From there, with this knowledge, you can practice giving more unconditional love. That opens you to receive more.

Except you don’t need to receive more. That’s because it’s everywhere. This might seem like a stretch, but unconditional Love is The Force. As Yoda said,

“Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

That’s the truth of love at its core.

You are unconditional love

The last and often most insidious condition placed on love is worth and deserving. Artificial conditions are often created – not necessarily from a place of malice – that must be met. These form attachments to ideas of being worthy and deserving.

For example, let’s say you’re in line for a promotion at work. However, that new person they hired a year after you gets it and you don’t. Now you question your worth and feel hurt because you thought yourself deserving. Because your boss judged you as less worthy and deserving than that other person, you now question your own worth and if you’re deserving.

This is all artificial. You are worthy and deserving of everything. Unconditional love is yours, and you don’t need to have, be, or do anything to receive it. That’s in part because you are love.

There are too many false notions of competition in the world. These created numerous artificial conditions of accomplishment, achievement, and the like. When not met, you might question if you’re worthy and deserving. They are, at their core, elements of conditional love in the world.

Detaching yourself from this takes practice and time. It will vary from experience to experience and situation to situation. Mindfulness is the tool you have to do this. You need not do it alone, either. There are lots of books, therapists, and options to get guidance in this process.

However, it starts with recognizing and acknowledging that you are unconditional love. I can’t convince you of this truth because you alone know who, what, where, how, and why you are. I share this idea here in the hope that it opens you to taking the journey and learning that you are, truly, unconditional love.

Can you see the differences between conditional and unconditional love?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-third (663) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Unconditional Love Comes with No Conditions appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Does Positivity Build and Empower You?

Non-toxic positivity is an essential tool of creativity that empowers you.Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

You are a creative being. It doesn’t matter if you’re an artist or not. You’re a creative being.

The nature of creation is so broad and vast that it boggles the mind. Yes, the arts and all the elements of them are the ultimate form of creation, but they aren’t any better or more powerful than any other form creation takes.

Making the perfect cup of coffee or tea is creative. Raising a child is creative. Cooking a meal is creative. Learning how to swim, ride a bike, drive a car, or develop any skill is creative. Ergo, you are a creative being.

Unfortunately, many forces in the world prefer that you don’t see this for what it is. They fear you being your best, most creative self, because doing that you will empower you. Empowered people are much, much harder to influence, sway, and control.

Much of this is built on fear. Fear of not fitting in, not having or being enough, fear of missing out, fear of looking idiotic, fear of suffering. That’s why so many of the messages are, at their core, negative. It’s also why this is a fear-based society, because certain greedy, uncaring, unkind people and entities great and small believe they have control by making you and I live in fear.

Empowered people see through that. Then they make choices and decisions to increase their empowerment, share that with others, and break more people out of the fear-based society cycle.

One of the best tools for this is positivity. However, positivity has a competitor pretending to be the same that is not.

What is toxic positivity?

Toxic positivity is a no-holds-barred, allow-nothing-bad-or-negative approach to life. It puts blinders on you to keep out feeling bad, experiencing pain and suffering, and even going so far as to deny anything and everything negative.

It is sold frequently as a cure, a placebo, an all-powerful practice that’s never wrong. One of the more twisted versions of toxic positivity is how The Secret treats The Law of Attraction. The Secret, which I’m a fan of in principle, has popularized the idea that with an exclusively positive focus, allowing ZERO negativity in in any way, you can be, do, or have anything. But it neglects to recognize that work is involved – since you can’t create from the pure void.

Toxic positivity is toxic because of its treatment of negativity, how it disregards and ignores all bad and negative things, and then goes so far as to suggest all negativity is undesirable and bad.

Life is made of good and bad. You can’t know one without the other. Then these extremes are often given too much attention at the expense of the far more abundant “isms” between them.

Genuine, authentic, real positivity is not the end-all-be-all, only-game-in-town idea. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from negativity. It’s a choice of approach and viewpoint often in the face of negativity, or in moving away from bad things.

Genuine positivity not only recognizes negativity, it acknowledges that they must coexist. Often, it is as a result of something negative that you choose to create something positive.

Creating and creativity, of course, will empower you.

How does positivity build and empower you?

Let’s say you have a job that you don’t love, but are comfortable in. Your pay is okay, but not spectacular. The commute is annoying but acceptable. It’s fine, though you wish you were following your passion. But, for now, you keep working.

Then one day you’re laid off. Buh-bye. Your job is gone. A whole lot of negatives come to mind. What will you do now? How will you pay your bills? How will this impact your relationships? What if everything else in your life unravels and comes apart?

These are realistic possibilities to consider. But now you have a choice. Put your focus on how much this sucks and how bad it is that you’ve lost your job. Or use this as the catalyst to find a better job or follow your passion.

The choice to let the negative emotions, thoughts, and feelings control you is disempowering. That’s because you’re not creating, but instead breaking down and maybe even destroying (like if you turn to alcohol, overeating, or anything else destructive after losing your job). Or you can choose to see this as an opportunity and use the negative occurrence of losing your job to take a positive approach and build something new. That’s a choice of empowerment because you’re acting to move forward in a creative way.

This might only involve updating your resume, learning some new skills, and/or practicing interview techniques. That’s still creating, proactive, and thus a practice of positivity. And because you take that proactive action and a positive approach, you’re building more positivity and simultaneously empowering yourself.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on UnsplashIt is and it’s not that simple

It comes down to choices and decisions. Specifically, active, consciously aware choices and decisions. In other words, mindfulness.

Only the now, the present moment, is real. The past has come and gone and can’t be altered, changed, undone, or redone. Likewise, the future is unwritten. Multiple factors wholly out of your control will go into its creation.

Here and now, however, you have the power to choose and decide. Shit has happened. Do you choose to stay here, in neutral, and lament the happening? Or choose negativity and mope and wish something had gone differently in the past? Or do you pause and reflect, here and now, recognize and acknowledge what has happened and what is happening, then take a positive approach to build something new?

A positive approach and authentic positivity is a choice that empowers you. It lets you have control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions to use positivity to build anew. That empowers you because it’s all about you.

Sometimes it will feel selfish. But it’s not. Other times, it will feel overwhelming. Let it happen, recognize and acknowledge it, then work to let that go and keep going. Creating, and choosing for yourself rather than letting another do it for you feels good, generates positivity, and builds you up. That, ultimately, empowers you.

Empowerment is how you take the wheel of your life. Driving a car is both simple and not simple. So, too, is driving your life. The result, either way, is you are choosing where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there. Working with creativity – even a little bit – sparks empowerment. Coupled with genuine positivity, the potential and possibilities for you and your life are endless.

Working with positivity to build and empower you isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that negativity cannot be avoided or disregarded, and only you can choose and decide your approach to life, you can use genuine, non-toxic positivity to build, create anew, and ultimately empower yourself. Knowing that you’re the only you that there is – and that you alone can be actively consciously aware and mindful – you can make choices and decisions from a positive approach to take control of your life experience via your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach. Then you can direct your creativity and actions with authentic positivity.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-first (551) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post How Does Positivity Build and Empower You? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.