M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 21

Very Few Choices Are Written in Stone and Can’t be Made Anew

Recognizing and acknowledging this is very empowering.Photo by Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash

I have long believed that there are three ways to live life.

Let life live you. Mostly live by rote, routine, and habit. Let what happens happen. Overall, you just accept what’s given, that things are a certain way, and you make only a few active, mindful choices for the direction of your life. Overall, however, you just roll with what happens around you.

Curl up in a ball and await death. While this can be literal, it’s largely not. This is choosing to see life as mostly a struggle, almost always challenging, and that there’s little to no point in giving a shit. This can also be applied to anyone more focused on an afterlife than this life and those trying desperately to live in the past of nostalgia (which is seldom how things truly were).

Take life like a bull by the horns and go for a ride. You make choices and decisions and actively work on living life as fully as possible. You seek to drive your life in a given direction to achieve that which you desire.

In my experience. I’ve seen these notions proven time and again. I know people who live predominately within each of these given ways.

It’s also important to recognize and acknowledge that everyone shifts between these. Sometimes you go for the ride, other times you let life live you, and unfortunately, there are times you want to curl up in a ball and await death. Welcome to the human condition.

It often seems easiest to choose the first two options. Yet that’s simply not true. However, the reason, I believe, why it appears to be so, comes down to one issue.

What if you choose wrong?

Let’s address the elephant in the room. You will choose wrong. As a human being, you’ll make mistakes, fuck it all up, make terrible choices, and choose wrong. That’s how it works.

Nobody gets every choice and decision right. Nobody. Everyone makes poor, unfortunate, and outright wrong choices and decisions along the way.

This can be incredibly frustrating. Worse, however, is that it can also lead people to make few to no choices and decisions. Instead, they let life live them and allow the subconscious to do the driving. I’ll cover this further later.

Fear of making the wrong choice or decision, wherever it might come from, has stopped more than one person from making choices and decisions. You can’t get wrong what you don’t choose. Right?

Not exactly. By not choosing, you make a choice. Thus, you live subconsciously and allow whatever will happen to happen. You cede your power and potential control.

This might seem harsh, but it’s the truth. Not choosing or deciding is a choice. Choosing wrong is unavoidable. However, unless that wrong choice kills you, you get to choose and decide anew.

Few choices are written in stone and can’t be made anew

Unless the choice you make kills you, you get to choose again.

No, you can’t undo the choice. Most of the time you can’t necessarily change the choice or decision already made. However, you can nearly always make new choices and decisions.

What’s more, you get to do so with new knowledge. That’s because your prior choices and decisions, even when they’re wrong, can teach you new things. That, in turn, allows you to make new and better decisions and choices.

To be fair, even when you learn something from wrong choices and decisions, it might suck mightily. They might lead to pain and suffering, whether that’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or some combination of these. Yet this can also be a learning opportunity.

So long as you are still here, you have opportunities to make new choices and decisions. You can choose anew if you’ve chosen wrong or poorly.

The key to it all is active conscious awareness.

Photo by Jan Genge on UnsplashThe tug ‘o-war between the conscious and subconscious mind

All human beings are of three minds.

The unconscious mind. This is what drives your organs, makes your neurons fire, your heart beat, your lungs breathe, and so on. With the partial exception of heartbeat and breathing, you have zero control of this, but neither do you need it. It simply is and does.

The unconscious mind. This is where your memories, beliefs, values, and habits live. It is via the unconscious mind that you can exist in rote and routine. This, frankly, is what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. I’ll explain that shortly.

The conscious mind. This is where your present, active mindset/headspace/psyche self, lives. It is the conscious mind where you make choices and decisions. The conscious mind is also how you can connect with your subconscious mind. That’s how you can see your beliefs and values, call up memories of the past now, and recognize habits (which can be changed by the conscious mind, actions, choices, and decisions as such).

When you avoid making choices and decisions, your subconscious mind tends to take the wheel. Habits big and small are driving what you’re doing as you let life live you. It appears to be easy, but it comes with a price. That price is dissatisfied with things on one level or another. This, in turn, is likely to gnaw at you in some way. Until you consciously recognize and address it, however, it’ll function on autopilot.

Here’s the wildest part of this. Only human beings have a subconscious mind. Specifically, when it comes to beliefs and values. No other animals on this planet – that we know of – have beliefs and values like we do.

What about habits, rote, and routine?

Other animals have been observed with habits and routines. However, those are part of their unconscious mind. This is often referred to as animal instinct.

Humans have instincts, too. However, we’ve evolved to run them through our beliefs, values, and even subconscious memories. This is why so many people find it challenging to follow or trust their gut. They feel an urge, a need, to run it through the subconscious. What’s more, they might be doing that utterly automatically by rote and routine.

The upside to the subconscious mind is how it allows humans to create amazing things. That’s because the subconscious mind is where dreams, imaginations, and the deep thoughts we have, live.

The existence of the subconscious mind is how humans are capable of creating the tools we have, living in any environment no matter how extreme, and imagining fictions and sharing them.

The rest of the animal kingdom, as far as we know, has no such mind. They have the unconscious and the conscious only. That’s why they are “primitive” or “natural” in their choices of habits, life activities, and so on. They haven’t the imagination to turn dreams into reality of a subconscious mind that humans have.

Crazy, no?

Recognizing that choices can almost always be made anew

Marriages end in divorce. However, second marriages can be far better than first marriages. Jobs are lost. However, that can pave the way to entrepreneurship or better jobs. Skydiving can lead to broken bones. However, you can also have an amazing life experience and a good story to tell that you didn’t before.

All of this speaks to the truth that most choices aren’t written in stone and can be made anew. That might mean you don’t choose that next time, but that’s a choice and decision you’re making.

The truth is that you have a finite time on this planet, in that body, experiencing this life. Sure, sometimes there are days where just letting life live you is necessary. Also, there are awful times when the idea of curling up in a ball and awaiting death feels like all you’ve got. However, you can always change your life to take charge, take life like the bull by the horns, and drive.

Please keep an open mind about this, and let’s recognize and acknowledge a few important facts. You will choose wrong or poorly, and the result might suck. However, making the choice, even when wrong, empowers you. There is seldom a one-and-done choice. You’ll get new choices and decisions all the time. Choosing and deciding can be hard. However, doing so actively empowers you. That is where you can take the limited control of your life that you have.

One last thought. Think about a time when you had a tough choice to make that resulted in something great. It might not have been easy, and it might have been frustrating. However, after you made it, didn’t you feel amazing? Did it make you feel like you were doing the driving? That is the reason why making choices and decisions is empowering and worthwhile.

Can you see that even bad choices can be chosen anew most times?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-seventh (627) 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 Few Choices Are Written in Stone and Can’t be Made Anew appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Finding the Positivity In the Holidays

For all the good, many get overwhelmed by the not-so-good.Photo by Ronin on Unsplash

For some, this is the best time of year. Starting with Halloween, then moving on to Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and then New Year’s Eve/Day, this is their favorite time of the year.

However, that’s not so for everyone. Many people find this time of the year frustrating, a reminder of pain – whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or all the above – and many other negatives. Also, the utter bombardment of the music, crass commercialism, greed, and other elements are virtually impossible to avoid or ignore.

Those who poo-poo the holidays are often referred to as Scrooges or humbugs. How dare those who can’t get into the spirit bring everyone else down. As if that’s not enough, then you get those who are so offended by the non-existent “war on Christmas” that’s tied to recognizing that not everyone is a Christian or celebrates this holiday. “Happy Holidays” is not a war on Christmas, it’s just recognition that Christianity isn’t the sole religion for all of us.

Even those who find this time of year joyful can also be saddened, frustrated, and distraught by it. Let’s face it, very, very few people have families that are so perfect that they’re drama-free at the holidays. Certainly, nobody I know is in that boat.

Whatever your position on this time of year might be, you’re capable of finding positivity in the holidays.

First, however, we need to acknowledge a little reality.

Overwhelming messages are overwhelming

Maybe I was more naïve as a kid, but I do not recall the music and décor coming out much before Thanksgiving. This made sense to me.

Not so long ago, I believe, the décor, music, commercials, and all the rest started to appear well before Thanksgiving. It’s only gotten weirder and started earlier in the fall, as more and more I’m seeing it right on top of Halloween. If, in the next few years, they start selling everything Christmas as early as Labor Day, I’m lodging a protest of some sort.

Do we need to push the décor, the commercialism, and the greed of Christmas so early? No. Do the stores need to be open on Thanksgiving to compete with online options and get a jump on Black Friday? No. Yet, more and more, here we are.

The overwhelming messages are overwhelming. What’s more, they come from multiple sources and vary from benign and cutesy to downright invasive and obnoxious. It often feels like the message of, “Did you know it’s almost Christmas?” is being turned into “START SPENDING YOUR MONEY AND SHOWING YOUR SPIRIT IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!” Loud, obnoxious, and overwhelming hardly covers it.

I will concede this might impact me harder because I was raised Jewish (and still culturally/ethnically identify as Jewish). As adults with a niece and nephews, my wife and I celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah in our families. Yet even living in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population, the Hanukkah section of the stores still pales by comparison to the Christmas section.

Thus, it can be difficult to find the positivity amidst the overwhelm of the increasingly loud and insistent messages about the holiday season. However, you can find it.

Finding the positivity in the holidays

Almost buried beneath the increasingly crass and greedy consumerism are messages of peace, love, and goodwill to all. The idea is that during this time of year, we should show increased kindness, compassion, and empathy for our fellow humans.

That part of the idea of the holidays is still worthwhile. However, it needn’t be only during the holidays that we take into consideration the other people around us. This applies not just to friends and family, but also to the people you stand in line with, servers at restaurants, cashiers at stores, and perfect strangers you pass along the way.

Emphasizing kindness, compassion, and empathy this time of year is empowering, no matter how the holidays make you feel. That, as such, is the key to finding positivity in the holidays.

How? By being a focal point for positivity. It’s achieved by making the effort to give kindness, compassion, and empathy above all else. To rise above the overwhelming messages about the needs for the material and tangible of the holiday season by spreading the intangible and immaterial.

What do I mean? I mean that rather than worry about your décor or the gifts you are giving, consider instead how/where/when you can give kindness, compassion, and empathy. What can you do to spread kindness, compassion, and empathy during the holidays? Especially when so many people could use more?

All you need for this is active conscious awareness. That, of course, is mindfulness.

Photo by Harvey Robinson on UnsplashBe mindful as often as you can

Everyone has days where you need to turn off, tune out, and just let life live you. Go with the flow, don’t push, just exist. Let your routines and habits carry you by rote through your day/week/whatever.

For most people – I know that this isn’t true for all, since nothing is true for all – this becomes dissatisfactory. You develop a sense that there’s more, and just letting life live you isn’t sufficient. I’m going to presume that you’re one of those people. If you’ve read this article this far, I think that’s proof enough.

To take control and take the wheel of your life, all you need is active conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness. Mindfulness is, in this present moment, recognizing and acknowledging what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and aren’t doing. Asking and answering questions about your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions tells you who, what, where, how, and why you are.

When you have a handle on yourself, you can give more – and more readily – to others. Giving kindness, compassion, and empathy comes with no cost. You needn’t spend a single penny to give the intangible and immaterial.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about what I most desire, most of the time, it’s not things. The material and tangible things of the world don’t make me feel content or joyful. What does? The intangible and immaterial things.

Focusing on those is how you find the positivity in the holidays. Anyone from any background can do this. You have that power, and if – like me – it’s what you most desire to receive, why not give it out?

Can we even have too much kindness, compassion, or empathy in the world?

Finding the positivity in the holidays isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that you have a greater desire for kindness, compassion, empathy, and the immaterial, you can work around the overwhelming commercialism, materialism, and consumerism of the holidays. Knowing that these immaterial and intangible things are what matter most to you, it’s easy to pass them on and give them to others around you, whether friends, family, or perfect and imperfect strangers.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 sixteenth (516) 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 Finding the Positivity In the Holidays appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Do You Know That You Are Capable of Truly Amazing Things?

Don’t sell yourself short.Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

One of my favorite lines from the original Star Wars, though Han Solo said it at the time in extreme arrogance, in another context resonates with me.

“Sometimes I even amaze myself.”

Here’s the thing. Do you have even the slightest inkling of what you’re capable of? Beneath your conscious mind, but not entirely connected to your subconscious mind, you have truly incredible capabilities.  

For some, this manifests in obvious ways. Such people are empaths, energy healers, mediums, and other sixth-sense-attuned individuals to a greater or lesser degree.

Ah, you might be thinking, hooky-spooky bullshit. Yet, no, that’s the point of this. That’s because this is about the brain, or maybe more specifically the mind, and how it interconnects everything that you are.

All human beings are comprised of four elements when it comes to our health, wellness, and wellbeing. They are the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The latter three tend to get lumped together as mental health, as all are intangibles. I separate them because, ignored or unaddressed, they can cause unnecessary harm.

It is in the latter three realms in particular where you are capable of truly amazing things.

What kinds of truly amazing things would that be?

Recently, in therapy, I made a most unexpected and incredible discovery.

Psychology, folks. Science, not the hooky-spooky. I’m going to get really personal here.

There are many gaps in my memory around my childhood. Many of them, unsurprisingly, are tied to my parents’ divorce when I was 5 or 6 years old. Given the trauma of divorce on the psyche of a child, this isn’t shocking.

For a long, long time now, I’ve been questing to uncover some of these missing memories. Why? Because I suspect they are a large part of the root emotions of anger, resentment, and guilt that have manifested as a displaced fear of abandonment within me.

Still with me? With this current therapist, I’m working within a different therapy framework than I ever have previously. It’s called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Employing this, my therapist had me dig into one of the early blank spots in my memory, right around the time of my parents’ divorce.

This is where I made an amazing discovery. No, I didn’t find a missing memory, or the cause of the impression of anger, resentment, and guilt (impression, FYI, because emotion can only genuinely be felt via conscious awareness in the now). Instead, I made a most amazing discovery.

I nuked those memories from orbit. Six-year-old me, or rather my psyche in that unique space below the conscious mind but not entirely connected to the subconscious mind, nuked those memories.

In other words, to protect myself at the time from the pain of the divorce in my conscious mind, and all the negativity therein, I removed those memories.

Photo by Annie Spratt on UnsplashAn act of empowerment

What the actual fuck, you might be asking? Here’s the biggest wow factor of this discovery. This was an act of incredible empowerment that my psyche – in that unique space below the conscious mind but not entirely connected to the subconscious mind – performed. It created a black hole and a lot of confusion in my mind, and some other issues I’ve been contending with mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Yet, it empowered me.

How do I know this? When I discovered that my psyche, at 6 years old or so, erased those painful memories, it was done to make me strong. How? Because at the time, and during most of the rest of my childhood, it kept me from worse places than my depression took me.

Specifically, this is why no matter how awful I felt, how alone or disconnected I’ve believed that I was, I’ve never been suicidal.

Please note – I am in no way, shape, or form, blaming my parents here. However, the reality is that they were both so caught up in their own lives and navigating them, plus having not just me but my five-years-younger sister, that they only had a limited amount to give of the bonding and other emotional connections a child craves. I developed resilience to hold my own in the face of that.

It was not entirely subconscious because it involved elements of my conscious mind working with my subconscious to affect my memory.

Learning this might seem disconcerting to you. It might even appear scary. However, when I realized this, I experienced a sense of utter calm, freedom, and like a weight I had no idea was on my shoulders had been lifted. It is almost indescribably empowering.

Mindfulness of truly amazing things

Human beings are capable of truly amazing things. That applies to us all.

Don’t believe me? Can you explain the device you’re reading this on, how it works, and the science that lets it work? What about the science of the internal combustion engine of your car? How about the science of how deodorant is made and why it works?

Even if you can explain one or all of these, each is an example of how we’re capable of truly amazing things. Look what humankind has created to live like we do on this planet, unlike any other animal. Truly amazing.

Beyond the material, look at how we can think, feel, intend, and act to create and manifest both the tangible and intangible.

This is where the unique power to create truly amazing things lives. What’s more, the amazing things that I desire might be utterly different from what you seek and desire. Yet they’re equally valuable and equally empowering in that we can create them, tangible or intangible.

This isn’t about something world-changing. This is about you recognizing and acknowledging that you are capable of truly amazing things. Then, using that knowledge to take charge of your life experiences.

That unique space below the conscious mind but not entirely connected to the subconscious mind exists in everyone. You can access it via active conscious awareness, via your conscious mind, with mindfulness.

That’s done by questioning – in the present – what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you or aren’t doing. When that gives you the control that is your birthright, it also empowers you to do truly amazing things.

Why does any of that matter?

One of the biggest problems with our fear-based society is how disempowered the average person is. Too many messages are everywhere that you’re not good enough, smart enough, or worthy enough to have, be, or do what you would find most fulfilling. Then, to add insult to injury, the drive to conform to overwrought societal norms further tears you away from your own capabilities.

We’re not actively taught self-awareness. Frankly, I think we’re shoehorned into accepting less than what we are capable of on many levels. What’s more, certain forces, hell-bent on retaining and expanding utterly false “power”, weaponize self-awareness and the freedom that it brings with ludicrous notions like it being bad being “woke”. So, what, remaining unaware and asleep is better? It’s not.

Your mileage may vary, and you might be in a good place. If you’re content, happy, and overall living a life of your choosing, more power to you. But if not, why not? What’s holding you back from doing the truly amazing things you’re capable of?

Legitimate reasons or not – and there can certainly be situations and circumstances legitimately keeping you from doing truly amazing things – you have lots more power to shape your life. To do that, however, you alone can take action and make choices and decisions to drive life in that way.

That’s the primary reason why I share my Pathwalking philosophy. Because each of us has a finite time alive in this world, in these bodies, and that time is meant to be worthwhile. This is what we are here to do – to live. To experience. We’re meant not to be drones merely surviving, but amazing creators thriving.

Please believe that you are capable of truly amazing things, and you have every right to manifest them into your life.

Do you see that you are capable of truly amazing things?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-sixth (626) 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 Know That You Are Capable of Truly Amazing Things? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is There Anything You Can Do About That?

The answer can change your life in multiple ways.Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

The world is at your fingertips. Whatever device you’re using to read these words gives you access to news and information, 24/7, worldwide.

On the one hand, this is incredible. Only in the last two or three decades have we had the power to learn and know anything at all about any topic whatsoever. You name it, you can learn something about it.

On the other hand, this is terrible. There is so much information available that it can be incredibly overwhelming. What’s more, finding fact versus opinion – informed or utter bullshit – is another challenge that can only be done by choice and action.

Absorbing the staggering amount of data subconsciously creates a ton of instability in your psyche. This is due in large part to our fear-based society and its constant, unending yammering. Do this, be that, buy it all, or suffer. Choose badly, you’ll suffer. Do nothing, you’ll suffer. Further, misinterpret the Buddhist meaning of “life is suffering,” and is it any wonder we have a mental health crisis of epic proportions around the globe?

Parsing out the information constantly bombarding you can be increasingly challenging. Just to add insult to injury, it’s even harder when many of the solutions you’re offered line someone’s pockets and at best offer temporary comfort or relief.

From a young age, you’ve been taught to look outside yourself for answers. However, the answer to almost everything you face – whether mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical – starts within you.

To access this, you can ask several questions in the here and now that will make you actively consciously aware. One in particular, however, is this:

Is there anything you can do about that?

Misrepresentation of selfishness

Spend any time whatsoever on social media, and examples of incredibly selfish people will be in your face. Lots of self-righteous religious, political, and business leaders doing all that they can to dominate and control. Influencers selling you things you don’t need, so-called gurus offering material and immaterial quick fixes, and people basing info on opinion over fact, are everywhere.

This has led to a growing misrepresentation of selfishness. People see acts of self-care, putting your needs first, and the like, as selfish.

Maybe, in a vague sense, they are. But in truth, they’re not. Why? Because you are the only you there is. When you let your mind, body, and spirit fall into disrepair, you experience ill health, depression, anxiety, crises of faith, disassociation, and other signs of poor health, wellness, and wellbeing.

You, and you alone, can make choices and decisions to care for your mind, body, and spirit. Yes, you can – and maybe should – also get help from doctors, therapists, counselors, and the like in the care of your health, wellness, and wellbeing. However, it can only begin within you. You alone can choose to take action to care for your health, wellness, and wellbeing.

Genuine selfishness is done with malice of forethought. It’s being one of 8 people, a pie cut into 8 slices, and you taking two knowing everyone wants a piece, thereby forcing someone to go without. Real selfishness is “governing” by looking out for the interests of your millionaire and billionaire donors but letting the majority suffer and get routinely screwed over.

Hence, self-care, and putting your own health, wellness, and wellbeing first are not selfish acts.

Taking this into account, let’s get back to the question.

Is there anything you can do about that?

All over the world, LGBTQA+ and POC individuals and communities are harassed, hurt, disempowered, treated unfairly, and suffer inhumane acts just because of biology. COVID is still causing harm. AI is taking jobs and disrupting creativity, work, and multiple industries. There is a war in Ukraine that is senseless and awful. In the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is escalating, with both sides committing atrocities. Brexit is continuing to do major harm to the UK. The state of Texas is treating women like second-class citizens.

All the above is just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t know about you, but everything I listed above is upsetting, infuriating, distressing, and the cause of much concern.

Yet, there’s an important question about this that you might not ask. Is there anything that you can do about that?

The answer is going to vary from person to person. For the most part, it’s “that depends”. Overall, however, the answer is going to be no.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing at all I can do about these things. For example, I can openly support and be an ally to the LGBTQA+ and POC communities. I can get vaccinated for COVID and be mindful of keeping 6 feet apart from people and masking when it seems necessary. I can seek reliable sources and learn about AI and how it might impact me; be mindful if the people I vote for are being part of the problem or solution to the international and national crises; attend protests, send emails make calls, or take some other action if it feels right to do so.

However, that’s the extent of what I can do about that.

Photo by David Clode on UnsplashWhy does knowing the limits of what you can do about that matter?

Does it do you any good to worry about things outside of your control? No. If you give large swaths of your time, attention, and energy to these terrible things, constantly watch the news, and scan social media, can you change them? No. Are you a bad person if you don’t give them more than a passing thought and basic, vague acknowledgment? No.

Why? Because you can control only a limited, few things directly. All of them are or start within you and belong solely to you.

That’s the truth. You can’t control anyone else, change anyone’s opinion, or force anyone into doing your bidding. The only control you can exert over anyone to any genuine effect is you.

Specifically, you can control your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, approach to matters tangible and intangible, choices, and decisions. That’s it.

Not much, right? Not so. That’s because when all is said and done, that’s everything. You, in a nutshell, are a combination of every bit of the above list – or more specifically, everything listed above empowers you to control who, what, where, how, and why you are.

How? Active conscious awareness.

Practicing mindfulness

My definition of mindfulness is active conscious awareness in action. What that means is not just going with the flow or living by rote and routine, but asking questions here and now, in the present moment, to become actively consciously aware.

Each of these questions can only be genuinely answered here and now. They include,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?Am I approaching this (person/place/thing/situation) positively or negatively?What are my intentions?Why am I doing or not doing this?

These, and other questions like them, are mindful questions. You’re the only one who can answer them because you, and you alone, are in your head, heart, and soul (mind, body, and spirit). What’s more, the answers can only be known, truly, at this moment, in the now.

Asking and answering these questions gives you insight and clarity of your mindset/headspace/psyche self. Once you have the answers to these and similar questions, you can answer this question:

Is there anything you can do about that?

If the answer is nothing, that’s normal. Because what you can do anything about tends to be limited, and largely limited to you and your life. That is not selfish. I repeat, THAT. IS. NOT. SELFISH.

If you worry, fret, and focus on things you can do nothing about, you can choose to change that. Recognizing, acknowledging, and working with this can change your life in multiple ways. How? By changing your focus to things that you can do something with and/or about.

What do you think of that?

Asking and answering if there’s anything you can do about that isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge things that you do have control over, you more clearly can see the things that you can and can’t do anything about. Knowing that the things overwhelming you, making you feel bad, are outside of your control, if there’s nothing you can do about that, you can choose to shift what you focus on, and the things you can do something about in your life.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 fifteenth (515) 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 Is There Anything You Can Do About That? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Mindfulness Isn’t Just About the Mind

The whole body is impacted by active conscious awareness practice.Photo by Sandro Gonzalez on Unsplash

Given that it’s right there in the name – mindfulness – it’s easy to presume this is all about the mind. While that’s mostly true, it’s only a portion of the truth.

Everything begins with thought. Thought happens on three levels – unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. The unconscious is how you breathe automatically, digest, blink, and fire the neurons that move the muscles to lift your arm into the air to flip someone the bird, and the like. The subconscious mind is where beliefs, values, habits, and memories live. You can access them, but doing so requires a conscious act. The conscious mind is how you engage with the world within and the world without, here and now.

Another way to think of it all is as a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The unconscious mind is the operating system. Like the Mac, Windows, or Linux environments, the OS is what all else is built upon and dictates the overall function. The subconscious mind is your hard drive, the HDD or SDD that stores everything. That gets accessed by programs, apps, and the like. In mind terms, it’s the conscious mind.

Without all three elements, you have a dead tablet, smartphone, or computer. Likewise, without the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious mind, you have a dead person. (This, FYI, is where AI will ultimately find its limitations, but that’s a whole other topic of discussion).

Mindfulness is how you can access the conscious mind, which is how you access your subconscious mind. But it’s also how you do everything that you do. Hence mindfulness isn’t about the mind alone.

You are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual          

Every person on Planet Earth has four elements that define them. These are the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Body, mind, emotion, and soul, if you will. All of these make up the greater whole of everyone and our overall health, wellness, and wellbeing.

The three levels of thought – unconscious, subconscious, and conscious, work in concert all the time. They operate whether you’re aware of them, consciously, or not. Sleep is a perfect example of this. When you rest your conscious mind, you still think and feel, which can manifest in dreams. However, you also act, as your blood circulates, stomach digests, heart beats, lungs breathe, and so on.

Your physical being – your body – is the vessel you use to interact with the world at large. Within it, though, are greater depths. That’s where your beliefs, values, habits, and memories live, as do your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and all other intangibles.

This is true for everyone. Nobody lacks any one of these elements. True health and wealth are an equal balance of all four elements, too.

This is where active conscious awareness – mindfulness – is most empowering. We are best able to be our most connected selves on every level, here and now, when the elements of our health, wellness, and wellbeing are balanced.

This is why mindfulness isn’t just about the mind.

Mindfulness and health, wellness, and wellbeing

Since everything begins with thought, applied conscious awareness makes perfect sense. After all, if you aren’t clearly aware of your thoughts, all else will gets muddled.

This is why mindfulness isn’t just about the mind. It is also about the body, the soul, and everything else that goes into making you, you. Without active conscious awareness, you cede control.

This applies to everything physical that you do. From the simple, like typing to the more complex, like throwing a ball, to the challenging, like balancing on a tightrope – thought is the origin of action. When that isn’t controlled, neither is the action.

This is where certain bad habits come in, such as chewing your fingernails, eating when you’re bored, missing obvious tripping hazards, and so on. When these are done by habit, rote, and routine, they’re automations that don’t serve you. Further, they can lead to injury or more long-term troubles.

There is a quote from Lao Tzu that covers this well, but better by this lesser-used translation,

“The journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one’s feet.”

You choose the ground you stand on and the path it represents mindfully. No matter where you go, all journeys begin in this way.

Mindfulness applies to the body and soul because neither can function without the mind.

The sum total of you can be controlled by you via active conscious awareness, here and now. That is mindfulness in action.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on UnsplashWhy does being present matter?

You can’t control what’s already happened. That’s because the past has come and gone. It’s passed us by. There is no redoing, undoing, or doing it over.

You cannot go back. Period. What’s more, past recollection gets colored by bias, nostalgia, and wistful memories that are colored by your environment, life experiences, friends, family, culture, and other factors. What you remember might be a long way from the absolute truth of what occurred.

Likewise, you can’t control what’s going to happen. No matter what you plan, set into motion, plot, or prepare shit happens that you cannot control. Extenuating circumstances will change the outcome in unpredictable ways.

There is no crystal ball, oracle, or magic 8-ball you can commune with to know how the future will be. Nobody can foresee unexpected changes in the weather, terrorist bombs going off, traffic messing up your schedule, or a person you’re supposed to meet deciding to stand you up. The outcome is beyond your control.

Here and now, right this moment, in the present, you can choose who, what, where, how, and why you are. Yes, there might be issues and challenges here that put limits on this or lessen how many choices you have, but you still have them.

More importantly, here and now you can choose to change your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That begins in the mind but extends out to the rest of your body and being, both tangibly and intangibly.

Mindfulness is your superpower

Via mindfulness and control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, you can be, have, or do anything.

No, this isn’t the manifestation process of The Secret where you Ask, Believe, Receive, and just get what you desire out of thin air. Though the concept isn’t without merit, an important element is left out.

You must do the work. Without intentional action on your part, you can’t manifest jack shit.

Yes, you might get lucky and make it happen. Also, if you stick a lump of coal up your ass and squeeze it hard enough, you might get a diamond. Frankly, the chances of either happening are cosmically equal.

Getting what you seek in life is good, but the road from here to there is even better. Why? Because often what you learn in the here and now, traversing whatever paths you choose, makes the end goal even more valuable and worthwhile. Challenging your self to grow, to evolve, to actively change might suck sometimes, but when you meet your goal? It’s even greater because of what you put out to get to it.

Mindfulness, active conscious awareness, is the initiating thought that leads to being the best you that you can be.

Mindfulness isn’t just about the mind. The whole body is impacted by active conscious awareness practice. That superpower is how you can be virtually anything you desire to be. Via mindfulness, you can recognize your options and make conscious, active choices about what paths to walk – or not – to the desired end.

Can you see how mindfulness is so much more than mind?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-fifth (625) 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 Mindfulness Isn’t Just About the Mind appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Do I Feel This Way?

Short answer – because life is a crazy, unpredictable ride.Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash

For the record, depression sucks.

Most of the time I keep the black dog at bay. I do my mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, fencing, take my meds, talk to my therapist, and other self-care actions regularly. Yet, I’m only human. Sometimes thinky-thoughts make me feel sad, rainy grey skies feel oppressive, and depression sits on my chest like my cat, but without the calming purr.

Depression can be clinical, seasonal, manic, and more. It impacts everyone differently. What’s more, how depression feels today might be very different tomorrow. It’s utterly situational and totally unpredictable.

In this instance, what I’m feeling is a mix of sadness, self-doubt, disillusion, frustration, and just a hint of anger. Why? My biggest fear has been manifesting in a certain way that I’m working on understanding.

Abandonment. Not in the all-inclusive, everyone-out-of-the-pool sense. It’s more specific, tied to people I thought I was deeply connected with and close to who then either dropped me, wandered away, stopped communicating, or some combo of all the above.

This is calling up some past situations and experiences. That, in turn, is the impetus for this current bout of depression.

However, as Lao Tzu said,

“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

Ruminating on past ideas is full of pitfalls. Mainly because memory is imperfect, and the thoughts and feelings of yesterday aren’t knowable today. All we have are impressions of past thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

The only way to actively do something about depression is to work mindfully here and how.

For me, this begins with asking why.

Why do I feel this way?

I’m going to identify the root cause of why I feel this way. FYI, my marriage is in excellent health and none of this is about my wife and our relationship (which is amazing on every level, and I’m deeply grateful for that).

There have been 4 women in my life over the last 2 years who I have had very close relationships with. Two of them were platonic, very close friendships. Two were lovers.

All of them faded out of my life in one way or another. Communication either slowed or stopped outright. The closeness we had grew distant. Four people I loved moved on and ceased to be close in different but related ways.

Lovers and friends

With one of my lovers, I made a mistake. I apologized for it and worked to make amends. Despite the effort, she slowly pushed me further and further away, said one thing while doing another, and then mostly ended all communication. This one stung because we’d been friends long before we became lovers, and I thought our connection was far deeper than it proved to be.

With the other lover, I thought things were great. But then, something happened, she went through a major depressive episode, and ceased communicating for 6 months. Eventually, there was a tentative return, but I found myself initiating all communication. After requesting that she be more cognizant of this, she initiated one or two depth-free conversations. Everything remained guarded and tentative, then there was a broken date and I’ve left it to her to make all effort from there. There’s been none for more than a month. Again.

The other two, the friends, both faded differently. I thought in both instances we’d formed a really deep bond. We shared a lot. Yet, both moved on in different ways and both ceased communication subtly. Neither is entirely gone, but what we have now is barely a shadow of the depth of our relationships before. Two people I thought of as among my best friends are almost wholly non-present In my life, now.

Thinking about this, and its ties to my fear of abandonment is why I feel this way.

Mindfulness of fear

All my fears, mostly manifested in fear of success and fear of failure, come back to my fear of abandonment. I know full well that this is a by-product of my parents’ divorce when I was almost 6, and the impact that had on my young, overly bright psyche.

Also, for the record, I do not blame my parents for this. I’m just acknowledging the root.

The fear of abandonment has caused me to form bonds that were tentative at best, maintained friendships and relationships that weren’t healthy, and even caused me to choose both platonic and romantic relationships over opportunities and certain forms of stability.

It’s taken a lot of work to recognize this. Then more work to acknowledge it. After that, there’s been even more work to learn from it for current and future relationships.

All of the above relationships came into being after I’d spent a lot of time learning to get in touch with and know my feelings. I’ve done and am in therapy, take an anti-depressant, practice meditation, and do a lot of mindful work to be more present here and now. That, I’ve found, is the best way to overcome fear. But it’s also the best way to be as true to myself as I can be.

Photo by Arun Prakash on UnsplashKnowing why I feel this way and mindfulness

How can you enter into any relationship with another if your relationship with yourself is misunderstood? I don’t think you necessarily need to love yourself, per se. However, you do need to be aware of yourself. Like really, truly, here and now, aware.

This is a matter of being consciously aware, here and now. In other words, mindful. To do that, you need to know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are or aren’t doing. This is mindfulness in action.

With this knowledge, in the now, you can access your subconscious self. That allows you to see your fear, hesitation, beliefs, values, and habits in stark relief.

Such insight is how you can tie together past experiences with your present isness.

You can only be here now

The past is gone. It happened, and cannot be undone, redone, or done over. You can’t go bag, Similarly, the future is unwritten. No matter how hard you plan, or what you do to get to a goal or whatever, the unknown can and will occur and expected outcomes won’t manifest as expected.

What’s more, the past is colored by experience, bias, prejudice, and desires that can and do run counter to the absolute. Likewise, the future is going to be impacted by forces outside your control, period. You cannot do a damned thing about the weather, what other people will do, and you only control yourself and your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Only the now, the present, this moment, is utterly, truly, genuinely real. Here and now is the only time that is where you can exert control over your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions to drive your life how you desire it to go. This is done via choices and decisions made here and now.

You, ultimately, get to decide who, what, where, how, and why you are. Yes, there might be extenuating circumstances that limit those things. However, when all is said and done, you can and do control them.

Where does this fit into the question of “why do I feel this way”? In explaining the past elements, I can see, here and now, why I feel this way. Knowing, further, how it ties into my depression, I can see actions to take that will alter my thoughts and feelings to shift this away from depression.

From here, I have the power to change how I feel.

This is important to note

One last, important bit here. My feelings are valid. Likewise, your feelings in any given situation are valid. Recognizing this opens you to being able to own and then change them, whatever they are.

No, it probably won’t be easy. However, in the long run, you can control your feelings rather than be controlled by them.

You are worthy and deserving of making choices and decisions for your life. When you ask why you feel the way you feel, only you can find the answer, and you have every right to find it, understand it, and then change it if that’s what suits you best.

Why do I feel this way? I know the answer. With that knowledge, I can change it, and you have the same power, too.

Recognizing and acknowledging why I feel this way isn’t hard

It’s all about working with mindfulness of my thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct my actions.

When I pause, here and now, and apply mindfulness, I can get a handle on what is causing me to feel this way. Knowing that I can get clarity and that I’m empowered to change my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, I can make choices and do things to change the way I feel.

This empowers me. I hope that by sharing this it empowers you. Then, in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 fourteenth (514) 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 Do I Feel This Way? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Be Mindful of Everything You Consume?

No matter what it is – food, media, entertainment, drugs – you have ultimate control.Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Consumption isn’t only about food and drink. It’s also about what you watch, read, listen to, see, and take in.

Ours is the ultimate consumer society. Never before in the history of the human race have the majority been able to consume anything and everything. Overall, people can connect, communicate, learn, and consume vast amounts of anything you can conceive of, tangible or intangible.

Yes, I know some people are suffering and lack consumables. However, historically, that number is the lowest it’s ever been (even with the large total population).

Despite all the news and information about famine, war, economic upheaval, and the like, multiple sources will tell you the world isn’t a dangerous place on the brink of self-destruction. I know I find that hard to believe. However, at the same time, giving it a little mindfulness, it’s not.

I admit that finding a truly unbiased, reliable source to confirm this is nearly impossible. However, pausing to observe beyond the superficial fear-based elements of society, it’s rather obvious. The media loves to share negative news and embellish awfulness because it sells more views, reads, and impressions. That makes the parent company a lot of money.

It’s far, far too easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom narrative. Even something as innocuous as a movie’s performance – in this instance, I’m referring to The Marvels – is embellished to create a specific narrative of conflict to feed the machine. All the negatives of its performance have been virtually shouted from the rooftops. The equally positive elements of its performance are being disregarded. Take a closer look if you don’t know why.

This, however, is why being mindful of what we consume matters.

Junk food for the mind, body, and soul is too readily available

How easy is it to go to a vending machine and get a bag of chips, soda, or a sugary treat? Why are vegetables pricier than processed foodstuffs? How can Fox News continue to blatantly lie to people to the point where they believe a provably false narrative?

The answer is lack of mindfulness of what we consume. This is not just food and drink, it’s everything. News, information, entertainment, advertising, religion, government, take your pick.

It’s imperative to remember that you always have a choice. Whether it’s to eat a cookie or an apple or watch kitten videos on YouTube or propaganda-spewing influencers, you have a choice. What you eat and what you watch will impact your health, wellness, and overall wellbeing. This will be true of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self.

It’s all too easy to go down the rabbit holes. Doom-scrolling on Facebook and Twitter (I just cannot bring myself to call it “X”). Getting sucked into the endless reels and vids of Instagram and TikTok. Before you know it, multiple hours of your life have gone and you’re wondering why you feel unsatisfied.

For all the good and legitimate resources available to us, material and immaterial, food or information, it’s readily buried by practically endless junk. That junk is junk food for the mind, body, and soul. It might offer a quick fix for your “hunger,” but it still leaves you wanting.

How do you be mindful of everything you consume?

All mindfulness on every level begins with the same thing. It’s active conscious awareness.

What that means is, rather than allowing subconscious rote, routine, and habit to drive your life, you choose to be more consciously aware. To do that, you address your conscious mind and work more with your mindset/headspace/psyche self. The you that sees the world via your six senses, here and now.

This is one of the greater challenges of mindfulness. It works only in the now, the present. That’s because when it comes to time, the now is the only time that’s real. The past has passed and the future is unwritten and unknown. The now, the present, alone, is real time.

Thus, mindfulness is active conscious awareness here and now. It’s how you be present and aware of yourself at this precise moment.

To engage mindfulness, all you need to do is ask and answer any of these questions, here and now:

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What do I intend?What am I doing?

These can only genuinely be answered in the moment. Asked of the past or the future, you can’t know or trust the answers. That’s because the past has bias and experiential pitfalls while the future is uncertain and unknown.

To be mindful of what you consume, you need to ask questions, here and now, like,

Why or why not consume this news/food/drink/information?Will consuming this make me feel good or feel bad?Is this consumable good for me or bad for me?What value, if any, is in this consumable?

These and questions like them, asked and answered here and now, tell you if what you’re about to consume is helpful or harmful.

Let’s break this down with some examples.

Photo by Alex Haney on UnsplashSome questions and answers

Scenario one: Lunchtime. You have the choice between a healthy salad and pizza.

Why or why not consume this? Are you hungry? Do you currently need/desire food for sustenance?

Will consuming this make me feel good or feel bad? How do you feel after eating pizza versus after eating a healthy salad?

Is this good for me or bad for me? Sometimes, the satisfaction of a good pizza can’t be beat. However, sometimes the healthy choice will be wiser in the long run.

What value, if any, is in this food? Is the short-term enjoyment with possible consequences (like indigestion) better than the potential long-term benefit for your health?

Note that I suggest no right or wrong answer. However, mindfulness of the options allows for control of your choices versus subconsciously going with whatever.

Scenario two: Watching TV. You have a choice between a sitcom and the news.

Why or why not consume this? Will the sitcom make you laugh? Or will the news make you happy or sad?

Will consuming this make me feel good or feel bad? For me, even the lamest sitcom is generally better than watching the latest insanity going on in the world and being blown up on the news.

Is this good for me or bad for me? This is all about your mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Is one better than the other for you and your state of being?

What value, if any, is in this program? Do I need to laugh, or do I need too much negative information?

I won’t deny that I have an obvious bias on this topic. But the point remains the same. You get to choose what to consume for your mind, body, and soul. Or not.

What does it take to be mindful of what you consume?

Awareness. Recognition. Acknowledgment. Action. First, awareness that you can choose what you consume, Then, you can recognize what those choices are. After that, acknowledge them as above and how they’ll impact your health, wellness, and wellbeing. Finally, act on it. Make mindful choices about what you’re consuming.

If the average person has over 6000 thoughts per day, you can’t and won’t be capable of mindfulness for all of them. This is why we have a subconscious mind capable of rote, routine, and habit.

Yet you can be more actively consciously aware and mindful of certain specific choices. What you read and watch, eat and drink, and the like. You get to choose when to comment on that Facebook post or walk away and stay silent. (Likewise, you get to choose to read the comments or not).

When it comes to what you consume, more mindfulness of it allows you to choose healthy versus unhealthy options, whether they’ll impact you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or all the above.

This empowers you to take the control that is your right for how to live your life. It is, after all, yours and yours alone. Why consume mindlessly and do bad things to your head, heart, and soul when you can consume mindfully and do better for yourself?

Do you see why and how being mindful of what you consume can be beneficial?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-fourth (624) 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 Be Mindful of Everything You Consume? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Is It So Hard to Just Be Yourself?

Nobody is at fault or to blame, but neither does anyone tend to teach you this.Photo by Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash

Two of the most distressing things that dominate our society are the expectations of others and the “shoulds.”

Early in our lives, before we’re even scientifically capable of self-awareness, our parents and other family members guide us. Eventually it moves from guidance to direction.

Instilling good habits in the young is very useful throughout life. Brush your teeth twice a day, fasten your seatbelt when you get in the car, modulate your volume when you speak, and the like help us develop healthy habits that can last us our whole lifetime.

However, in time this moves to more blatant directions. Sometimes they come with threats of punishment or some other unpleasantness if they’re not followed through. This can be direct or indirect. It tends to include things like how you should act, what you should do, who you should worship, and other things that are expectations of you based on the intents/desires of others.

This gets reinforced in school. The importance of conformity is hammered into us pretty early on. I have nothing against setting boundaries and instilling a sense of discipline in children as they grow up. The problem is that most models are one-size-fits-all. Yet overall – one size seldom, if ever, fits all.

All too soon, we accept that the expectations of others, personal or impersonal, when not met, make us outcasts. Add to this all the “shoulds” presented along the way, and we bend, twist, and reshape ourselves to fit a given mold. We wear masks in public that can prove difficult to remove in private.

This is the easy answer to why it’s so hard to just be yourself.

Start with recognition and acknowledgment

As far as I can tell, for many people, the challenge begins in that they don’t see this for what it is.

A lifetime, since childhood, of needing to meet this expectation or live up to this or that “should” wears you down. It becomes habitual, subconscious, and so deeply ingrained in your persona that you can’t recognize it for what it is.

Before you begin any work to break out of this mold, it’s very, very important to understand one thing. Nobody is at fault or to blame for this. With a few exceptions – because let’s be honest, there are always exceptions to the rule (hence no one-size-fits-all) – nobody sets out to force you into a specific mold. They followed patterns laid out by their own parents, loved ones, religious leaders, business leaders, and societal expectations. Then, add to that their own experiences, environments, biases, prejudices, beliefs, values, habits, and so on.

What’s more, placing blame or seeing fault does nothing for you. That’s because placing blame and fault displaces feelings and emotions. Why? Because even if you can place blame or fault, does that change anything? No.

Only you can get to know the real you. That’s because you’re the only in in your head, heart, and soul. That begins and ends within you.

This is the other reason it can be hard to just be yourself. Nobody teaches you how to know yourself.

Learn self-awareness to be yourself

Spend as little as two minutes on social media, and you will be flooded with information. Much of it is oversharing or TMI (too much information). You will see the many woes, trials, and tribulations of friends and loved ones. World news tends to be deeply upsetting, negative, and ever-present. Then there’s all the advertising, invoking your fear of missing out, not meeting expectations, and other matters you “should” give a shit about.

This is all about as far removed from self-awareness as you can possibly get. Yet this is how society suggests awareness works.

Nobody lives in a bubble. You should have some awareness of the people, places, and things around you. This applies to both the direct and indirect. However, you don’t need to be utterly bombarded and inundated with this info.

The key to being yourself is self-awareness. This is right in front of you and readily accessible to you. Yet nobody teaches you this for all sorts of reasons. Largely because one-size-fits-all for this can’t be easily applied.

However, there are some universal truths to take into account. Self-awareness is far easier than it’s often made out to be. To gain it, all you must do is be here, fully present, and in the now. Then, ask this question,

What am I thinking?

Asked when fully present, here and now, this question makes you self-aware.

The next step is to add a few more, similar questions that can only be properly answered here and now. These include,

What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What do I intend?What am I doing?

This active, conscious awareness is mindfulness. To be mindful of yourself is to be yourself.

Photo by Priyanka Arora on UnsplashMindfulness, conscious awareness, and yourself

One of the most insipid elements of modern society is the drive to conform and live lives of rote and routine. How many people think that the standard 8-hour workday is absolutely how it’s always been?

The reality is that because one-size-fits-all is rarely the case, the conformity of rote and routine is the antithesis of conscious awareness. That’s because rote and routine are products of the subconscious mind.

Everyone has both a conscious and subconscious mind. Your subconscious is where your beliefs, values, memories, and habits live.

Habits are things you do regularly by rote and routine. These can be good habits like eating a vegetable with every meal and saying thank you – or – bad habits like smoking and chewing your fingernails. Most are done routinely, automatically, with almost no active thought behind them in the least.

Your conscious mind is where you actively think about things. Further, you question and consider your actions via thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Before you automatically do something, an effort of thought and feeling is made.

Making a regular practice of active conscious awareness – mindfulness – tells you who, what, where, how, and why you are. That is how you be yourself.

Mindfulness is how you can be yourself. Because when you know, consciously, what you think, feel, intend, and do, you are capable of choosing to be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.

Get into the inner workings of yourself to be yourself

It might seem incredibly obvious, but I’m rather certain it’s not. To be yourself, you must first know yourself. Active conscious awareness lets you look under the hood, so to speak, into the engine of your subconscious.

In your subconscious are your beliefs, values, and habits. Yes, your memories are there, too – but they are only important to being yourself in the lessons you can learn from them. Your beliefs, values, and habits, however, are what make you, you.

Most of the time they’re just there, existing, doing their thing. Until you look under the hood and see them at work. The process of opening the hood is active conscious awareness, i.e., mindfulness.

Once you examine your beliefs, values, and habits, you can see which of them work for you and which don’t. Then, if you desire, you can change them.

This part varies wildly from person to person. However, everyone is capable of changing values, beliefs, and habits. It starts with active conscious awareness of what those are. Then you can alter them.

That’s how you can be yourself. Recognizing and acknowledging your subconscious elements lets you consciously, mindfully, be yourself.

This takes time, energy, and work. However, I believe that it’s ultimately worthwhile. Why? Because who else are you if you’re not yourself?

Actively choosing to be yourself isn’t hard

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

When you use your conscious awareness to look inside yourself, you can see what your beliefs, values, and habits are. Knowing the subconscious elements of who, what, where, how, and why you are, you can make new choices to alter and change the things that aren’t true to who you are so that you can genuinely be yourself.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 thirteenth (513) 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 It So Hard to Just Be Yourself? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Can You Have Guides Along Your Paths in Life?

Yes, but recognize the difference between guidance, obedience, and blind faith.Photo by Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash

I frequently point out that you, and you alone, live in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody else is in there, it’s only you.

Hence, you’re the only one who can think, feel, intend, and act for you. All choices for your life belong to you alone. Nobody else can live your life for you. Neither can anyone else control you unless you cede any form of control to another.

However, while each of us walks our given paths in life on our own, that doesn’t mean that we can’t seek out guides along the way.

Guides for your path come in many different forms. They can be extremely esoteric and might be signs and portents recognized by only you. Some guides are people. This includes people you meet and know like friends, family, coworkers, and in-person teachers. It also includes people who provide books, podcasts, blogs, and other guidance that can help you choose and/or walk your paths.

This is all well and good. That is until a guide turns into more than a resource for information. Cult leaders are a perfect example of this issue.

Recognizing the difference between a guide and a demagogue/authoritarian is important to you being mindful of the choices you make, based on your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions.

Guides versus demagogues/authoritarians

I’ve read time and again about leaders, managers, and the like who fail to recognize and understand true leadership versus authoritarianism.

A true leader offers guidance. They provide a framework from which you can think, reason, and act. A true leader measures their success via your success. If you are doing well under their guidance they are doing well. You are not an inferior, you are someone they oversee and sometimes guide in various ways.

A demagogue or authoritarian leader isn’t a guide. They tell you what’s what and how things can, will, and should be. A demagogue/authoritarian doesn’t offer a framework that you are expected to work in; rather, they create a biased and usually self-aggrandizing framework to make themselves look good. They couldn’t care less if you’re doing well unless you’re not and that impacts them (and then you’ll never hear the end of it). You’re an inferior, someone they stand above and direct, micromanage, and strive to control.

A true leader cares. An authoritarian doesn’t. The true leader believes in the team. An authoritarian is in it for themselves.

Yes, both of these are extreme examples of these people. However, I know people who readily fit both molds.

Guides offer suggestions, ideas, insight, and assistance. They do not – however – tell you how to do what you are seeking to do. They leave that up to you.

I share my Pathwalking philosophy and process to offer myself to the world as a guide. That’s why there is no One True Way that I say will work for all since it’s simply not true.

However, I’ve learned some things along the way. Sharing these things, it’s my hope, will make your paths easier than some of mine have been.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on UnsplashSharing some of the resources/guides that I’ve used

I’m an avid reader. Every single morning, I read for about an hour. My reading includes a chapter or two of fiction and a chapter or two of nonfiction.

The nonfiction I read can be quite variable. There are a lot of books about mindfulness, self-help, self-improvement, mindset of various stripes, and the like, that I tend to seek out and read. However, I also like to throw in some science, psychology, philosophy, and other books on topics that stimulate my mind in one form or another.

I’m also quite fond of audiobooks. This is such a great way to read a book while driving, especially over a long distance. While I generally don’t reread books, I do relisten to audiobooks. Especially a few that really move me. These are resources I’ve used that I’d like to share with you.

What’s more, if you’re not a fan of audiobooks, these are great reading choices, too.

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

This is my favorite book of all time. I might be an enormous fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but this book moves me every time I listen to it.

Initially, years ago, I read this book. The audiobook, however, is read by the inimitable Jeremy Irons. He is an incredible narrator.

Beyond that, however, this story is no mere work of fiction. It’s a lesson in living your life as fully as possible and finding the potential and possibilities everywhere. This book also offers one of my most favorite quotes,

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

An amazing story with some practical concepts for living life to the fullest. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

This is, in my opinion, a must-read for any artist, writer, or creator. Steven Pressfield shares the creative process and all its challenges in a way that is clever, insightful, and super helpful.

Most importantly, he explains that certain something most creatives face along the way. Mr. Pressfield calls it “Resistance.” I’ve written about this a couple of times before: Resistance is that nameless, faceless thing that stands between you and the world and the work you most desire to do. It manifests as fear, self-sabotage, and other bad habits that can and will derail any creative and their process.

The most current version of this is narrated by Mr. Pressfield himself. I know he must be great (he narrates another of his own works I love). The version I have and frequently relisten to is brilliantly narrated by George Guidall.

You Are a Badass – Jen Sincero

When it comes to understanding mindset, mindfulness, conscious reality creation, and the like, Jen Sincero offers the most concise, down-to-earth, and realistic approach I’ve come across.

She’s funny, she swears, and she shares great stories from her own life that make this an absolutely incredible book. Unlike other self-helpery out there. You Are a Badass is less hooky-spooky in its approach and presentation.

Jen Sincero reads her own book here, and she’s an amazing narrator. Similarly, I also highly recommend her You Are a Badass at Making Money book and audiobook.

Photo by Ilias Chebbi on UnsplashThe Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

This book presents the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. 42. ‘Nuff said.

Ok, so, no, this one has no legit pearls of wisdom quite like The Alchemist does – save one. You should not take life too seriously because it’s a bloody joke on us all.

This is one of the finest works of absurdist sci-fi there is, plus it’s incredibly clever and fun. Also, Stephen Fry’s narration is utterly spectacular. If you saw the movie from 2005, you got a preview of the narration he does for this book.

But as escapism and taking your life none-too-seriously goes, this is a very useful resource.

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be – Steven Pressfield

Sure, there are some other books I relisten to by other authors. But like The War of Art, this book gives me ideas for how to approach my art. It offers simple but wise tips, anecdotes, and insight into what it takes to do the work and be an artist. It also offers more on Resistance and how to combat it regularly.

Note – Resistance is always there and always will be. You can’t make it go away, but you can take the fight to it and beat it with mindful action.

Mr. Pressfield reads this himself and lets you know from the start that you get bonus material. Since it’s his book, he can add something here or there as he reads it to you, so there you go. He’s a bit dry, but there’s an earnestness there I deeply appreciate.

These five resources have been a source of comfort, inspiration, and guidance I always glean something new from each listen. I share them because I believe you might find something useful for you (and quite probably not the same things I found).

Mindfulness and guides

When you are actively, consciously aware and practicing mindfulness, you will know if someone or something is a good guide.

How? You’ll give it thought, consideration, and analyze it. Then, you’ll feel the impression he/she/they/it makes on you in your heart. After that, you’ll feel intent to take action from what they have provided. Not action for the sake of action, or action that they told you to take. This will be an action that feels inspirational, exciting, and worthwhile.

Then you’ll do something. What will you do? I have no idea, and neither does your guide. That’s not important. What is important is that you are walking your chosen path(s), and making choices and decisions consciously, here and now.

You can have guides along your path. Just be mindful, aware, and attuned to how they guide you and that you choose them because they feel right, and you like to think about them, too.

A guide might show you a path, but they will not lead you down it, per se. What they will do is offer insight and maybe wisdom you can make use of along the way. Those are the best guides, active or passive.

What guides have you employed along your life paths?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-third (623) 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 Can You Have Guides Along Your Paths in Life? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why is Real Positivity About A Choice of Approach?

Positivity is a choice that combines thought, feeling, intent, and action.Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash

There is no telling what life will hand you today.

No matter what you plan or prepare for, shit happens. People disappoint you, expectations aren’t met, and life will throw you curve balls out of nowhere.

One day you might think, hey, it’s only a quarter mile to the post office, and the weather doesn’t suck. I should walk rather than drive. A great idea, until you wake up in a hospital after a week of heavy sedation following getting hit by a car crossing the street. I sure as hell didn’t plan for that one.

This sort of randomness isn’t always bad, though. A woman I was totally into – who I didn’t think I had a chance with – unexpectedly made it clear that she was into me. Didn’t plan on that happening, especially in the way that it did, and I got a pleasant surprise.

Life is funny like that. It’s also utterly, thoroughly unpredictable. Just because you start your day out in a good mood doesn’t mean you won’t end it in a bad mood. Or vice versa. It’s also possible you spend most of your day completely neutral in your mindset/headspace/psyche conscious self, but something changes that to good and positive or bad and negative.

While you can’t control any of this, you do have a choice for how to approach life after anything of this sort occurs.

This is what genuine positivity is all about. Before we get into this, however, we must address the elephant in the room.

The falsehoods of toxic positivity

Do you remember Bobby McFerrin’s song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy? It was a real novelty song, both because it featured no instruments at all, and because it was a sugary dose of positivity.

“In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry, you make it double
Don’t worry, be happy.”

As a simple statement, this represents wisdom. When you worry you find and/or create more ways, reasons, and things to worry about.

Taken to the extreme, however, this can be both cloying and overblown. This gets to be especially problematic if you ignore, disregard, or pretend that bad and negative things don’t occur.

Enter toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is a hell-bent positive approach that utterly disregards, ignores, and pretends that bad things, negativity, pain, suffering, and the like don’t exist. It’s the notion that a wholly positive mindset that never allows negativity to come in is the key to a better, happier, more positive, and worthwhile life.

This is untrue. Why? Because genuine positivity can’t exist without negativity. The one needs the other. What’s more, it’s ignorant, foolish, and just plain destructive to ignore or disregard the existence of negativity and bad things.

When all is said and done, you will experience and have both negativity and positivity in your life. True positivity isn’t a thought, feeling, or idea. It’s an approach.

Positivity as a matter of approach

While this applies to good things as well as bad things, it tends to be trickiest and most challenging when facing the bad.

After shit happens, what follows is a choice. Allow what happened to make you miserable or use it to learn and grow. Approach the rest of your day/week/month/year/life expecting the worst and more shit happening – or – recognize and accept that shit has happened, allow your bad feelings to be, but choose an approach to see what this can teach you and where you can take that.

After waking up in the hospital after a week of heavy sedation, I had a long road of recovery ahead of me. The worst-case scenarios were that my life would be permanently affected after my accident. I had a choice and could have approached my recovery with resignation and negativity about my prognosis. Or I could approach my recovery with focus and positivity for complete healing.

No, I can’t say how I’d have reacted if I’d been permanently disabled by that accident. However, I believe one reason I wasn’t was because of the positivity in my approach.

I didn’t ignore that I might be permanently scarred, that I might walk with a limp the rest of my life (if I relearned how to walk, but I’m fairly certain they always expected that I would), or the pain and its potential permanence. What I did do was push as far as the therapists would push me, did every exercise I was given, and worked harder during that year than I ever have in my life.

Positivity in all of this was a matter of approach.

Photo by Evaldas Grižas on UnsplashApproach is a choice

I didn’t stay positive the whole time, or ignore when I was in pain, depressed, or frustrated by it all. What I did was recognize these issues, then acted to treat or release them, and maintained a positive approach to my healing and recovery.

Genuine positivity is a choice of approach. That’s because it’s a combination of all the things you can control. Specifically, your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

This is active, applied conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness. Mindfulness is how you can be wholly present in the only time that’s truly real – right here and now. That opens you to learn who, what, where, how, and why you are via your inner mindset/headspace/psyche. This is done by recognizing and acknowledging – here and now – what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, and what you are or aren’t doing.

If you dislike any of your thoughts, feelings, actions, or intentions, you have the power to alter and change them. That’s what approach is all about.

When shit happens and it starts you down a rabbit hole and a negative approach, you can change it. This might or might not be immediate, or even quick. What’s more, you might need to shift your negative approach to a neutral one before you can go to positivity.

No matter the situation, you always have a choice. To be fair, it might be between bad and worse, the lesser of two evils, or some other undesirable option. However, so long as you live and breathe, you have choices available to you.

Positivity is a choice that combines thought, feeling, intent, and action via your approach to your life in the here and now. That choice can only be made by you.

Choosing a positive approach isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that you have a choice for how you approach your life before, during, and after anything good or bad happens, you can choose to make that negative, positive, or neutral. Knowing that real positivity doesn’t exist without negativity and that it’s a combination of thought, feeling, action, and intention, you can apply it as an approach to how you live life here and now.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 twelfth (512) 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 Real Positivity About A Choice of Approach? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.