M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 14

Just Be You

Believe it or not, you are utterly worth being.Photo by sebastien cordat on Unsplash

Allow me to state some uncomfortable facts. Many people dislike themselves. Some even go so far as to hate themselves. I know this struggle. I’ve disliked myself on and off for most of my adult life.

A lot of this was due to outside messages and influences. I was shown all sorts of examples of how I was imperfect, not enough, insufficient, lacking, and doing it wrong. This could be applied to jobs, relationships, romantic relationships, family, you name it. Everywhere I turned there were messages about how I was screwing up, disappointing people, and generally living life as something of a fuck up.

When I started to really study the ideas of conscious reality creation, active conscious awareness, and mindfulness, I began to see those influences more clearly. They were the beliefs, values, and ideals of other people. What’s more, they exist on multiple levels.

The most abstract is the societal and organizational level. Celebrity influencers, politicians, religious leaders, business leaders, gurus, and other people who most likely don’t know you or me at all. You and I know their names, positions, and lots of other things, and are driven to compare ourselves and numerous elements of our lives to them. This is, however, utterly impersonal and imaginary.

Zooming in, there’s the local and community level. This is where teachers, doctors, coworkers, bosses, and the like exist. They might know you and me, but only on an impersonal level. Yet somehow, they and their beliefs, values, and ideals can be influential.

Then you get to the personal level. This is where parents, siblings, friends, lovers, and everyone else close to you – but still not you – lives. These are often the people most likely to make you feel unworthy.

Who do they think you are?

The people at that closest level, the personal level, think they know you. They have an impression of who you are, how you fit into their life, and how they think you fit into their life.

Think about it. You put the people in your life in places related to you. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, they all have a place in your head, heart, and soul. It’s not a place they can access, it’s the place where you put them.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that they do this to and with you.

Here’s where this gets even more complicated. From an early age, you’re hardwired to please other people. You likely consider the impact the things you say and do will have on those people. Specifically, the people at this close level. They do, after all, share a piece of your heart that you have given to them.

On this level, they most readily show disapproval and disappointment. Sometimes it’s unintentionally cruel and unusual. Other times, they think they are offering you something “for your own good.” Sometimes this is indifference that’s meant to be helpful but actually makes you feel bad. And sometimes there is malice of forethought and actual cruelty expressed, both with potential good and bad intent.

When you meet the negatives on the personal level, intentional or not, it can find its way to those more abstract levels. It’s not too hard to conclude that everyone, even those who don’t know you, thinks you’re a loser.

The thing is, all of this is outside of you. Meaning it’s only true if you accept it to be true.

Just be you

Who are you? That can be a tricky question.

If you dislike or even hate yourself, odds are your answer is an amalgam of those outside influences. More specifically, how you interpret them and take them into your head, heart, and soul. If you’re constantly told you’re not enough, you’re a screw-up, you suck, and so on, this should come as no surprise.

This, however, is not the truth. Whoever anyone else thinks you are is not you. That’s entirely on them, and wholly their belief, as applied from their biases, impressions, and other intangibles you have no access to or control of.

It can be incredibly hard to just be you when you think you’re who they tell you that you are. If you believe those outside voices and influences, it’s easy to feel bad about yourself, dislike and even hate yourself.

Okay, so what? Here comes the amazing part. You can shunt all this away and move past it. This requires that you just be you.

To do that you need active conscious awareness. In practice, mindfulness.

Photo by Jen Theodore on UnsplashMindfulness to just be you

What can you do to break this cycle? How do you get away from these false beliefs about yourself resulting from others? How do you just be you?

Mindfulness. This is active conscious awareness in practice. Mindfulness begins by asking and answering questions, here and now, about your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. These questions include:

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What is my intention?Is my approach to this or that situation positive or negative?What am I doing?

All of these can only be answered, genuinely, here and now. These are how you begin from a conscious place to look into your subconscious self.

Your subconscious is where your beliefs, values, and habits live. The thing is, though they live here, they might not be wholly yours. That’s because sometimes beliefs and values instilled in you and me by others take root and hide in your subconscious until you go looking for them. Other times, you installed them at some point in the past but failed to update them over time.

Mindfulness is how you take the wheel and start doing the driving. It’s the process that lets you see the artifices for what they are and learn what it takes and what it means to just be you.

Great. How does this fix my dislike of myself, you might ask? First, identify the aspects of that dislike that come from outside influences. Whether personal or abstract, it takes mindfulness to see if they truly belong to you or if you just think they do.

Now comes the part where I am going to ask you to take a leap of faith.

You are worthy and deserving of it all

Depression, anxiety, and other mental and emotional health elements will make you feel unworthy. The messages from outside influencers will convince you via a constant bombardment of information that you’re undeserving – no matter the topic at hand.

That’s a lie. Just be you because you are utterly worthy and deserving. No matter what the topic is, you’re worthy and deserving of it. Material or immaterial, tangible or intangible, you are worthy and deserving of it.

Why? Because you are here to live. To experience life and all it has to offer. Good, bad, or otherwise, you’re meant to experience the gamut. You don’t need to be rich, thin, gorgeous, wealthy, wise, or any other label of supposed superiority you can think of. Just be you because you are valuable to the world in your own way.

I know how hard that can be to believe. So many messages out there are telling you that you’re lacking, not enough, and otherwise insufficient. However, you are enough. You are more than enough and worth loving and being loved.

Please allow me to challenge you to something. No matter how seemingly insignificant it might be, write down 10 things about yourself that you like. They can be as petty and vain and selfish as they might seem to be but don’t discount them. My eyes are pretty, my hair is great, my voice is sexy, I’m a great kisser – and everything of that ilk counts. Write it down.

Feel how that makes you like yourself. Ignore any and all voices telling you it’s selfish, or wrong, or offering any other negative judgment. Like that about yourself? Feel it.

Just be you for you

I know what it’s like to dislike, loathe, and even hate yourself. Been there, done that, no longer fit into the t-shirt. Please know that you are not a bad person, you’re not unworthy, and you are not somehow hated and hateable more than you’re loving and loveable.

Mindfulness can help you see if what you believe is authentically yours or the impression made on you by outside influencers. Either way, you have the power to change this and just be you for you.

You’re empowered to just be you. And I believe that you are utterly worth being. Recognize what’s good and great about yourself, and give that more of your attention and focus. Hopefully, disliking, loathing, and hating yourself will fade away in the face of that.

Thank you for being you.

Can you see why you might not like yourself because of people and things who aren’t you?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-second (662) 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 Just Be You appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How to Be The Change

Take control of what you can, in truth, control.Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Grocery shopping today was not fun. Granted, for some people, this is always a chore and never fun. I, however, enjoy perusing the aisles, both getting what I came for and sometimes discovering something on sale that might be good (uniquely flavored seltzers, for example).

Why wasn’t it fun? Because people were being rude. Some were intentional, just pushing past and giving sour looks. Others were utterly oblivious. Zero situational awareness, leaving their carts in the way, holding conversations mid-aisle, and just paying no attention to anyone else.

This can be infuriating. How can people be so oblivious to everyone and everything? If this irks me, doesn’t it irk you, too? Why are you so oblivious?

Trouble is, I have no control of other people and who, what, where, how, or why they are, whatsoever. I can’t make anyone pay attention, be aware, stop being rude, or do anything at all. In other words, I have absolutely no control here in the slightest.

What can I do? All I can do is be the change I wish to see. Rise above the petty BS and be the best me that I can be.

SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: Rising above does NOT in any way, shape, or form, mean being better than, superior to, or otherwise “above” anyone else. This is about me and my thoughts, feelings, and actions – not anyone else. Rising above is about being cognizant of myself and what’s in my head, heart, and soul, not being any more special, better, etc., than anyone else.  Because nobody is greater or lesser than anyone else.

Self-awareness, mindfulness, and non-toxic positivity

There is nothing at all that you can do to change anyone else. You have zero ability or control to change hearts and minds. That’s not to say you can’t be a beacon of light in the darkness or otherwise be the change you wish to see. But you can’t make anyone else accept it, take it in, make use of it, or whatever else.

What you do control is in you. Your head, heart, and soul belong to you and only you. In your head, you think and direct your approach. In your heart and soul, you feel and intend. Via head, heart, and soul, you build consciously aware, mindful actions to take.

Self-awareness is about getting to know who, what, where, how, and why you are. This is done via active conscious awareness. Ergo, you examine here and now what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is towards positivity or negativity, and what actions you do or don’t take.

Mindfulness is taking that recognition and using it to either actively make choices and decisions in this moment, and/or delve into your subconscious mind to question and potentially alter your beliefs, values, and habits. It’s via mindfulness that you can use the control that is your birthright to be the change in yourself to be the most authentic you that you can be.

Non-toxic positivity enters into this because that will color the impression you are working to make on the world. Are you looking to build and do good, positive things for yourself and others or take down, restrict, and do potentially hurtful and harmful things to yourself and others? This is your approach, and positive empowers while negative disempowers.

How to be the change

This is about being the most genuine you that you can be. It’s about being true to yourself and as authentic as possible. It’s less about being your best and more about being your most natural self. No putting on of airs, no masks, no bullshit, nothing artificial, just you.

Trying to be someone you are not will come apart and break down eventually. That’s because it’s not you. People will see that, and it will make an impression you’d likely prefer not to make. It will also make you unhappy, uncertain, and likely confused.

To be the change begins by actively, consciously, changing. Not to someone or something you’re not, but to the most earnest you that you can be. That generates positivity because being your true self is how you can be ultimately centered and balanced.

How is that positive? Because you have no masks to drop, no false impressions being made, and you’re living life with self-awareness. That shows others that you are striving to be as authentic as you can be.

NOTE: This can and will be imperfect. That’s because perfection isn’t real. Like beauty, it’s in the eye of the beholder. Part of what makes you genuine is fucking up, making mistakes, falling flat, and getting it wrong as well as getting it right. What makes positivity non-toxic is not just recognizing and acknowledging negativity but embracing it for how it can empower you to change.

How do you be the change? Mostly by not resisting change, but also by being unselfish, aware, and open to the power of change.

Photo by Ma Ti on UnsplashYou control only you

When you actively take control of yourself and your life experience, you have assumed control over the only thing you can genuinely control. You can control nobody and nothing other than you.

That’s infuriating and depressing to some. But really, it’s so empowering. Why? Because with this knowledge, you’re able to work on yourself to be authentic, genuine, and true to yourself. When others see that, and the balance of it, you will be the change.

It’s not magical. Also, it doesn’t work with or for everyone. That’s because you have no control outside of yourself. It can make an impression. More than that, however, I find that I am more positive, happier, and better balanced when I’m practicing active conscious awareness and mindfulness.

No, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. But that’s because nothing is. Everyone has bad days, suffers from time to time, experiences pain, and other negatives. You choose, however, where you go from there, and whether to strive for positivity or let negativity dictate your approach to life.

You can be the change when you make the most of this. Via your empowerment, you can and will influence and empower others. Not by force, not by being somehow better or superior, but by being as authentic to yourself as you can be.

Acting on how to be the change 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 can only control what’s in your head, heart, and soul, you can work with that to be as authentic in and of yourself as you can be. 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 be as genuine to yourself as possible and be the change you desire to be and see in the world at large.

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-fiftieth (550) 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 to Be The Change appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

I’m Not Responsible for How You Feel

It’s nearly impossible not to come across as callous for this.Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash

I work hard not to be an asshole. This isn’t so much about me, as far as I’m concerned, as it is about being kind, compassionate, and empathetic. The world needs more kindness, compassion, and empathy; and giving them all comes with zero cost. This is what matters most.

That said, sometimes my words and actions cause hurt. I never set off with the intent of doing this, but it still happens.

The thing that’s often most frustrating about this is that I’m not responsible for how you feel. It’s not my responsibility to manage your feelings, good, bad, or otherwise.

That sounds cold and callous, I know. But it’s still utterly true, and I think important to recognize.

It’s all too easy to blame someone for hurting you. While it takes two to tango, and you can and will feel hurt due to actions by another, they’re not responsible for that. Not unless they blatantly, intentionally, with malice of forethought set out to hurt you.

When you feel hurt because of something happening on the part of another person, they are not responsible for how you feel.

Initial reactions happen

When something happens there is an initial, often visceral reaction. It will vary depending on what, where, how, when, and many other circumstances. No matter what the happening is, you will react to it in an automated manner.

This will also vary, even if it’s similar to a prior experience. Thus, when you get dumped, your initial reaction might be anger. That anger might be ice cold this time, while it was red hot last time. Or maybe this time, there’s not anger but instead relief. Perhaps you were looking for an out, too.

How you react is built into your psyche via experience, environment, situation, circumstance, and lots more. For the most part, that initial reaction, at the moment of whatever happens, simply will be and is. You can’t do anything to alter it in the moment.

However, once the moment of the happening passes, now you can take control. For example, let’s say you get into a car accident. It’s utterly the other person’s fault. Your initial reaction might be rage. How dare they? You might have visions of beating them bloody swimming through your head.

Likely, this (hopefully) won’t be how you handle it when you speak to the malefactor. Your initial visceral reaction is replaced with a less destructive approach, and might even turn to something wholly different, especially if you learn that the dear, sweet grandma, who caused the accident, was stung by a bee, causing her to lose control.

The point is that after your initial reaction, which just happens, you have the power to take control of how you feel. Your feelings, after any initial reaction, are in your control. Hence, if I do something that has upset you, I’m not responsible for how you feel.

I’m not responsible for how you feel

I am a human being. Hence, I fuck up from time to time. There are also times when I think I’ve chosen my words with care, but then, given the reaction produced, learn that this might not be so.

Ergo, I can cause you to feel hurt. Or upset, angry, disappointed, disillusioned, frustrated, excited, joyful, or who-knows-what. My actions or inactions, words, and deeds will produce an initial reaction in you. That’s automated.

Once that moment in time has passed, however, you can choose if you control your feelings or if your feelings will control you. All of that is yours to decide. So, while something I did or didn’t do sparked that initial reaction, the feeling that remains is yours to choose.

Hence, I’m not responsible for how you feel.

This is not, however, a hall pass to be an asshole, treat others poorly, withhold kindness, compassion, and empathy, or intentionally do hurtful things. The whole movement of “fuck your feelings” is built on this false idea that “not responsible” means you also get to be unaccountable. That, however, isn’t so.

I might not be responsible for how you feel, but I’m still accountable for my actions/inactions/words, and so on. It’s vitally important to be mindful of this. Intent matters and accountability is recognizing your role in any given situation.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on UnsplashYou’re not responsible for how I feel

This is very much a two-way street. I’m not responsible for how you feel and you’re not responsible for how I feel. It’s as simple as that.

The “fuck your feelings” crowd tends to be especially fragile and easily offended. That’s because of that lack of recognition of responsibility and accountability within them. You give what you get. If I actively choose to be an asshole, then it should come as no surprise when I get that back.

If you withhold or deny kindness, compassion, and empathy from others, it should come as no surprise when that’s what you get in return. This is how the universe works. Balance. Yin and yang. Paradox. What you put out is what you get back.

However, if something happens that causes an immediate initial reaction in me, what comes after is mine to control or be controlled by. So, if you do something to me that makes me feel hurt, and I hold onto that hurt, you’re not responsible for how I feel, are you? The reverse is true, too.

How do you address this and work with it?

Accountability and mindfulness

The world at large would be a much better place if we were all more accountable. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be great if blatant liars, criminals, and bad actors were held accountable for their words and deeds? We’d all live with a lot less paranoia, fear, and anger. But lack of accountability is a tool for perpetuating this fear-based society.

However, when it comes to you and your life, this is a choice. Accountability begins with recognition. See what happened? Recognize it. Then, acknowledgment. You must acknowledge your role, even if it is uncomfortable to do so (arguably, especially when it’s uncomfortable to do so).

Once you’ve recognized and acknowledged, making yourself accountable, you can apply active conscious awareness to be mindful. Ask yourself what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is positive or negative, and what your actions are or aren’t. When you identify these in the moment, the present, you gain the power to assume control and change them accordingly.

You alone are responsible for how you feel. Likewise, I alone am responsible for how I feel. Accountability and mindfulness reveals this and empowers you and me to take charge of what we do from there.

Maybe this isn’t so cold or callous on closer examination. What do you think?

This is the six-hundred-sixty first (661) 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 I’m Not Responsible for How You Feel appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why is Comparison the Thief of Joy?

Because you set yourself up to experience suffering that way.Photo by Mahmoud Ayad on Unsplash

Comparison is the thief of joy because it’s endless. There is always someone or something you can compare yourself to. That person has it better than you. Those people look better than you do. Their home/car/yard is nicer than yours. Comparison will always find someone for you to see and feel less than.

Similarly, comparison can make you feel superior to others. But that comes with a price, because if they become your equal or by comparison “better” than you, you’ll feel awful.

Everywhere you turn, people, places, and things are being compared. Politics is all about comparing candidate “A” and candidate “B” and what they stand for, how they will help or harm you, and an endless list of other matters.

This society is hell-bent on comparing this, that, and the other thing. You name it, it will be held up to “X” and “Y” and compared for quality, righteousness, good, bad, and everything else you can imagine. Then, making comparisons to dominant, artificial values applied to it, tied to fear, is a major factor of why this society you and I live in is a fear-based society.

Fear is a false motivator

Every single advertisement for any good, service, or whatever employs comparison. This car is better than that car; our food is tastier and healthier than the other guy’s food; if you don’t buy this, you will be viewed by others as less intelligent/attractive/caring/etc; it never ends and perpetuates largely false lack, scarcity, insufficiency, and via these, fear.

This can be both subtle and blatant. The cutesy notion of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – is blatant but disguised as reasonable and adorable. Yet it’s frequently employed to coerce you into buying or doing something lest you suffer.

That’s the truth of most of the fear in this fear-based society that you and I live in. The thing you fear you won’t have or receive isn’t the object of the fear you feel. It’s the suffering that will result from missing out, not being a part of, and not having that tangible or intangible thing.

To quote Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist:

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”

You’re not afraid of being judged by your peers for not buying the McGuffin, you’re afraid of the suffering that will result from being shunned, treated as lesser, disregarded, or whatever else happens after.

Nobody wants to suffer. I could give you a slew of examples of this truth, but I think it’s obvious. Suffering is uncomfortable and nobody wants to be uncomfortable.

So, fear is frequently employed to motivate you and me to do things, buy things, be things, and more. Then, to get you and me to buy, be, and do endlessly more, we’re compared and encouraged to compare ourselves and go from there.

Letting comparison be the thief of joy is a choice

It’s natural to look at other people and compare yourself to them. Part of the process of getting to know someone, even someone you don’t meet in person, involves examination, which inevitably includes comparison. I’m shorter than him or I’m thinner than her or my car is nicer than theirs automatically comes up during the process.

Where this gets twisted is when comparison leads you to feel bad. Or worse, to pass judgment on yourself. That’s when I’m shorter than him leads to and less desirable, and I’m thinner than her leads to I’m less curvy and less attractive, and my car is nicer than theirs leads to but it’s still not very new, and so on.

This can become an endless, joy-stealing act if it goes unchecked. Before you know it, often without you ever realizing it, you find that you’re constantly comparing yourself and your life to others, and finding more lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in your life to feel bad about. Your joy is thus stolen by comparison.

This is, however, a choice. You have the power to make another. Sure, comparison on first meeting a person, or seeing someone on the screen, is natural. Acting on it, taking it further, and/or more closely examining it, however, is a choice.

You can choose to take I’m shorter than him, and either make nothing of it or follow it with and that’s okay. You get to choose what comes next, and if you will compare yourself further.

This is, of course, wholly on you.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on UnsplashThis is your reality

The only person in your head, heart, and soul is you. Nobody else is in there. There’s nobody who can think or feel for you, but you.

While it often feels or appears like other people are comparing themselves to you, or judging you, this is usually not true. And, even if it is, it doesn’t matter. Just as they aren’t you, you’re not them.

Yet it’s all too easy to believe that you are being weighed and measured by other people. So, in response, you compare yourself to them on many levels. This is, ultimately, a choice, of course.

While all initial, visceral reactions simply are, what happens after is for you to choose. Do you go down the road of comparison or do you move on and choose to just be?  

You have the power to choose. It might not feel like much, but it’s enormous because that means your reality is what you make it. Thus, if you compare yourself to anyone or anything and feel bad resulting from that, you can change it. You can choose not to compare yourself beyond the initial observations made.

Comparison is the thief of joy if you allow it to be. When you don’t, you can find your joy in many places, even in the face of someone you might feel as if you are being compared to/feel the need to compare yourself to.

This is your reality, and you get to shape it how you desire. Joy is yours when you are mindful of thieves who might try to take it from you.

Recognizing the comparison is the thief of joy 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 in-depth comparison leads to unhappiness, struggle, and suffering, you can choose to not engage in it. Knowing that comparison causes suffering, and then choosing not to compare yourself to other people and such, you can more easily find joy and other positive emotions and suffer far less and less often.

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 forty-ninth (549) 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 Why is Comparison the Thief of Joy? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Very Little In Life is Either/Or

You seldom experience or live the extremes.Photo by Marcus Urbenz on Unsplash

Everywhere you look the extremes are being emphasized. Rich and poor. Black and white. Brilliant and idiotic. Exciting and terrifying. Liberal and conservative. Good and evil. Extremes and opposites here, there, and everywhere.

Worse than this, many push the viewpoint that you are either/or, for or against this, that, or the other thing. This extreme viewpoint is touted as the only viewpoint and opposite another.

What’s more, the notion of either/or being your only choice between extremes and nothing else is utterly disempowering. It emphasizes things you have little to no control over and then shames you if you ignore them. It’s rather insidious when you think about it.

But, and here’s the other problem, most people don’t truly “think” about it. That’s because the tremendous emphasis on this, that, or the other extreme and its opposite creates artificial limits. It focuses on lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in a way that’s plausible but is truly unrealistic.

It all comes down to this: very little in life is either/or.

The in-between

I write about this frequently in my positivity blogs. While the opposite of positive is negative, these are the extremes. Between them, there are numerous options, positions, beliefs, and values to be had.

This is also why I prefer the analogy of a flexible cylinder between extremes rather than a coin. Between black and white, up and down, healthy and unhealthy, big and small, and so on, there are a huge number of possibilities.

For example, between black and white there are numerous, almost uncountable colors, hues, and shades to be found. As if that wasn’t enough, grey has way more than 50 shades to it.

The extremes on the opposite ends are often represented as an either/or choice. Yet, in-between, there’s so very much more to be found. Most people, places, and things exist between either/or and the given extremes.

Additionally, very little is written in stone. Nearly everything you know is changeable. You can exist towards one end of the cylinder or the other for a time, then move to another. You’re not always and forever any one thing.

Also, the reason I use the idea of a flexible cylinder, is that the extremes themselves – the either/or – aren’t fixed in stone. Something positive and good today can be negative and bad tomorrow. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s villain – and vice versa. Nothing is written in stone, save the one and only constant in the universe: change (and that’s certainly not written in stone).

Recognizing the in-between and its flexibility can go a long way for your life choices and decisions. What’s more, you seldom experience or live the extremes.

Very little in life is either/or

For the most part, life’s choices and decisions are seldom relegated to either/or. There are always other options, save for a few specific extremes.

One example of such an extreme – an especially loud and nearly impossible-to-miss one at that – is American politics.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for third-, fourth-, and fifth-party options in elections. On the local level, in your community, this is utterly applicable to choosing who to vote for. On the national level, such as a Presidential election, that’s not viable. (At least not until more local representatives of other parties get elected on local levels to make the way for breaking the two-party system). The 2024 election is not that time – this is that rare either/or choice.

Applying this to you and your life, where you have all the potential control, however, it’s clearer that more than either/or are your options. Recognizing and working with this, however, requires active conscious awareness. Mindfulness.

When you are aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and your actions, you can recognize and acknowledge options beyond either/or. Recognition and acknowledgment are necessary first steps in working with this.

It’s often good to start with rote, routine, and habit to see more than your either/or options.

Photo by Robert Katzki on UnsplashTurn off the autopilot

When was the last time you thought about how you brush your teeth? Pause and consider. Which hand do you use? Do you start at the top or bottom of your mouth? Is there a pattern you follow automatically in the process? What about flossing and using mouthwash for your dental hygiene?

Odds are, you just brush your teeth with little or no thought. However, this can be changed. You could switch hands, choose to start on the opposite side of your mouth, begin at the canines rather than the molars, and a whole lot of other options.

When you look closely at how you brush your teeth, it’s apparent that there’s no either/or choice involved. You have a lot of options.

This is true of every habit you employ, your beliefs, values, thoughts, and feelings. Either/or are the extremes, but the majority of your options are between them. And you have lots and lots of them.

To first recognize this, you need to choose to turn off the autopilot. Choose something small that you do habitually, by rote and routine, acknowledge it, and decide to alter it. Then act on that to make a change.

The next time you encounter or reach the same habit, alter it in yet another way. Acting on making choices and decisions beyond either/or can open tons of potential and possibilities for you.

One final thought and caveat to this.

You can only choose beyond either/or for yourself

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. I’m the only one in my head, heart, and soul. I can’t think, feel, intend, or act for you anymore than you can think, feel, intend, or act for me.

I can show you a path but can’t make you walk it, and vice versa. Likewise, I can offer my hand to lead you down a given path, but you choose to take it or not. Even if we walk the same path together, what I gain from the experience isn’t what you’ll gain. That’s why two people can see the same movie and have utterly opposite reactions to it.

Very little in life is an either/or proposition. While the extremes provide alternate options, most of who, what, where, how, and why you are falls somewhere in the vest, flexible cylinder between extremes. When you recognize this and acknowledge this, you become empowered. That empowerment opens you to all sorts of choices, potential, and possibilities on your life path to be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.

This isn’t easy to do, nor is it simple, because the emphasis on either/or being the only option is so ingrained in society. Yet when you pause and look more closely at this, you can see it more clearly and make informed choices and decisions for how you live your life.

Can you see how much exists between and beyond the notion of either/or and all that you can do with that?

This is the six-hundred-sixtieth (660) 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 Very Little In Life is Either/Or appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Positivity in Politics Again

A perfect example of why we all need positivity.Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

While I was away on vacation, Kamala Harris chose her running mate. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. A whitey-white guy with an impressive record, morality, progressive stances on equality and rights for all, and a clear sense of humor.

For the first time in a decade of some of the most partisan, ugly, awful politics I think anyone has ever seen, here’s a force of positivity. A genuine, positive, pleasant force for good running for office. It’s like a ray of sunshine amid tumultuous, seemingly unending storm clouds.

The endless barrage of deceit, negativity, division, and hate takes a toll on everyone. Interested in politics or not, you’re probably feeling it. Thus, this new situation with Mr. Walz feels like something fresh, worthwhile, and – dare I say? – positive.

The political landscape of the past decade has been derisive, distressing, and downright scary at times. When you have Trump telling you he plans to upend the US democracy and be a dictator – and his supporters brushing it off or being duped into believing he will help them and harm those they perceive are hurting them – it’s a negativity pileup on a good day and a shitshow or worse otherwise. The false narratives of lack, scarcity, and blaming the “other” for all that ails the world is exhausting.

This just goes to show, frankly, a perfect example of why we all need positivity.

The need for genuine, non-toxic positivity

Nobody, and I mean nobody, desires to experience negativity all the time. Even the most emo, depressive people you know seek positivity and light in, from, or through the darkness.

The biggest problem with positivity today is toxic positivity. Toxic positivity tends to get the most attention. It’s the notion that you should ignore, disregard, and avoid negativity entirely. Put on blinders to it, dodge it, avoid it, don’t let it take root or pay it any mind. Rah, rah, positivity, and only positivity.

This is not how the Universe works. To have and experience positivity in the world you need negativity. Often, positivity is built from the response to a negative event. The truth is that bad things can, will, and do occur, to and for everyone. No matter how perfect and unproblematic someone’s life might appear to be, it’s not perfect. Nor is it unproblematic. Everyone everywhere has these experiences.

Nobody can or does live at either extreme. Everyone has positive and negative experiences in life. Genuine positivity is about choosing not to dwell in, be overwhelmed by, or give in to negativity and negative forces.

It always comes down to choice. Much like the coming election.

Positivity in politics

Once upon a time, the various candidates running for office told you why. They offered up promises of the good things they would do for you and me if we voted them into office.

I’m sure that saying negative things about the opposition has always occurred. However, the almost exclusive use of derogatory language, the constant harping on the awfulness on the other side, and the attacks both blatant and subtle haven’t always been the default.

Hell, there used to be a degree of civility in politics that Trump, for certain, blows off. How a person who mocks others, defaults to schoolyard name-calling, and is always on the attack has developed such a cult following is mind-boggling to me.

Hell, both sides often strive to get in the way of each other, even bragging about their obstructionism (yes, both sides do this, but it’s a lot more frequent and regular from the GOP).

When politicians show such disrespect, it’s not limited to their opponents or the “other side”. It’s also to you. Smug, arrogant, self-aggrandizing so-called leaders showing no respect to each other sure as hell don’t respect you or me, either.

This is why we need positivity in politics. You can’t build, grow, or develop much of anything worthwhile via destruction, obstruction, and blame. This is ultimately disempowering.

When you’re disempowered, you are more apt to cede control and make fewer life choices and decisions. When you don’t make choices and decisions for your life, you’ll find yourself lost, discontent, disoriented, and wondering what happened.

Then you open yourself to influence you might not otherwise accept. The years of the lack of positivity in politics utterly reflect this.

Photo by Element5 Digital on UnsplashIt’s all about choices and decisions

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Hence, you, and only you, can choose and decide what’s right and wrong for you and your life.

When you are disempowered, you feel as if you have fewer and fewer available choices. That’s not true despite appearances. When you feel empowered, you are more capable of recognizing and making choices and decisions for yourself.

This is why positivity in politics matters. Having that be a part of the discussion and the decision-making process offers a path to empowerment. It’s no longer about “us” versus “them” and instead genuinely about ALL OF US. You can see options that include hope, possibility, and potential.

Do you like the feeling of hopelessness, despair, and terror that has dominated the political discourse of the past decade? Look at how much more divided – artificially – the nation has become as a result of it. That builds nothing of any good to anyone. And that is how negativity disempowers at every level.

The recent shift in the discussion has been like a change in air pressure. Even those who choose to largely ignore politics are taking notice. That, if nothing else, is proof that positivity in politics is not just important, but truly necessary.

Recognizing the importance of positivity in politics 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 having a candidate representing positivity feels good, and changes the overall tone of the election, it’s self-evident. Knowing that politics doesn’t have to be made of despair, hate, fear, and negativity to choose government leaders, a little positivity in politics can open the way to building better, generating good, and showing paths to empowerment for all.

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 forty-eighth (548) 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 Positivity in Politics Again appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Everything is Energy You Can Connect With

The limits on energy are only what you assign them.Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Unsplash

I frequently write about energy. I believe that everything, at its core, is energy. It’s the point of origin for all. You and I begin and end as energy, neither created nor destroyed, frequently transmuted. From the tiniest subatomic particle to the largest star in the galaxy, all are sourced from energy. Hence, all are source energy.

What is source energy? It is pure energy in the ethers, surrounding us, penetrating us, and binding the galaxy together. Yes, it is The Force, but it’s still a very real thing. Source energy, or universal energy, is the end-all-be-all of all.

You are made of energy at your deepest, most intricate level. Everything you can see, touch, taste, smell, hear, sense, or otherwise engage with is made of energy. And of course, the devices that connect you and everyone across the world utilize it in a wholly different form. It’s everywhere, and constant, and it cannot be created nor destroyed, just transmuted and repurposed.

Meditation connects you to source energy

Meditating is a great means to allow you to connect and disconnect with the universe. On the one hand, you can seek out your own inner thoughts and manage them in new ways, while on the other hand, you can utterly lose yourself and join source energy for a time.

However you choose to meditate, this is an ultimate chance to pause, get ahold of yourself, experience the world while connected with everything at its most base existence, and also be disconnected from it all.

Why does connecting with source energy matter? Because it provides you with an opportunity to ultimately examine yourself. Not just the past and present, and not the immediate, touchable here-and-now, but your core, true, intentional self.

What does that mean? In Billy Joel’s The Stranger, the opening line is “Well we all have a face that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.”

The thing is, nobody just wears faces for other people. They wear them for themselves, too.

Sometimes this is a necessary evil. When you get out of bed after a restless night of insomnia, stub your toe, drop the cap of your toothpaste down the drain, and then burn your tongue on the first cup of coffee – chances are you might just spiral into a terrible day. However, if you work to leave that all behind and put on a different face, you don’t show up to work carrying with you that crazy, no-good, terrible morning.

Photo by Krists Luhaers on UnsplashYour choices and decisions

You choose to put on a different face in part for yourself so that you can do what needs to be done. Then, in part for everyone else, so that you don’t present to them a bitter, angry, flustered person nobody would want to be around, yourself included.

You’re constantly putting on different faces, different attitudes, and as such, leaving behind your genuine self. Frequently, who you really are is covered by a different persona that has been cultivated to help you walk the path you’ve currently chosen.

Connecting with source energy allows you to get back to your self beneath the faces you wear, under the surface, and deep into your core. You get to venture to a place where, merging into Universal energy, you needn’t wear even your skin, so you can be your most real, genuine, truest, authentic self.

This is not always easy. Sometimes when I meditate, getting into the zone is challenging. There are times I can neither focus nor unfocus, and I might just sit there quietly for more time than truly getting to merge into that source energy. But I strive to achieve this goal because I love the ultimate freedom deep meditation opens me up to.

Connect with source energy

When you go to source energy, you become energy. This is where you begin and it’s where you’ll end. You simply have transmuted into this meat suit you present to the world – fat, thin, short, tall, black, white, male, female, nonbinary, or what-have-you. The real, core you, is energy. Meditating connects you back to source and the roots of it all.

By converging with source energy, you allow yourself to be fully, completely, and totally open to endless possibilities. You’re ultimately free to experience both the little and the grand things. You can find the answers to almost all your questions because when you’re one with Universal energy, anything and everything is possible.

This is why energy is so important. When you recognize that you’re pure energy at your own core, and you seek to connect to that at the core of the universe, you can find calm, peace, contentment, and all the answers you could possibly desire.

I meditate daily because I find that the sensations I experience when connecting to Universal energy are incomparable. When I meditate, I feel as though I’m better able to manage everything that comes my way.

When you recognize that you are energy and that it’s the root of it all, you can make better choices and more happily traverse the paths you have chosen for your life.

Can you see how everything is energy that you can connect with?

This is the six-hundred-fifty-ninth (659) 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 Everything is Energy You Can Connect With appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

5 Ways to Quickly Generate Non-Toxic Positivity

Everyone prefers to feel good over feeling bad.Photo by Aline Kircchinbauer on Unsplash

Finding positivity is about learning/discovering ways to feel okay, calm, centered, and good. Yet you and I live in a fear-based society that feeds on a steady diet of negativity. Fear is a tool employed by many different leaders, so-called leaders, demagogues, celebrities, and the like to keep people in line. Similarly, sensationalism sells and gets more clicks on social media. This can make it appear to be far easier to live in fear and negativity than to find positivity.

Today being a Monday, most people are going to work after a weekend off. Somewhere along the way, it was widely accepted that Mondays should be loathed. The reason that I began to write these weekly blogs about non-toxic positivity was because I came to this conclusion: Why start the work week in negativity and set that tone when you use active conscious awareness to find and/or create positivity and allow yourself to feel better?

Hence the weekly posts about elements and aspects of positivity, both direct and indirect. Since I like to find and create these for me and my life, I decided that sharing this idea can help you do the same.

To that end, I’m offering some simple means to generate non-toxic positivity. But first, a quick bit of clarity.

Toxic vs non-toxic positivity

The use of toxic positivity has made genuine, non-toxic positivity seem hard to distinguish. It causes many people to automatically dismiss all positivity, genuine or otherwise.

The difference between toxic and non-toxic positivity is easy to recognize. Toxic positivity tells you to ignore, disregard, walk away from, and turn a blind eye to any and all negativity. If you walk around with rose-colored glasses and blinders to negativity, focus wholly on positivity, and ignore all else, you’ll be in a great place.

It’s impossible to live without negativity. It can, will, and does occur. There’s nothing you can do about this truth – save choose how to react when it occurs. Shit happens. People die. Friends leave you. Jobs are lost and stolen. Life will unexpectedly turn to shit. Welcome to the human experience.

Genuine, non-toxic positivity begins by recognizing shit has happened. You recognize and acknowledge the world can be an imperfect, illogical, and even awful place at times. Bad things might be happening/have happened, and they’re not to be disregarded.

Then, you practice mindfulness to be consciously aware of yourself. With that active conscious awareness – here and now – you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach is facing positivity or negativity, and what you are and/or aren’t doing. Then, you get to choose to change any or all of these to shift focus to genuine, non-toxic positivity.

Hopefully, the clarity of this helps make sense of what follows.

5 ways to quickly generate non-toxic positivity

Many, many things generate non-toxic positivity. The following 5 are things you can do with little to no effort, more than once a day.

Smile/Grin. Seriously, just take a minute and smile (in private). You don’t need to laugh, you don’t need to have anything in particular to smile about, simply smile for a minute or so, and see how you feel.Breathe deeply. Take at least two minutes to breathe deeply, intentionally. Focus on your breathing, and let the air in and out. You’d be surprised how just breathing and not doing anything else will make you feel.Sit or stand more erect. Consider your posture. When you slouch and slump, there is no energy flow. When you stand up straight or sit up straight, you energize your core, and you would be surprised how that will improve your mood.Stretch. Roll your neck, roll your shoulders, stretch out your arms and legs for a minute or two. This is the only body you have, and if you’re like me you might tend towards abusing it. Stretching doesn’t just keep your joints and muscles strong, it also helps you relax and feel more flexible.Disconnect. Go offline for a few minutes. Take a short walk. Step away from whatever you are doing and reset yourself. This can be less than five minutes, and I’ve always suspected this is part of the allure for smokers. You get away from it all for a few minutes to get your nicotine fix. For non-smokers, you also need a few minutes to get away and take a break from things. Leave your computer, tablet, and phone behind for 1 to 5 minutes, and free yourself.Photo by Nate Johnston on UnsplashSimple, easy, and quick

None of these things need to take more than 1 to 5 minutes. All of them will allow you to feel better. I know that I prefer feeling good over feeling bad.

It seems so very simple, and yet it’s neglected all too easily.

There are other options out there, of course. But rather than getting caught in the negativity of the world at large, you can generate positivity for yourself. From there, you might find you can do much, much more than you think.

Using these 5 ways to quickly generate non-toxic positivity 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 can do something active with non-toxic positivity, that doesn’t take long, you can find and make the time necessary to act on it for your betterment. Knowing that there are little, simple, quick things you can do to feel good, you have tools at your disposal to improve your day, week, month, and beyond.

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 forty-eighth (548) 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 5 Ways to Quickly Generate Non-Toxic Positivity appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Am I Feeling This Way?

An exercise in self-analysis.Photo by Minh Trần on Unsplash

As I write this, I’m preparing for my annual vacation to southwestern Pennsylvania. I have attended an enormous medieval reenactment event every year since 1996 (save 2 years due to the COVID pandemic).

This draws 10,000 people or more, and we spend up to 2 weeks hanging out with friends, enjoying classes on all sorts of medieval topics, eating, and partaking in various forms of combat. I have been doing medieval rapier combat (fencing) with the organization for over 30 years, and there are lots of tournaments, melee combats, and chances for pick-up fights with friends.

(FYI, “medieval” in this context is a catch-all phrase. Given that the group’s time period spans from the Fall of Rome to the death of Elizabeth I of England and nearly every world culture, it’s well beyond medieval).

This is not camping, per se. It’s really glamping. I have a canvass pavilion, sleep in a tatami mat on a real bed frame, and my camp has a fairly extensive kitchen and hot-water showers. While the equipment the camp itself uses is stored on-site, I have to pack and transport my stuff.

As of this writing, I’ve done this 27 times, loaded up 8 different cars with an ever-growing amount of gear, and camped from 1 to 2 weeks (usually doing 9-10 days on average).

So why the hell am I feeling this way?

The current mental, emotional, and physical sensations

Mentally, I keep thinking I’m forgetting to pack something. Then I worry that even with the new roof rack on my car I won’t have enough room. What if I get on sight with insufficient time to set up everything before dark? If I run into that person I camp with whom I’m annoyed with presently, will I confront them inconveniently? What if the person I’m giving a ride to has more gear than I can add to my full loadout and is running horrifically late?

Emotionally, as much as I look forward to this most years, this year I have trepidation. I’m worried that the recent pain in my ankle is more than just a sprain and will impact how much I can do. What if there’s a problem with the locals due to the current state of fucked up politics in the US? Why am I feeling nervous, jittery, and out-of-sorts overall?

I feel physically like I’m going to jump out of my skin. There are butterflies in my stomach. I keep needing to take a deeper breath because it feels like the air is insufficient. The best word to describe this all-in-one would be tingly.

Why am I feeling this way? Where is the trepidation coming from? After all the times I’ve done this, where is this nervousness coming from?

Or is this what I go through every year?

Feeling this way is not me

Or, in other words, I am not my feelings. Feeling this way is not a sign that I’m in some sort of trouble, that anything is wrong, or that I’m somehow making a mistake here. Hell, my wife looks forward to the time she gets to herself (and I look forward to seeing people I only see once a year at this event).

Rather than let this drive me mad, I’m going to step back and examine this in the context of my life. My life, currently, is in the process of some pretty extensive shifts and changes.

Just before the pandemic hit, I started to focus more on my writing. In 2020 I published 3 novels. Then, in 2021 I published 6 more books. While I published none in 2022, I put another out in 2023. Before the end of this year, there will be 3 more books published and from 1-5 books published in 2025.

After living in the same place for 6 years, we’re likely moving in the Fall. Not far, though possibly across state lines. That’s a lot of uncertainty.

My wife has had a hell of a year. We lost her mom, she’s changed jobs, and she’s been working hard to cope with and overcome her anxiety.

On top of all this, I recently left one of the part-time jobs I’ve been doing since 2021 and increased how much I am giving to the other that I’ve worked with on and off since 2022.

Lastly, utterly outside of anything I can do jack shit about, the upcoming election situation is maddening.

I’m not feeling overwhelmed, you’re feeling overwhelmed. Okay, no, I think that it’s clear why I’m feeling this way. I’m overwhelmed.

However, despite being overwhelmed, I’m in control.

Photo by Luke Lung on UnsplashIt’s all in my head

Why am I feeling this way? For all the above reasons and the overwhelm resulting from them. What can I do about this? Everything. Because it’s all in my head.

I alone can think these thoughts, feel these feelings, and control my intentions, actions, and all else. Nobody but me lives in my head, heart, and soul. All of this, however, is rooted in my head.

Feeling this way – or any way – is triggered by thought. Thoughts develop from happenings both inside and outside of me. While some are unbidden and spring up as a result of something else, others are focused on, ruminated on, and well-known.

Thoughts are a product of the conscious mind. However, they can tap into the subconscious mind and latch onto or work off of beliefs, values, memories, and habits. That thing that happened sparks a memory of a previous time a similar thing happened, which called into question a given belief, that in turn challenged a particular value, and so on.

All of that is in my head (and from there my heart and soul). None of this is written in stone or absolute. I can change and alter any, if not all of it.

This is where active conscious awareness – mindfulness – comes in.

Mindfulness and feeling this way

I pause. Take a deep, deep breath. Let it out again. Repeat. Consider what I’m thinking, what and how I’m feeling, and the impact that has on my intentions and actions. Calm. Center. Balance.

That’s mindfulness in action. By being present and in the now I can see what’s going in for what it is. The uncertainty is born of the overwhelm that’s attached to all the things that are or have been going on for the past year or more. All of this self-analysis has occurred in the half an hour since I began to write this.

Self-analysis is an ongoing process. You can totally do it on your own, alone. However, to go deeper into the subconscious, you sometimes need a therapist or other person or trained professional to offer guidance and insight. They can’t solve diddly squat for you but can help you find your solutions.

Now I have the answer to why am I feeling this way. And now I’m feeling more put-together, more ready to do everything I must before I hit the road. Then, as an added bonus, I’m feeling less trepidation about this trek and more excitement for the annual vacation that I love to take.

Thanks for reading this craziness. When you find you’re feeling a certain way, do you do self-analysis such as I’ve done here?

This is the six-hundred-fifty-eighth (658) 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 Am I Feeling This Way? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You’re Not a Bad Person and Nobody Hates You

Unless you intentionally withhold kindness, compassion, empathy, and hurt/harm others.Photo by Gianfranco Grenar on Unsplash

Everybody has their own beliefs, values, and habits. No two people think absolutely, perfectly alike, or in sync. Opinions are like assholes, so everybody has one (unlike assholes they frequently have more than one).

Concepts of good and bad are fluid and ever-evolving. Today’s good guy is tomorrow’s villain and vice versa. People change. The pendulum swings in both directions.

It’s very easy to get caught up in all the hype, anger, and especially the fear. Various leaders, so-called leaders, demagogues, celebrities, and the like will pull you in every direction you can imagine, and likely some you can’t. It’s mind-boggling, really.

Do you sometimes think you’re a bad person or that everybody hates you because of your beliefs and values? If so, then I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you’re not a bad person and nobody hates you.

How do I know this?

If you question the impression you’re making on others, question how they feel about you, and care about what that looks like? Then you’re not a bad person and nobody hates you for your beliefs and values.

You self-examine. You consider what, if any, impression you make or have made. In other words, you care about other people.

But, someone might argue, isn’t that narcissistic? Isn’t this all about you and what you do? No. Because narcissists don’t give a shit about what anyone else believes or values.

A bad person couldn’t care less if someone thinks they’re bad. They can’t be bothered to examine how their beliefs or values impact anyone other than themselves. A bad person doesn’t give a damn about you, just themselves.

Okay, no, I can’t honestly say that nobody hates you. That’s because I am not in the heart, mind, or soul of anyone else out there. But I can tell you that nobody hates you specifically for your values and beliefs. At least, not unless you actively work to force them on anyone who doesn’t agree or desire to have them imposed.

That’s the real issue. Individual people are not inherently bad people or tend to be hated. However, when they willingly discard kindness, compassion, and empathy and knowingly inflict harm on others, that’s a whole other story.

You’re not a bad person and nobody hates you, unless…

Unless you knowingly hurt someone. When you withhold kindness, compassion, and empathy because someone might be different than you in some way. If you willfully, with full cognizance and awareness choose to support hurtful, hateful, spiteful, unhinged people. Then you might be a bad person.

Let’s talk about a huge gap in the United States. Conservative vs Liberal. These tend to both be extremes. Most people have both conservative and liberal beliefs, values, and even habits.

Politics? You can be fiscally conservative and socially liberal at the same time. Religion? You can be a devout worshipper of god and believe in science at the same time. Morality? You can be personally monogamous and straight and support polyamorous LGBTQA+ people and their right to exist at the same time.

The point is that unless you knowingly, willfully are unkind, uncompassionate, unempathetic, hateful, and doing or allowing harm and hurt to happen to others – you’re not a bad person.

This involves a degree of malice of forethought. So long as you consider how who you are and what you do – and the impact it might have on others – you’re not a bad person.

Hate is a bit more challenging. But by and large, you’ll only be hated if you actively, willfully do something hateful, hurtful, harmful, and awful to another person.

When you question how others might feel about you, and care about what that is, you’re probably not a bad person and nobody hates you for your beliefs and values.

The keyword here, however, is probably.

Photo by Fernando @cferdophotography on UnsplashNo definites and no absolutes

You are the only one inside your head, heart, and soul. Likewise, I’m the only one inside my head, heart, and soul. I can’t be in the head, heart, or soul of anyone apart from me. You can’t be in the head, heart, or soul of anyone apart from you.

As obvious as I think this is, lots of people don’t recognize or acknowledge it. A great many people even think they can control others, make them choose only how they do, and force them to live with only their beliefs and values.

That doesn’t work because we’re not the same. What’s more, the definites and absolutes of the world are extremes. The vast majority of people, places, and things exist between them.

Even people who have similar religious backgrounds hold different beliefs and values. This applies to people with similar political backgrounds, moral standings, sexualities, genders, and any other “ism” you can think of. Wondrous variety, many colors, different approaches, and on and on.

The energy that makes up the whole of the universe is the only thing utterly similar in all. The base energy is always the same from the tiniest subatomic particle to the largest galaxy in the cosmos. After that, the similarities spread out and increase in being dissimilar.

You’re not a bad person unless you choose to be. If you were, you’d not care about it nor how anyone outside of you perceives it. A truly bad person tends to think they’re right. So the question of “Am I a bad person?” isn’t even a consideration to or for them.

You’re empowered to control this

The hypothetical and rhetorical “they” love to use our differences to keep us off balance. That’s because it’s the only way they can control you or me at all. Unless you intentionally withhold kindness, compassion, empathy, and hurt/harm others, you’re not a bad person. And if you are withholding kindness, compassion, and empathy – and hurting/harming others – why? What do you gain from this?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and presume that you desire to receive kindness, compassion, and empathy from others. Do you believe you can get it if you withhold it or don’t give it? You can’t and you won’t.

The power to be who you desire to be is all on you. You are thus empowered, and via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – can choose what that looks like. Those choices and decisions will inform you of what kind of a person you truly are. You’re not a bad person unless you choose to be. You’re empowered, if you don’t like who, what, where, how, and why you are, to change. That might or might not change the impressions of others, but it will inform all that makes you, you, and give you control over what is utterly yours.

One last note – if any of this is tied to a belief in lack, scarcity, and/or insufficiency, take a closer look, Most of these are utterly false. There’s more than enough of everything intangible, and the alternatives are always available for the tangibles.

Seeing that you’re not a bad person 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 only wonder if you were a bad person and hated if you care, you can make any necessary changes if you dislike what you see. Knowing that you care about the impression you make on others via your values and beliefs, you can decide how to be the best person you can be with empathy, compassion, and kindness within and without.

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 forty-seventh (547) 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.

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