M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 15

Do You Control Your Anger or Does Your Anger Control You?

This is more of a choice than most people recognize.Photo by Jeff Kingma on Unsplash

Emotions come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. They can be so small that they seem nearly invisible or so large that they seem unstoppable and overwhelming. Despite the idea that Star Trek’s Vulcans are emotionless, the truth is that they train tenaciously to tightly control their emotions.

One of the most dangerous traits of toxic positivity is the denial of negative emotions. Toxic positivity puts on blinders and actively works to avoid, ignore, and deny negative emotions. This does you a disservice, as the negative is just as important and necessary as the positive.

One of the most troublesome and infuriating emotions, at least for me, is anger. There are a lot of reasons why anger is especially complicated, not least of which is that it can manifest in such incredible, diverse ways.

The many faces of anger

How anger manifests in me is not the same as how it will manifest in you. There are lots of reasons why this is so. Some are environmental, some are interpersonal, and others are strictly self-inflicted or self-directed.

When you get angry, whether over something internal and/or external, the face anger wears will be dependent on all kinds of unpredictable factors. Who, what, where, how, and why are ever-present. Then you need to factor in past history, memories, beliefs, values, and even habits. Couple all this with environmental factors, other ongoing present and past experiences, other emotions, and it all gets super convoluted.

As such, anger can manifest in totally opposite ways. One face might be red-hot, feel to you like a burning, gnawing, overwhelming sensation of fire and fury. Then, another face might be ice cold, feel to you like a chilling, hungering, overwhelming sensation of ice and distress.

These are some of the opposite extremes that anger can present. Between them, there are variable degrees of fury and calm, chill and burn, instant and slow-moving, and almost anything else you can think of.

Anger tends to manifest physically in different parts of your body. It can ring like a bell in your head, burn like a flame in your gut, chill your heart like an ice bath, and all sorts of other similar and dissimilar physical representations. How it presents in one situation today might be utterly different in the same situation tomorrow. Anger is a complex and difficult emotion to fully define.

It can feel like it’s out of your control. Which it can be. Yet you have the power to control your anger. When you don’t, it can (and will) control you.

Who’s driving the emotions bus today?

When you’re driving down the road, singing along to your radio, enjoying the sun and the feeling of the freedom of the road, getting t-boned by a careless other driver can instantly snap your mood. Visceral reactions happen and are not in your control. That’s why some people react fearfully to getting into a car accident, others simply sigh and start collating necessary data for insurance purposes, and still others get angry in one form or another.

You can’t control visceral immediate reactions. There are things you can do to steer these toward the most neutral settings you can think of, but that takes a lot of time, focus, mindfulness practice, and discipline. And given the nature of immediate visceral reactions, that might not work at all.

Again, situation matters. If a sweet grandmother, stung by a bee, lost control and t-boned your car, you’re probably less inclined to a deeply angry reaction than if a hapless teen boy who was paying zero attention to his surroundings caused the accident. This will temper your visceral immediate reaction.

Not long after this initial occurrence, you get to choose where to take it. Do you allow anger to be the driver of the emotions bus? Or do you seek reason and logic to shift your emotions to something less volatile?

You have the power to choose. However, it won’t always feel that way. Especially when something you’re angry about – but have no control over – is gnawing at your conscious mind from your subconscious.

Photo by Jack B on UnsplashAnger unbidden

I spend far less time on social media nowadays than I used to. That’s because between all kinds of craziness in the world, the US election, and the seemingly growing number of willfully ignorant people, I get angry all too easily.

I feel like I might Hulk-out at any time over this stuff. “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.”

That’s just the impersonal, utterly out-of-my-control stuff. Other, semi-personal issues will also raise my hackles. There is a group I very much want to be a part of that I’m being kept out of. There’s a lot of hypocrisy involved and even my allies within the group I can’t talk to without causing trouble. If I start to give this too much energy, a deep, seething ire takes root. Before I know it, I’m ranting and just pissed off. This, of course, is no good to anyone and helps me not at all.

There are other personal matters, people, and things, that set off a similar anger in me. Things that will impact me directly, but are either of the past and (of course) unchangeable, or otherwise outside of my control.

Ah, but there is one more layer here. It’s the most pernicious and difficult to deal with. Self-anger. When the above makes me angry that can, in turn, get me angry with myself for getting angry. What the hell, dude? Why are you wasting this energy on this shit out of your control? This can be quite a distressing cycle to experience.

Anger will arrive unbidden, like it or not. You have a choice, however, as to whether you take control of it or allow it to control you.

The dark side of the Force is a choice

While you can’t control that immediate, visceral reaction of anger, you can and do control where you take it. Or where it takes you.

When people don’t control their anger, that can lead to some pretty dangerous places. The least destructive (but still damaging and unhelpful) are hateful words, fear of the “other”, and closing off kindness, compassion, and empathy – within and without. Then, it might start to turn destructive, involving getting into physical altercations, smashing inanimate objects, throwing things, and similar outbursts. The worst and most destructive involves intentionally hurting people via violence, murder, arson, and the like.

Before your anger evolves (devolves) into any of the above destructive levels, you can take control of it. You have the power to recognize and acknowledge anger. From there, you can decide how to work with it, release it, express it, then let it go.

Anger held will eat away at your mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. Unchecked, allowed to fester and spread, anger will overwhelm you in one or many ways. This is a choice.

Mindfulness – active conscious awareness – is how you know your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. With that knowledge, you gain the ability to change any of the above.

To change anger, you can pause, reflect, and do things such as a few minutes of deep breathing, screaming into a pillow, meditating, exercising to release brain chemicals, or any combination of the above.

Whether you control anger or anger controls you is a choice you get to make after any initial visceral reaction.

Anger isn’t easy to control

This takes concentrated effort. Because anger takes on so many different sizes, shapes, colors, and forms, what lets you control it in situation “X” might not work at all for experience “Y”. The frustration that comes with this can add to the challenge of taking control.

You can and do have this power, however. No matter who you are or where you come from, you can choose to control your anger or let your anger control you.

What you cannot do, and shouldn’t do, frankly, is disregard, ignore, or pretend things don’t make you angry. Denial of anger is unrealistic. As a human being, you will be angered by things along the way. Nobody lives in a perfect bubble, unaffected by things that happen to and around them.

Finally, it’s important to recognize and acknowledge that anger isn’t entirely negative. That’s because it can spur you to action. Angry about that horror-show running for office? Organize the opposition. Annoyed by that inefficient McGuffin? Create a better one. Pissed off by your job? Go out there and find a new one.

Anger can feel all-encompassing and overwhelming. Sometimes it is. Yet no matter what sparks it, you have the power to control it rather than let it control you. The choice is yours. Please recognize, acknowledge, and know this: you deserve to be in control rather than be controlled by it.

Do you control your anger or does anger control you?

This is the six-hundred-fifty-seventh (657) 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 Do You Control Your Anger or Does Your Anger Control You? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You’re Not The Only One Who Feels That Way

It helps everyone to recognize and acknowledge this truth.Photo by Clement Souchet on Unsplash

I think it’s quite obvious that we’re in the middle of a massive mental health crisis (and for the sake of brevity I’m putting mental, emotional, and spiritual all under the aegis of mental health). This is especially true in the United States.

First, there was a narcissistic President elected (Trump) who induced anxiety and caused division in ways we’re still dealing with (especially with him somehow running for reelection despite being a convicted felon and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election). Then, a global pandemic, which caused a degree of fear and uncertainty like nothing else. Unfortunately, this was followed by active campaigns to go back to how it was before that have shunted it away so that most have practically forgotten it (despite it not being gone at all and still killing people daily). Now, as already mentioned, an election that will quite probably decide if the United States remains a democracy or turns into a dictatorship/kleptocracy.

Is it any wonder our mental health is taking a beating?

What’s more, all the elements I’m lumping together into mental health are often taboo, shunned, or given lip service at best, rather than treated as the issues and elements of your overall health, wellness, and wellbeing that they are. That mental health matters are still not treated like any other health issue is seriously problematic.

But this is why you’re not the only one who feels that way. Not by a longshot.

Mental health should not be taboo

One of the reasons I write about my mental health struggles is to help others dealing with the same. Let’s face it – mental health (again, lumping mental, emotional, and spiritual health together) is a taboo topic.

Why else would drugs for maintaining equilibrium be so expensive? Likewise, why is seeing/finding a therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist/social worker more challenging than finding an MD? Why else are so many people unwilling to get help for psychological/mental/emotional/spiritual issues without feeling wrong, dirty, or generally bad?

Yet 1 in 4 people have mental health issues of one sort or another. That’s a lot of people in the grand scheme of things. That’s why I say you’re not the only one who feels that way.

Depression, anxiety, and other matters of mental health tend to be lying liars that lie. They tell you you’re the only one who feels that way, that you are not worthy, that you’re lacking, that you aren’t deserving of this, that, or the other thing. These mental health matters lie to isolate you and keep you all to themselves, locked in your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind, the vessel of your beliefs, values, habits, and memories, will run wild unchecked. When you aren’t working from a place of active conscious awareness, here and now, the subconscious will keep you isolated in dark places only you have access to.

Your subconscious mind will tell you in no uncertain terms that you are utterly, totally, always alone.

This is not the truth, however.

Photo by NEOM on UnsplashYou’re not the only one who feels that way

You are very much not alone. Even a little bit.

I think it’s important that more of us admit we’re feeling this. With the tremendous, often intimidating amount of data and info we’re all exposed to and bombarded by regularly, overwhelm has almost become an accepted state of being.

Yet that’s another element of the problem. All that information being constantly washed over you wears down your psyche. It gets into your head, and if you’re not being mindful, it will create ideas, notions, and things you might otherwise not desire.

Sadness, uncertainty, depression, and a general sense of things not being right. You feel off, uncomfortable, and/or some combination of feelings. Those feelings, you might believe, are incorrect, wrong, that you are all alone in feeling, and the like.

You’re not the only one who feels that way. When it comes to mental, emotional, and spiritual health, the feelings you feel will vary wildly. The main theme tends towards negativity, sadness, and uncertainty. Mental health issues like depression and anxiety, in your subconscious mind, tell you that you’re alone. They tell you that nobody else feels that way.

This is not true.

The more people who acknowledge this, the more we can make it common, normal, and a less taboo or touchy subject. Then, from there, that can influence the overall position of the fear-based society you and I live in.

There’s one other important thing to address.

You’re not defective or wrong

There is nothing wrong with you in any way, shape, or form. Period. When you are 1 in 4 people who feels that way, who copes with mental health matters, you are so not alone.

Because nobody teaches you how to be with yourself, and how to be mindful, you alone must choose to learn. This can be really challenging, but you can learn it. It is your right to take steps toward improving your health, wellness, and wellbeing. This fully applies to not just physical, but mental, emotional, and spiritual, too.

Mindfulness is a matter of active conscious awareness. It can be practiced simply by being in the now, present, and questioning what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and your actions. That knowledge opens you to working with what you already have and changing anything you desire.

The choice is yours. When you make it, you become empowered, which helps you to work with not only what you have now, but to what you can have and do. This tends to be far more than you credit yourself with. That is a huge positive.

You’re not the only one who feels that way. There is no time like the present to work with this notion more. That’s because your feelings are valid and you have the power to alter them as you desire.

Seeing that you’re not the only one who feels that way 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’re not the only one who feels that way, you can stop letting your inner monologue keep you down, and then seek commiseration with others. Knowing that you’re not the only one who feels that way, you can do any necessary work without guilt or shame to take action to move past that, and even seek help from others having similar experiences.

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-sixth (546) 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’re Not The Only One Who Feels That Way appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Can You Do About That?

The answer depends on whether “that” is personal or broader.Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

The evolution of humankind is amazing. Relatively speaking, we’ve gone from hunter/gatherers struggling to survive as individuals to farmers struggling to survive as a community to whatever we are now blazingly fast (only about 12,000 years).

What we are now is an interesting mystery. Only in the past 100 years or so have human beings developed the ability to communicate instantly across the globe. We’ve gone from a knowledge base that encompassed those within maybe, at best, 100 miles around you, to being able to learn, right now, what’s happening on the other side of the globe. If you really think about this, it’s truly amazing.

It has, however, come with a price nobody’s reconciled. It’s massively impacted the collective mental health of everyone. Arguably, it’s impacted all four elements of human health, wellness, and wellbeing – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. This, unfortunately, takes a back seat to ideas, opinions, thoughts, and faux immediacy of problems that you can do little to nothing about.

Recognizing this can then lead to false impressions of selfishness, lack of caring, and possible shunning. Ironically, many of the people and institutions humans turn to in the face of this are prime examples of true selfishness, lack of caring, and shunning.

The stark and unpleasant reality is that the answer to the question – What can you do about that? – tends to be very little or even nothing.

This will not be pretty or pleasant

Look at the world around you as I write this. There are some truly awful, horrific things happening. What can you do about that? Let’s break some of it down.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Unless you live in Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza, there’s little to nothing you can do about that. Boycott businesses supporting bad actors, attend protests, give money to charities trying to help. Vote in elections. That’s about all you can do if you’re not there.

The Russia/Ukraine conflict. Unless you live in Russia or the Ukraine, there’s little to nothing you can do about that. Boycott businesses supporting bad actors, attend protests, give money to charities trying to help. Vote in elections. That’s about all you can do if you’re not there.

The US election. Unless you live in the US, there’s little to nothing you can do about that. Boycott businesses supporting bad actors, attend protests, give money to charities trying to help. Vote in the election. That’s about all you can do if you’re not there.

As a US citizen, I’m going to drill down a bit further here.

The Florida problems. The current governor of Florida is actively working to make his state increasingly science-denying, homophobic, and unfriendly to anyone not politically conservative. Guess what? Unless you live in Florida, there’s little to nothing you can do about that. Boycott businesses supporting bad actors, attend protests, give money to charities trying to help. Vote in the elections. That’s about all you can do if you’re not there.

Note the recurring theme. What can you do about that? Little to nothing. Acknowledging that feels pretty selfish, right?

The answer to – what can you do about that? – feels wrong

Project 2025, the increasingly public playbook of the uber-conservative politics being embraced by the Republican Party, is disgusting and frightening. If Trump wins, and they put even a small amount of that playbook into action, it will not only undo decades of progress for pretty much everyone, but actively drive people further apart. If you are anyone other than a cis-gender white wealthy male, you’ll be fucked over in some way by Project 2025.

What can you do about that? I really hate to say this, but unless you live in the US, there’s little to nothing you can do about that. Boycott businesses supporting bad actors, attend protests, spread the word, give money to charities trying to help. Vote in the election. That’s about all you can do.

I have friends who plaster their Facebook and Instagram feeds with constant reminders of the above. To one degree or another, good on them for making this more mainstream. However, I have friends also plastering their social media feeds with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and shit happening in states on the other side of the country.

While it’s good to be aware of these things, inundating ourselves with them doesn’t do us much good. Why? Because what can you do about that? Little to nothing.

Stating that feels selfish, unkind, and uncompassionate. Perhaps it is. Yet it’s also important to know that when you focus on what you can do little to nothing about you disempower yourself.

Photo by Daniele Franchi on UnsplashWhat can you do about that?

When it comes to you, your life, your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions? What can you do about that? Everything. That is something over which you have control.

Yet many of the distractions of the world around you tell you otherwise. When the narrative is constantly hammering away at your self-confidence, ignores mental health, and is trying to sell you something, it drives you away from yourself.

This is why it feels selfish to only acknowledge the distant conflicts of the world and do or say nothing further. It’s also why saying no to someone toxic in your immediate vicinity or setting boundaries to protect your mental and emotional health also feels selfish. Because while humans have evolved into globally connected fonts of information both useful and useless, our subconscious minds are still barely out of hunter/gatherer mode.

Fear is the perfect example of this. At its core, fear is super useful, because it keeps you alive. Base fear tells you you’re in danger. Run from the lion. Mind the cliff. Those guys over there with the spiky clubs are going to take what you’ve already gathered and you need to fight or flee. This is super useful for survival.

Now that humans are seldom under the same threat to life and limb, fear has evolved. But not in a useful, life-saving way. Now fear tends to be wholly about subconscious beliefs, values, and bullshit. Fear of missing out? What’s that in the grand scheme of things? Fear of failure? If you’re not going to die as a result of failure, what’s that in the grand scheme of things?

Worse, this has been weaponized in the age of mass media to distract, disempower, and get you to spend money. It’s not pretty.

It’s not selfish to work and act locally

So, what can you do about that? First and foremost, recognize and acknowledge what you can and can’t do. If it’s a global issue, you’re incredibly limited. If it’s a national issue, you’re still limited, but slightly less so. A local issue, specific to you and yours, is something you can work on.

By local, I mean within your physical community, circle of friends, workplace, and the like. You can have an impact here. A direct impact. However, it is still limited because you can only live for you.

Many times, well-meaning people create greater havoc than assistance with their actions. “I’m only saying” and “for your own good” and “playing devil’s advocate” might be well-meaning, but they’re disempowering.

The problem is that, while they might be able to offer advice, they can’t think, feel, intend, or act for you. You alone have that power.

It is not selfish to work and act for yourself. That’s because nobody else can. When your mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing are suffering, you have the power to make changes to fix that. This is done via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – and making intentional choices and decisions.

Outside of yourself, you have no real power. Despite messages to the contrary, you can only make choices and decisions for yourself. That feels selfish, right? But it’s not.

I am not suggesting you ignore the world around you. Being aware of horrors like Project 2025 is the only way to stop them. However, when that’s your whole focus, and you ignore your mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing for it, you disempower yourself. That helps nobody, least of all you.

Be a beacon in the dark

The fear-based society you and I live in is often disconcerting, uncertain, and outright frightening. Because it’s human nature to look to the future and back to the past, the now gets sacrificed.

The trouble with this is that the now, the present, is the only time that’s genuinely, truly, real. The past has come and gone and is colored by bias, prejudice, judgment, and other factors of both groups and individuals. The future is unknown and can unfold in all sorts of unexpected and sometimes unwanted ways. But the now, this moment, is in your control.

Your present self – who, what, where, how, and why you are – is yours to be or change. Despite messages to the contrary, you’re not selfish when you practice self-care and work on yourself. The truth is that you’re empowered when you do so.

When you’re empowered you can be present, here and now, and make choices and decisions with intent to live the most full, decent, and desirable life that you can.

This is not selfish. In truth, it turns you into a beacon in the fear-based dark. That beacon of mindfulness and self-assurance, even when you’re not 100% confident or without doubt, can be a boon to others.

What can you do about that? When it’s a global, international, or national problem, little to nothing. When it’s your life and all that makes you, you – anything and everything. Recognizing and acknowledging this is how you become empowered and can be a true beacon of light in the dark.

Realistically, the more people who are self-aware and mindful, the more it disempowers the faux forces of disruption in the world at large. This is a lot to digest, but the truth can set you free.

What can you do about that? Depends on what “that” is.

This is the six-hundred-fifty-sixth (656) 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 What Can You Do About That? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Everybody Wants Kindness, Compassion, and Empathy

They are not, contrary to popular belief, scarce or lacking.Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash

Sometimes it feels like it’s all spinning out of control.

I like to think that I’m a reasonable, thoughtful person. So how come it feels like I’m few and far between among people?

First, there’s an important truth to consider. Bad news sells. Keeping the narrative negative puts eyes on websites, attracts viewers and readers, and makes the owners of the parent companies money. In truth, this is mostly thanks to increasingly runaway capitalism, a fear-based society, and an increasing lack of accountability for fact versus opinion.

Because of this, it feels like that’s the dominant mood. Salacious stories of people doing bad things, scandals, and clickbait increasingly get attention and make someone money.

Is this really the truth of society? Have people become this dominantly sad, depressed, and discourteous? It sure as hell feels that way.

Yet I believe that’s not the truth. Why? Because everyone desires kindness, compassion, and empathy. Unfortunately, too many outside influences make them appear to be lacking, scarce, and something you must compete for.

What if the truth is that they’re abundant and the competition is a lie?

Most competition is bullshit

Let’s be honest. Most competition, as we are shown it, is bullshit. It’s a lie.

If you’re playing golf, tennis, or participating on a game show, you’re competing with others. Pro sports and the like are competitions. Otherwise? You’re not truly competing with anyone.

While there is a degree of competitiveness in acquiring jobs and dating, it’s not competition. There are lots of job opportunities and relationship possibilities out there. What’s more, no two people desire exactly the same things. Hence, the competition in those arenas is, by and large, bullshit.

This is part of where the weaponization of fear totally comes into play. Multiple types of authority figures will tell you that “they” are competing with you for this, that, or the other thing. If you don’t compete with “them” you will lose what is rightfully yours. This, of course, is utterly untrue.

Most of the groups lumped into “they” and “them” are not competing with you. They’re not trying to take away what belongs to you. In most cases, they want what you’ve had all along (like body autonomy, equal rights, loving who they desire, and living without fear for life and limb). Yet the narrative frequently creates false competition.

Why? To create disharmony and discord so that you will support this or that person/industry/party. So that you’ll give them your money. To encourage you to follow their lead and not give much thought to the truth.

The truth? What truth? This truth:

Everybody wants kindness, compassion, and empathy.

Everybody wants kindness, compassion, and empathy

It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. When it comes to yourself and your life, you desire to receive kindness. You want people to be compassionate towards you. You desire empathy for who you are, your goals, ideals, beliefs, values, and whatnot.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this is that many people don’t recognize that to get kindness, compassion, and empathy, they must be given. You set yourself up to not receive them when you don’t give them.

First, let’s recognize this important fact. Kindness, compassion, and empathy are in abundance. They are infinite. There will never be a lack, insufficiency, or scarcity of kindness, compassion, and empathy. They are in abundance beyond your comprehension.

Secondly, everybody desires to receive kindness, compassion, and empathy. However, not all recognize them for what they are. So much time is viewed as being in competition, and so many false narratives about lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are put forth, that they drive people to think they’re limited. That’s not true, as they are abundant and infinite.

Thirdly, nobody is any more or less deserving of kindness, compassion, and empathy than anyone else. The wealthy aren’t more deserving or worthy than the poor. Heterosexuals are equally deserving as homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, and all the rest. People of color are as worthy and deserving of kindness, compassion, and empathy as white people. Everyone is worthy and deserving.

FYI, this applies to the planet, animals, and virtually everything you can think of. Kindness, compassion, and empathy for everything is never bad.

Even the worst, most awful, and hateful people you can think of want them. They just believe too much in competition, who is worthy and deserving, and other artifices to see their true nature and abundance.

Photo by Dominik Lange on UnsplashPractice giving

To get more kindness, compassion, and empathy, practice giving them.

I am not recommending that you ignore poor treatment, horrible people doing awful things, or anything of that nature. Besides, do you have any real impact outside of your immediate surroundings? Nope. This is about friends, family, coworkers, that poor cashier who just got yelled at by the asshole in line before you, the stranger struggling to get the door, and the like. Give them more kindness, compassion, and empathy.

The more you can give without, the more you can give yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’m my own worst critic. Nobody is as harsh towards me as I am. It’s easy, thus, to be less kind, compassionate, and empathetic towards me as I should be.

You’ll see that the more you give, the more you will find to give. Then, ultimately, the more you give, the more you get.

Practice locally. Because in truth, you have such a limited reach that this is where you can do the most good. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by practicing this.

Seeing that everybody wants kindness, compassion, and empathy 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 everybody wants kindness, compassion, and empathy – and that they’re not lacking, scarce, or insufficient – you can give more. Knowing that giving more gets you more in return, feels as good to give as to get, and that there is more than enough to go around, you can be kinder, more compassionate, and more empathetic towards everyone you know and directly encounter (yourself included).

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-fifth (545) 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 Everybody Wants Kindness, Compassion, and Empathy appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Your Path Will Challenge You

Walking your own path in life is not selfish.Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash

You alone live inside your head, heart, and soul. Only you can think what you think, feel what and how you feel, and act or not on your intentions. You get to decide and choose if you take a positive or negative approach to life at any given time.

Nothing that you do is written in stone. Everything about who, what, where, how, and why you are is changeable. Changing might be a challenge, however, depending on numerous circumstances (many of which might be utterly outside of your control).

The idea of Pathwalking is living life in the present, actively making choices and decisions for who, what, where, how, and why you are. So many people in the world accept less than they deserve, allow themselves to be victims of circumstance, and are too caught up in making impressions on others to choose their own path in life.

Society has made it so that you can live almost entirely by rote and routine. Be a cog in the machine and do most of it automatically. I suppose for some people this works perfectly well. For others, however, it causes stress. That’s because this runs counter to their desires. If you seek to choose and walk your own path in life, rote and routine will become stressful and unsatisfying.

When you choose your path or change your path, know that it will challenge you.

The subconscious and the conscious mind

The subconscious mind is where your values, beliefs, habits, and memories live. What’s more, the subconscious mind doesn’t think actively, it stores things just like a hard drive. Like a hard drive, everything in your subconscious mind can be accessed and rewritten, overwritten, and replaced.

When you live by rote, routine, and habit, you’re allowing the old data in your subconscious mind to drive your life. This can be perfectly fine for some people. For others, however, this can cause depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and fights with fear.

Why? Because values, beliefs, and habits are not written in stone. Life experiences, learned things, conscious awareness, new environments, and other matters will impact them. What they mean to you will change, forcing you to make a choice.

When that choice catches you unaware, this can be massively disconcerting. Where did that come from? What’s going on? Why is this happening? Other questions of this nature pop up. This is particularly true if you’ve been living via rote, routine, and habit mostly subconsciously.

To choose any given path requires that you work from the here and now consciously. Applied conscious awareness is mindfulness. Mindfulness, in this context, is about what’s within you – not the world outside of you.

To access your active conscious awareness, you need to become aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if your approach to life is positive or negative, and what actions you are or aren’t taking.

Only by being consciously aware, and mindful here and now, can you choose a path for yourself. This will not be without its challenges, however.

Photo by Alex Rhee on UnsplashYour path will challenge you

Change is the one and only constant in the universe. Sometimes it’s instantaneous, other times imperceptibly slow. Even when this is related to unexpected happenstance, you have choices and decisions available to you.

You’re surrounded by the opinions of others. Some are passive, some active, some aggressive, some are a blend of smart and idiotic, and everything in between. Between TV, advertising, the internet, social media, smartphones, and overall connectivity 24/7, it’s almost impossible not to be inundated and overwhelmed by it.

Unless you make choices and decisions not to be.

Choosing your own path in life will spark the opinions of others. Especially if that path is nontraditional, unique, or full of uncertainty. Some of the opinions this will get you are “well-meaning”, presented as a “devil’s advocate” or “for your own good”, to show you why maybe you should abandon that path for something more conventional.

Some opinions are malicious. They dislike that you’re bucking the status quo, standing against their perceived norms, and being your truest, most genuine self. Fall in line or suffer the consequences, these suggest.

Your path itself will challenge you. That’s because to grow, change, evolve, and live fully requires you to leave your existing comfort zones. These are often not genuine comfort zones, because they’re more about familiarity and perceived (but not necessarily actual) stability.

While the path will challenge you, the result of walking it is a sense of being true to yourself, being strong, and acting on what you desire to live your life your way. When all is said and done, who else can know what that even is supposed to be?

This is one important elephant in the room to address.

Walking your own path in life is not selfish

I reiterate this point often. That’s because you’re bombarded by false, but sometimes half-true notions of what selfishness is.

Genuine selfishness involves taking for yourself and not giving a shit that you might take away from other people, cause hurt or harm, and leave others without. Selfishness involves malice of forethought. It’s having 10 people, 10 dollars, and rather than giving everyone a dollar, you take 3. Hence, you’re willingly depriving 3 people and forcing them to go without. This is what selfishness is.

If you worry about being perceived as selfish or feel bad because you’ve unintentionally caused hurt (like by setting boundaries or saying no to something), you’re not being selfish. How others perceive this is outside your control.

Only you know what’s best for you. Walking your own path in life is a challenge you choose. Nobody else can be aware of what’s in your head, heart, or soul. Hence, you alone know and can see, recognize, and choose the right path for you and your life.

Yes, your path will challenge you. Can you see how those challenges are part of your growth, evolution, and chosen life experiences?

This is the six-hundred fifty-fifth (655) 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 Your Path Will Challenge You appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can’t Turn Off Your Brain

You can, however, change your mind.Photo by Matt Walsh on Unsplash

One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to meditation is that you need to turn off your brain. Quiet the mind, silence the chatter, and so on.

This is, of course, almost impossible to do. Sure, you can get some peace and solitude of mind for a time. But you can’t turn off your brain.

The meditation that I practice is mindfulness meditation. I know, as such, that my brain is going to be active. The idea is to accept this, and not deny the thoughts that come. Rather, what you do is see them, acknowledge them, but then release them, rather than examining them or holding onto them.

Hence, when a thought comes in, I see it, acknowledge it, and then release it, usually with a breath out. Then, I breathe in peace and calm. That’s meditation.

But what about other times when you’d like to escape the endless chatter, the thoughts, the constant flood of data? You can’t turn off your brain.

You can, however, change your mind.

How to change your mind

You are always empowered to change your mind. How? Via active conscious awareness.

Yes, that means mindfulness.

Mindfulness is applied active conscious awareness. This is attained by recognizing and acknowledging what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, the positivity or negativity of your current approach, and what actions you are or aren’t taking.

Once you have the active, mindful, conscious awareness of these, you can change them. That means you actively change your mind.

Often, it truly is that simple. Alter your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions and you change your mind.

How do you know your mind? Active conscious awareness begins by recognizing your mindset/headspace/psyche self, your inner being, here and now. Only in the now, the present moment, does this work.

Everyone is of three minds. First is the unconscious mind, which drives the beating of your heart, oxygen flowing into your blood, neurons firing, and so on. Second is the subconscious mind, wherein lies your beliefs, values, habits, memories, and the like. Then, third, your conscious mind, which is the current, present awareness of who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Only via the conscious mind can you change your beliefs, values, habits, and explore memories. It is, however, the subconscious mind that most people focus on when they consider changing their mind.

That, however, begins by changing your mind here and now.

Before we get deeper into this let’s acknowledge an important fact.

Photo by That’s Her Business on UnsplashYou can’t turn off your brain

Like it or not, your brain is always on. There is no off switch. That, however, is a good thing.

The unconscious mind keeps your body functioning. Without it, you malfunction and get sick, fall apart, and die. Then, the subconscious mind is where the primary blueprint for who, what, and why you are is stored. Fortunately, it’s not written in stone or with permanent ink and can be drastically altered/changed.

Your mind can be slowed, calmed, and examined, but never turned off. You can’t turn off your brain, no matter how much you might want to. But you can change your mind, and that’s really all you need.

This is referred to as part of neuroplasticity. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s the inherent ability you possess to grow, change, and reorganize your neural networks. Technically, this is about rewriting existing neural pathways with new ones. Philosophically, this is how you change your beliefs, values, habits, and any other subconscious elements of yourself.

Nobody is unchangeable. That’s partly because change is the only constant in the universe, and thus unavoidable. Anyone who thinks they can’t change is right. But they’re also wrong. It’s a choice you make if you choose not to change.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t-you’re right.” ― Henry Ford

You can’t turn off your brain. You can, however, change your mind, and that’s where it’s at. Changing your mind is your right as a human being, whether the matter is visceral and immediate or deep and long-term.

You are the only one in your head. Hence, you alone can choose to change your mind. When you do that, rather than try to turn off your brain, you empower yourself to do amazing things.

Recognizing that you can’t turn off your brain 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’t turn off your brain, you can alter your intention/approach and focus to instead work on changing your mind. Knowing that you have the ability via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – to alter your thoughts, feelings, approach, intentions, and actions, you can change your mind as you see fit both in the now and for more long-term reasons.

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-fourth (544) 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’t Turn Off Your Brain appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Focusing Within Is Not Selfish, It Is Necessary Self-Care

Focusing without will depress, upset, and disempower you.Photo by Lua Valentia on Unsplash

The world is crazy. Let’s just call it what it is.

When the Supreme Court decided that Trump could claim some immunity and that judges could overrule regulatory agencies at will, I found myself deeply angry. And scared. How did we step so far backward? Why could these 9 people decide that a President might as well be a King; and agencies meant to protect the environment and common people could be ignored by opinionated individuals with a degree of power?

I don’t watch the news anymore and have been limiting my time online. Yet I desire to remain informed so that I can vote for the right people and do what I can – as limited as that is – to stand for the principles I believe in. This news was deeply upsetting and distracted me from my work for a time.

No matter what you believe, the increasingly divisive leadership uses fear to widen the gaps between people. This is done via religion, ideology, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and anything else you can conceive of. Look to the world without for any amount of time and you’ll be inundated with contradictory, negative, and frequently upsetting info.

Welcome to life in a fear-based society. From subtle – like advertising, to blatant – like lies about what “they” will take away from you, fear is everywhere you turn. Worse, it’s increasingly weaponized to stir conflict.

Most of all, the intent is to keep you focusing on the outside world. The world without. When your attention is on all these things, you are giving away and ceding your power to them.

That’s the point, frankly. If you’re disempowered, you’re easier to persuade and to some degree control.

Ceding your power is disempowerment

Every time I get caught up in what’s happening without, and the outside world’s craziness, it makes me feel worse. My depression flares, my fear increases, and I work less on things I can do anything at all about and worry about “what ifs” far outside my control.

All the worst-case scenarios that play out in my head are awful. What if they get in power and start coming after people with views like mine? Will I be targeted because of my Jewish heritage? What if the people I care about are hurt by these terrible rulings, horrible laws, and other matters that are happening out there? What if it all crumbles?

It’s so, so easy to go down these and other rabbit holes. Too easy. While it’s important to me to be aware of what’s going on, it’s more important to recognize and work from this truth: There is little to nothing I can do about it.

What can I do? Vote, attend protests, write letters and emails to Congress, write letters to the editor or blogs, boycott businesses with awful practices, and that’s about it. Focusing on it, obsessing about it, worrying over it does nobody any good at all.

When I do that, and you do that, we cede our power. That’s because you’re not working with what you can and do control, but instead being disempowered by focusing on what you have little to no control of.

You cede your power when you focus without. That’s because you can only do what I mentioned above, and little to nothing else for the world without.

Where you have any control at all is the world within.

Photo by Ben White on UnsplashFocusing within is necessary self-care

What can you control? Very, very little. That’s partially because change is the only constant in the universe, and lots of happenings simply occur.

Weather happens. Jobs are found and lost. Relationships start and end. People die. Accidents happen. Almost all of this is utterly outside your control.

When shit happens, you react. Like the response to the BS from the Supreme Court, you feel and think things reactionarily upon their occurrence. This immediate, visceral reaction just is. It’s based on your experience, life, environment, beliefs, values, habits, and tons of other personal intangibles.

The truth is some celebrated the Supreme Court decisions that upset me. Human nature is individual and perceived reality is a persistent illusion.

After that initial, visceral reaction, however, you can take control. This is via focusing within. Inside your conscious awareness, you have the power to be actively in control. That’s where mindfulness comes in.

This is about what’s in your head, heart, and soul. Conscious awareness is recognizing and acknowledging what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the direction of your approach, and your actions and inactions. Mindfulness is how you not only recognize and acknowledge them but can then take control of and change them.

What you have the power to control is your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. Doing so empowers you because it lets you make choices, decisions, and changes for your life experience. This is key to self-care. Nobody other than you is in your head, heart, and soul. You alone can do anything with and for this.

This brings me to an important truth.

Focusing within is not selfish

I cannot reiterate enough what true selfishness is. Too many things deemed selfish simply aren’t.

Setting boundaries for your health, wellness, and wellbeing is never selfish. Saying no to toxic people and situations is never selfish. Dumping someone who makes you miserable is never selfish. Not going into the office because you’re sick or taking a vacation is never selfish.

True selfishness is taking more than your fair share and knowingly leaving someone without – and not giving a shit about it. It’s having 8 slices of pie, 8 people, and you take 3, not caring that two people will get none.

Focusing within to be empowered is not selfish. Let me repeat that for the people in the back. FOCUSING WITHIN TO BE EMPOWERED IS NOT SELFISH.

When you’re empowered, you can work on what you have in your life to make it the best you can. Rather than be a victim or a puppet, inner focus lets you choose and decide who, what, where, how, and why you are.

This is a matter of self-care. Because you are the only you that is. You alone know what you need, desire, and what’s in your head, heart, and soul. It’s not selfish to look within and act on these things.

All the power you have comes from within. Hence, focusing within empowers you. From there, you can choose and decide for yourself, and take your power to be the best you that you can be, whatever that looks like.

Focusing within allows you to be more content, centered, and balanced. From there, you can move beyond the messages and disempowerment of the world without.

I know how that makes me feel, and far prefer it to feeling upset about what I can’t control or do much of anything about.

Isn’t that an utterly worthwhile notion?

This is the six-hundred fifty-fourth (654) 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 Focusing Within Is Not Selfish, It Is Necessary Self-Care appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Can’t Make Them Understand

But you can be understanding and have an impact that way.Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

People can change. But only if they desire to. When they don’t, they won’t.

Sometimes you’re forced to change. Circumstances utterly outside of your control force change. A fire burning your home to the ground changes where you live, getting fired or laid off changes where you work, being dumped changes who you have a relationship with, and the like.

You can’t do jack shit about these. They happen, and they are outside of your control. Intellectually you know this. The heart, however, is quick to disbelieve.

Change can be terrifying, especially when the other side is incredibly uncertain. You have a choice here, whether the change is of your own making or happenstance. Be afraid and resist from there – or – be reasonable and learn what you can do and what it means.

On the grand scale of the United States – and the world, really – change has been sweeping over everyone at a surreal pace for the past century. From post-WWI to now, the amount of change the world has seen is truly astounding. The tech you’re reading this on, and the related connectivity, were only fictional just a hundred years ago. Tons of things and conveniences you take for granted were not common in any way, not so long ago.

The way people work and what it means is utterly different. Factory work and other labor of that sort that was dominant is now a huge minority. While some have been equipped to embrace and roll with this truth, many have not. While some of this is generational, too much of it is situational. Those of us not living that don’t fully understand, and vice versa.

The weaponization of fear

Fear can be a helpful tool. When your life is in danger and you run because of fear, that can be a game changer. Life and death are one thing. Intangibles like missing out, not having enough, and the like, are quite another.

Much of the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in the world today are utterly artificial. They’re totally bullshit, made up by some – entity, person, business, government, whatever – to evoke fear. Then, when people are afraid, they’re more likely to look outside of themselves for answers, help, and support. Especially when this is an intangible and not life or death.

Thus, following both World Wars and the Cold War, fear has been dominating society for over a century.

Much of this has focused on “them”. “They” are some “other” taking your jobs, way of life, threatening your safety, money, potential, freedom, and/or the like. The “other”, the “them” changes. In the 1930s and 40s, it was the Nazis. From the 1950s until the 1990s, it was the communists. In the early 2000s, it was the Muslims.

Other groups have been the “other” or “them” during all of this. Usually because of progress and the changes it creates. This includes women, liberals, gays (LGBTQA+), blacks (POC), and anyone else opening inclusivity and fomenting change.

This has led to some of the deepest divides, without open war, in a very long time. Arguably the most contentious election in the history of the United States is underway, and it’s making matters worse and more challenging. Fear has been weaponized by both sides to move the masses to take action.

This has created a depth of misunderstanding being widened almost daily. No matter what either side does to convince the other they’re right or wrong, you can’t make them understand.

You can’t make them understand

Let me state here and now that I’m liberal AF. I believe that equality is for everyone, women’s rights are human rights, nobody is illegal, Black Lives Matter, love is love, science is real, and more. Nobody is better than anyone else, though everyone has things they’re good at and things they’re bad at. It doesn’t make anyone more worthy than anyone else.

It’s clear to me that one side of this coming election is all about obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. Sadly, I know they feel the same about the other side – obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. A complicit media and almost four decades of brazen greed and hyper-consumerism don’t help.

Worst of all, perhaps, is that you can’t make them understand. Funny thing is, they feel the same about you, too. You can’t make them understand.

It’s infuriating when you see injustice and can’t do much about it. Attend the protest, make calls, write letters, send emails, and for the love of exercising your civic duty vote in elections. Sadly, that’s the extent of the actions you can take.

When you believe you have logic, scientific fact, and reason on your side – and the opposition appears hell-bent on disregarding it for what you can’t understand – it’s frightening. How did we get here after all the advances of the past century?

Backlash to some degree. The weaponization of fear to another. People indoctrinated into religions, and faux competition between the labor workforce and the service workforce is yet another. Combined, this is a powerful brew of fear and uncertainty that smells like poison to one side but an elixir of life to the other.

Try though you might, you can’t make them understand.

So what the hell can you do?

Photo by Heather Mount on UnsplashBe understanding

I’m not in any way saying to accept things that make your skin crawl, your heart sink, and anger flare. That’s not what I mean by recommending that you be understanding.

What I am getting at here is all about you and yourself. The only person who you can make understand is you.

I thoroughly dislike that I can’t make them understand. How can they not see the awfulness, the denial of things they’d never accept for themselves, lies, and deception? Trouble is, they feel exactly the same. They can’t make me understand and see it the way that they do, either.

I could focus a ton of my time and energy on them. There has to be a way to make them understand, right? Reason, logic, science, something?

There’s something more to consider. Will that change anything about your life? Will getting them to understand what they don’t impact you? Arguably, yes, when you keep them from making laws or taking actions that destroy this democracy. Yet how can you know that? What if what you believe to be true, what you understand, turns out to be wrong?

The only way you can address this at all is to be understanding. Understanding of yourself. You, and only you, know your mind. You’re the only one capable of knowing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, your positive or negative approach, and your actions or inactions. They can’t do that for you just as much as you can’t do that for them.

Stop working on the things outside of you, yourself, and your understanding so hard. Don’t ignore them, don’t disregard them, but stop making them the focus of your actions. Be more self-understanding, and work on that which you can and do control.

You.

This is not selfish

What you can do for the world around you is limited. You have no control over anyone or anything else. If you don’t believe me, have you ever tried to get a cat to play fetch? A dog to stop eating another dog’s poop? A friend from going on that date you know will end in disaster?

You can’t make them understand. This is a frustrating, infuriating, annoying truth. Sometimes you still have to try. That’s worthwhile, in part for your own peace of mind, and in part because you desire better for others.

You can’t make them understand. You can be understanding, but mostly only of and for yourself. This is not selfish. Working with and from this is empowering.

When you are better grounded and more self-understanding you tend to be more centered. This tends to make you more peaceful overall. When others see that, you become a beacon of light in the dark. They desire to know how you did it. How can that possibly be selfish?

It’s not. You can’t make them understand, but you can show them how you’re understanding yourself. The empowerment that comes from that can be spread with little effort. When someone you care about feels joy, you also feel joy, don’t you?

This is not selfish because you care about how it might appear. If you care, then it can’t be selfish. Selfishness means not giving a shit about the impression you make or the consequences of actions you do or don’t take on/ towards others.

No, you can’t make them understand. But working with your own understanding can open lots of potential and possibilities that might open others you can’t otherwise reach. Even if that’s not so, you get to live better, experience better – and isn’t that thoroughly worthwhile?

Recognizing that you can’t make them understand 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’t make them understand, you can shift your focus to more productive things. Knowing that you can be more self-understanding, and open yourself to being better grounded, centered, balanced, and aware by understanding yourself better, you can give that more time and energy.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and forty-second (543) 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’t Make Them Understand appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

The Pie is Not Limited

This is an abundant universe with more than enough for everyone.Photo by Kelcie Herald on Unsplash

Too many of the messages being beamed into your head will tell you that this, that, or the other thing is running out. There’s not enough, it’s lacking, insufficient, and/or “they” will take it from you and leave you with nothing.

Media, advertising, politicians, and other so-called leaders and demagogues love these messages. They use them to play on your fears to move their agendas. If you don’t follow their lead, take their advice, or vote for them, you’ll suffer because of what’s lacking.

The implication, sometimes blatant – but more often subtle – is that the thing you desire is finite. Tangible or intangible, there’s not enough and if you don’t take yours, you’ll miss it. There’s only so much pie to go around because it’s limited.

The truth, however, is that the pie is not, in fact, limited.

Abundance is everywhere in everything

Please allow me to place a couple of truths here. First, this is not a universe of lack, scarcity, or insufficiency. It’s an abundant universe.

Stretch your mind and see that abundance is real in both the material and immaterial. Most, if not all lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are artificial. For example, take diamonds. The “rare” gem is highly prized and the standard for showing wealth, affluence, and even power. Their narrative is that there are only so many diamonds in the world, and that’s why they’re valuable.

Except that’s utterly untrue. The diamond market has been historically, artificially controlled for over 100 years. Diamonds are not so rare, and easily synthesized in a lab. Sure, you can argue that cut, color, and purity go into the value. That, however, makes it no less utterly artificial.

When it comes to material resources, even when one becomes scarce another can be found to replace it. That might not be true for other members of the animal kingdom. Human beings, however, are clever and innovative. A new resource can be found to replace one that’s lacking.

When it comes to intangible/immaterial resources, they’re infinite. Every single intangible you can imagine is abundant to overflowing. Every thought, feeling, desire, and intention is available to everyone everywhere in mind-boggling quantities.

The pie is not limited. When it comes to the things you want and desire, tangible or intangible, the pie is infinite.

Photo by sheri silver on UnsplashThe limited pie is a trick

Implications of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency – limited pie – are false. They’re artificial, created by this person, that government, that industry, or whatever/whoever else to disempower.

People who believe in lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are disempowered. That’s because this gets too easily tied to ideas of competition and entitlement. All of which are equally about disempowering one group or another to prop up something/someone else.

Messages of “woke” people taking away your way of life are lies meant to disempower you. They’re insistent on limited pie, and the “other” competing to take away your rightful slice of it.

This is not the truth.

People of color don’t want to take away the rights of white people, they want equal rights. LGBTQA+ people don’t want to take away the representation of straight people, they want equal representation. Women don’t want to deny men bodily autonomy, they want equal bodily autonomy.

Yes, yes, there are exceptions to this. It doesn’t invalidate the point. The pie is not limited. Slices are not being taken so you don’t get some. All notions to the contrary are artificial. Limited pie is a trick being played on you by forces intent on disempowering you.

Why does empowerment matter?

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody else can think your thoughts, feel your feelings, experience your emotions, and so on. You’re it.

Hence, nobody can make you feel or think anything at all. Unless you choose to let them. When you allow yourself to accept the thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and values of others – without question – you disempower yourself.

Eventually, you’ll feel lost. Why? Because you are. Your disempowerment means you lose your self-awareness.

Self-awareness is treated by many as selfish. “Woke” people and their self-awareness are vilified because they empower themselves and don’t need outside influence to be. They go inside and use active conscious awareness to find and empower themselves.

Outside influences can provide some info and context. However, for the most part, empowerment comes from within.

Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. You gain it not via your 6 senses, but rather your inner being. Becoming aware, in the present, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions, makes you consciously aware. Using them or changing them is mindful and empowers you.

Empowerment is how you choose and decide for yourself how to live your life. This will show you that the pie – tangible or intangible – is not limited.

This is an abundant universe with more than enough for everyone. The notion that the pie is limited is not true. When you’re empowered, you can better see this for yourself. Then, use that to make your own choices and decisions to live the best you can. Spread the wealth, share more pie, and spread the true reality of abundance.

Doesn’t this look much better and truer than the notion that the pie is limited?

This is the six-hundred fifty-third (653) 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 The Pie is Not Limited appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

The Meaning of Life is to Live

But what does it mean to live?Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

You are here. Maybe your life is good, maybe not. You might be having a great day, an awful day, or simply a “meh” day. Things happening now or ahead might be incredible, or they might be scary. You are here. Anything is possible from one extreme to the other and everywhere in between.

Are you just going through the motions? Does your rote and routine dominate your life? Or are you having experiences, trying and doing new things, and exploring what life has to offer? Whatever the answer is, right now, that’s now. It’s not written in stone.

That means you get to choose, if things are shit, to turn them around. How? I don’t have a clue, but that’s because I’m not living your life, nor am I in your head, heart, or soul. What I do know is that you have options.

Your situation may be such, right now, that it feels like your options are nil. Or a choice between bad and worse. Maybe that’s true. However, you have choices. You are here. You’re alive. Choosing to live, to genuinely live, is as simple as making more choices and decisions consciously, actively, for yourself.

To most, the meaning of life is this overarching, maddening, almost impossible-to-explain or realize notion. It’s a matter of tremendous depth and a quest of epic proportions to be realized.

What if it’s far simpler than that?

The meaning of life is to live

Let’s face a couple of important facts, shall we? There are now 8 billion people living on Planet Earth. If everyone has some grand and glorious purpose, some overarching, amazing thing they’re supposed to do, that’s hard to wrap your brain around, right?

Everyone has a purpose, whether it’s some grand thing or not. That purpose is simple. It’s to live.

What that means is that you are here, now, in this time and place, to experience life. You’re here to learn, to grow, to love and have your heart broken, to meet new people, to make friends and enemies, and everything in between. In this present moment, right now, you are here to live.

This is not merely surviving. Nor is it living by rote, routine, and habit, subconsciously. You are not here to just endure and exist, nor be the plaything of some demagogue, guru, god, or whatever. Human beings are here to experience life and the wonders it has to offer.

It seems too simple, right? Too easy. Can you disprove it? Because I can’t. The meaning of life is truly simple. The meaning of life is to live.

It’s messy. Life is full of twists and turns, bumpy roads, challenges, heartaches, pain, and highs and lows. There’s paradox throughout. Today’s good person is tomorrow’s villain and vice versa. That’s all external, really, because through it all, good or bad, happy or sad, you are here. You live.

But do you live?

Wake up to your conscious awareness

The whole conservative notion that being “woke” is some ugly, bad, undesirable thing is ludicrous. Why? Because it means to be awake and consciously aware. That means you know not just what’s happening in the world without – which is easy. You know what’s happening within you. That’s harder.

When you are more self-aware, consciously aware, and mindful, you gain clarity. That clarity shows you that the many ideas presented to you of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are bullshit. The “pie” is not limited. There are more than enough jobs, religions, sexual partners, friends, places to be, and more in the world for everyone. No other race, creed, or color wants to make you suffer for their benefit (at least beneath certain institutional levels).

Everyone desires the same thing. To live. To experience life, meet people, do things, learn things, find comfort and contentment. There’s nobody who doesn’t desire this. Despite messages to the contrary, this is all about the utterly intangible.

The things you’re sold in media, advertising, and the like are presented as the paths to happiness, enlightenment, comfort, and easing suffering. Tangible “things” are impermanent, which means any joy they bring you – while not invalid – is impermanent.

The intangibles also frequently change. Today’s lover is tomorrow’s horrible person. Nobody wants to be hurt, to suffer, to feel bad. But that’s a part of the human condition and unavoidable. It can be a great teacher even as an unfun part of living life.

When you choose to wake up to your conscious awareness you’re choosing to live. That is what the meaning of life is all about.

Photo by Maxime Bhm on UnsplashWhat does it mean to live?

To live is to be actively, consciously aware. It’s all about making choices and decisions to experience life. Via those choices and decisions, you’re choosing who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Probably the hardest thing to accept about this concept is this: You will have pain. There will be suffering. When you live life, you experience the good and the bad. Sometimes that’s an amazing, incredible experience. Other times it’s a terrible, painful, unwanted happening. Yet whatever it is, so long as you’re here, you’re living it.

This is why being asleep at the switch, just letting yourself be moved subconsciously by rote, routine, habit, the whims of others great and small, or anything/anyone other than yourself is counter to the meaning of life. You, and you alone, are in your head, heart, and soul. Only you can know, genuinely, what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the negativity or positivity of your approach, and your actions and inactions. They can all be chosen and changed by you and only you.

This is why genuine, non-toxic positivity is important. Life is too short to spend it believing everything is awful, life sucks, and any other negatives. That’s a choice that impacts how you experience life. You’ll have bad days and negative experiences because everyone does. You can choose, however, the approach and overall attitude for your life at any time and change it as necessary.

I’d rather see life as full of potential and possibility than hopelessness and misery. The choice, however, is yours. That, ultimately, is the meaning of life and to live it.

Recognizing that the meaning of life is to live 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’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul, and that you get to live your life how you choose, to live becomes powerful and important. Knowing that being awake, consciously aware, and mindful opens the way to experiencing life, to learning, to really living life to the fullest, you can make more mindful choices and decisions to live as fully as possible.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and forty-second (542) 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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