M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 22

Hello Resistance, How Are You Today and What Do You Want?

The inaction is strong with this one. Or is it?Photo by Denin Lawley on Unsplash

Do you ever feel like you’re not doing enough? Maybe you have these bouts of work that last for a while here, a time there, but then, even if you’ve gotten a ton of stuff done, you still question what you’ve not done?

Studies I’ve read (but am not looking up to cite here) have shown that most people who “work” an 8-hour day only work maybe 2-4 hours, in total. This is true for lots of reasons, but I believe (again, I’m not citing anything but my memory) this is because most modern jobs don’t need an 8-hour day.

When you’re in a factory on an assembly line, or packing materials in an Amazon warehouse, I imagine that you are working the full 8-hour day. But if you have any sort of office job, odds are you work a bit here, a bit there, but not the full-on 8 hours.

Factor in working from home, and how the “discipline” of in-office supervision alters this further. However, if the work you must do gets done in 2 of the 8 hours that you’re “working”, I think that’s proof positive that the 8-hour workday isn’t what it used to be.

The reason I’m going on about this is because this notion of 8 hours working is insidious. Thus, if you get all your work done in 2 hours and have 6 hours without, is it any wonder you might feel like you’re not doing enough?

Enter the artist. As an author, I strive to write at least 1500 words of fiction a day. When I don’t meet that goal, one key reason is Resistance.

What is Resistance?

I’ve written about this before, but the concept of Resistance is based on the definition by Steven Pressfield in his brilliant book The War of Art. As Mr. Pressfield explains,

“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.”

Resistance manifests as fear, procrastination, writer’s block, excuses reasonable and unreasonable for not doing your creative work, and the like. It is a wholly internal thing, not a product of the world without but the world within. As Mr, Pressfield explains further,

“Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.”

What is it that Mr. Pressfield believes we’re afraid of? Success, failure, being seen, not being seen, being judged, being ignored; but most of all, fear of being our truest, most authentic, and genuine creative self. Rather than slot ourselves into the place society expects us to be, we go where we desire to be.

This is a pernicious, challenging, often frustrating nuisance. It will show up right on time and also unexpectedly, and it will keep you from doing your work.

Lately, Resistance has been sticking around me like an uninvited relative sleeping on my couch and showing no signs of ever leaving.

I’m working, but why aren’t I doing the work?

Like everyone else, I have bills to pay. Rent, insurance, utilities, credit cards, the usual. Also, I need food, clothing, gas for my car, and other things that cost money.

To allow me the opportunity to work as a full-time authorpreneur I have a part-time job. Two of them, in fact. Both involve working for amazing – but very different – female entrepreneurs.

My duties for these jobs probably take up 15-30 hours of my week. This amounts to no more than 4 hours a day, usually. The work I do for both of them is quite different and variable. Both utilize a vast number of my skill sets.

On top of that, I post a blog four days a week. It takes me about an hour to write, edit, and post an approximately 1000-word article. Normally I write the day before and edit and post the day it’s due. Arguably, this is part of my authorpreneur business, but since it’s not fiction I don’t count it in my desired word count.

Then there is my podcast. This takes about 25 minutes to record and 40-60 minutes to edit and post.

Finally, some time each week is dedicated to tweaking my websites, updating things related to my books, editing books, and maintaining my newsletter. I’d say about 1-2 hours per week go to this.

Let’s do the math. Blogging four hours a week, plus podcasting for 90 minutes, plus 90 minutes for website and writing business maintenance, plus let’s call it 25 hours of part-time work equals 28 hours total. This is actual work time, not “40-hour workweek” work time.

But it does mean that, in light of the 8-hour workday, I should have 12 hours a week to get those 1500 words of fiction a day written.

Photo by micheile henderson on UnsplashResistance and should

Should is a dangerous word. It makes assumptions, sets expectations, and creates unrealistic ideals to follow.

It also sets us up to fail. When you don’t live up to the expectations or assumptions that you “should” live up to, it’s easy to fail. Or at least to not get everything done like you think that you “should”.

This, however, is a unique problem in the face of Resistance. Why? Because I don’t do the work – write the books – because I “should”. I do it because I can’t not do it. It’s a compulsion to create that I can’t resist. There are stories I must tell, fantastic worlds I must share, and characters I need to make come alive for readers as much as they live in my head.

Making the time to do the work is joyful to me. While writing my blogs and producing my podcast is a similar form of joy, I take a different and greater pleasure from the fiction I write.

Resistance tells me that I “should” write 1500 words a day. I “should” make this my first and primary action. It’s not wrong, but the lie is in the use of the word “should”.

Let’s say that you fail to get something done that you “should” have done. The house wasn’t vacuumed, the dishes weren’t done, or you didn’t 100% finish that project for work today, but will complete it first thing tomorrow. You probably feel a degree of guilt because you didn’t do what you “should” have done.

Resistance loves guilt. That’s because it keeps you from your work. Even when your work is what you are guilty about not doing. Unsurprisingly, it’s a vicious cycle.

Is there a solution?

Yes. It’s a matter of seeing what you do and don’t do, and finding something you can apply to actively, consciously change.

For me, it’s about better time management.

To that end, months ago now, I acquired a whiteboard weekly calendar. On it, I write the things that I consider most important for me to do every weekday. Allow me to share them here:

Edit (one of my finished books that’s not gone to a pro, yet)Write 1500 words of fictionMeditate (10-20 minutes a day)Journal (write in a paper journal daily)ExerciseAffirmations (I have a set that I go through 3 times a day)Water (drink 7 or more 12-ounce glasses of water per day)

I check them off as they are done. Then, I write them in a notebook and write how many times I did each last week. What would best suit me to be added to this would be times for these to be done.

Why? Because that’s an outstanding way to build a habit. By building good habits you can create rote and routine that is healthy and positive for your life. That, in turn, helps you better connect your conscious and subconscious minds.

Then you can be more cognizant of a given path and how you’re traversing it. You can also get a clearer picture of Resistance and how it might be impacting you.

Recognize and acknowledge that you can never be rid of Resistance. So you might as well say hello. Then you can better stand up to it and keep pushing it out the door. If Resistance wins today, acknowledge it, then strive to beat it tomorrow. As they said in Galaxy Quest,

“Never give up, never surrender.”

What do you do when you contend with Resistance?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-first (621) 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 Hello Resistance, How Are You Today and What Do You Want? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do You Respond to Upsetting, Annoying, and Disappointing Things That Happen?

Not the initial, visceral response, but what you do next.Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

I’m about to publish my first new book in 2 years. This is super exciting because this book is the conclusion to the series I’ve been working on since 2015.

Saturday morning, before departing for an all-day event 2 hours away, I checked my email. The eBook variation – available for pre-order – had been canceled. WTAF? They claim I didn’t upload the final file in time. But I’m completely certain that I did. I chose to respond to the email, send the file again, and hope it will be resolved.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning that I checked my email again. No can do, I must re-create the eBook. What about the existing paperback pre-order? Why can’t I work off this same combined title? It’s not until Monday morning that I have my answer.

Much to my annoyance, I must recreate the eBook and reupload it. Plus, because it’s 24 hours until it was scheduled to be published, I must publish it now.

This is super annoying, really upsetting, and disappointing. Anyone who pre-ordered the eBook was informed the book – in that form – wasn’t coming. That has the potential to negatively impact my reputation as an author.

My initial, visceral reaction to this all has been anger, and a desire to curse, scream, lash out, and rail against the Universe. But that was only the immediate, visceral reaction I had. What good would any of that do me or my book?

None whatsoever. What can I do?

Pause, reflect, redirect

I stopped and took a deep breath. Okay, this is upsetting, annoying, disappointing, and frustrating. All true and all, I think, justifiable. But now I have a choice in front of me.

React in a useless but potentially releasing way. Shout, curse out my luck, blame myself for failing, get angry, and generally let this negatively impact me, my day, my weekend, or however long I choose.

– Or –

I can acknowledge that this sucks and ask, “What the fuck?” Then take whatever action is available to me to resolve this problem.

Admittedly there’s a third option, too. Do nothing, walk away, ignore it for now. While there are certainly times, happenings, and circumstances where that might serve – this is a form of inaction. I believed that action of some sort was my best course to choose.

I paused after the initial, visceral, angry, WTF moment. Reflected on the fact that this isn’t personal and isn’t something that says negative things about me. I reflected on the facts of the situation. Then, I looked to see what I could do about it and redirected. I sent out an email to address the issue and work on fixing it.

When the response wasn’t what I’d hoped for, I was faced with the same ways to respond. Choose a negatively or a positively directed course of action. (Also, yes, the option to neutrally choose nothing at all could be applied.) I sent another email for further clarification. Yet again, when the response wasn’t what I’d hoped for, I was faced with these choices all over again.

Getting angry and reacting by screaming about it and cursing everything and everyone out gets me nowhere. Knowing that, I made all my choices for how I’d respond with a positive approach.

How you respond is always a choice

Your initial visceral reaction to things that happen is automated. Some things that happen will make you squee with excitement and joy. Other things that happen will make you scream, curse, and throw a temper tantrum. Then there are the reactions that fall between these extremes but are no less automated.

Immediately or near-immediately after your visceral reaction, you have a choice. Respond with continued anger or continued joy? While you might think that responding with continued joy is a no-brainer, I know people who will respond by immediately expecting the other shoe to drop. Something great happened so now something awful will occur to balance the scales.

How you respond is a choice. When it comes to the extremes – such as black and white, good and bad, positive and negative, and so on – your visceral, immediate reaction might be at that extreme. But then you’ll slide back down the flexible cylinder between the extremes and have your choice.

Do you choose to respond by facing the positive or negative side of the cylinder between extremes? What are the plusses and minuses for or against either choice?

Again, yes, there’s also the option to choose nothing. However, choosing nothing gets you nothing. You cede the control that is rightfully yours. Who does that benefit? Not you. So that’s why I’m discounting and giving little attention to the choice to not choose (but in the interest of being fully transparent and fair with what I’m exploring here, sharing it).

Photo by Brandon Lopez on UnsplashWhat if you chose wrong?

This has paralyzed lots of people along the way. What if I choose wrong? What if how I respond does me no good?

Frankly, unless this is a life-or-death choice, it’s always changeable. If you choose wrong, and you’re still here, you can choose again.

If the way you respond after your visceral reaction doesn’t serve you, you can change it. I could have wasted my entire weekend lamenting this problem, being angry about it, and allowing it to eat at me. It could have spiraled into deep self-loathing, self-deprecation, and a downward spiral that would likely have led to me being unpleasant to be around – even to myself.

But I paused, reflected, and recognized that didn’t serve me or anyone else. So, I redirected my response and made choices to handle and work the problem.

I’ve reuploaded my eBook. Following instructions from the company, I’ll link it to the uncancelled paperback. If I got it wrong and that doesn’t work – I’ll most likely respond with that initial, visceral anger. Then I’ll make a new choice to work the problem.

We are all perfectly imperfect. Shit happens to everyone. How you respond, however, is a choice that can empower you. It can also present new and potentially better options. There are lots of times when bad things that happen lead to better things.

How you respond in-depth is always a choice that can potentially disempower or empower you. Wouldn’t you prefer to feel empowered over feeling disempowered by how you respond?

Choosing how to respond after your initial visceral reaction 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 respond after any given positive or negative immediate, visceral reaction, you can pause, reflect, and choose to redirect (or not, and allow that reaction to dominate you for however long). Knowing that you can take control over how you respond and choose something positive and generative over negative and destructive, you give yourself control over your experience.

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 eleventh (511) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

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

The post How Do You Respond to Upsetting, Annoying, and Disappointing Things That Happen? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Come Mindset Matters With Everything You Choose To Do?

Mindset gives choices direction and intent. But not choosing is also a choice.Photo by Emmeline T. on Unsplash

Do you vote? Or are you one of those people who believes that your vote doesn’t count, so why bother?

Voting or not voting is a choice. Choose to vote – even when your choices are between different stripes of asshole – and you are doing the minimal action available to you to impact the world at large. Choose not to vote, and you’re choosing to let shit happen to you. That might be the result of the given outcome anyhow, but participation empowers you while non-participation doesn’t.

Voters versus nonvoters is an excellent, practical example of mindset. Generally, voters choose to participate to be part of the process and non-voters choose to not be part of the process. Even simpler, voters do while nonvoters don’t. Do or don’t are extremely simple mindsets.

When it comes to choices you do or don’t make, your mindset will set up your outcome, at least to a degree. It’s imperfect, but that’s the nature of the Universe. When you go into a situation expecting a negative outcome, you’re very likely to get it.

Shouldn’t that mean if you go into a situation expecting a positive outcome, you’re very likely to get it? Yes, but not exactly. That’s due to the unpredictable nature of the Universe.

Let’s take a closer look at how this works.

Mindset and competition

I’ve been participating in medieval fencing for over 30 years. With all that work I’ve put into it, I don’t suck at it. However, neither am I the best. Among my peers, I would modestly say I’m on the cusp between the high-level and mid-level fencers.

While a huge part of rapier combat is a matter of movement, timing, and distance against your opponent, an equally huge part is your mindset.

If you enter the fight convinced that you’re going to lose, odds are that you will.

However, if you enter the fight convinced that you’re going to win, the odds are more in your favor.

Mindset matters. I’ve entered a fight convinced I’d lose and lost. More than once. Conversely, I’ve entered a fight convinced that I’d win and won. However, it’s not perfect. I’ve entered a fight with the mindset that I was going to lose, and I got lucky and didn’t. Entering the fight with the mindset that I was going to win, I still lost.

So why does it matter? Because your mindset can take you to all kinds of undesirable places along the way.

When you have a mindset that you’re going to lose, it’s not much of a stretch to call yourself a loser. Then, before you know it, you’re expecting shit to go wrong, problems, failures, and you set it all up to go precisely that way.

Of course, this can be reversed. When you have a mindset that you’re going to win, it’s not much of a stretch to call yourself a winner, develop confidence, find possibilities, potential, and set yourself up to grow, evolve, and take control of your self.

I’ve done both of these in my life. I can tell you from experience that mindset matters in everything you choose to do.

Mindset matters in everything we choose to do

We have control over very little in the Universe. Most, if not all of it, is within ourselves.

Specifically, we control our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Doesn’t seem like very much, does it? The truth, however, is that it’s everything.

Everything humankind has created started with thought. I wonder what will happen if I grind this coffee bean? Then, the thought gets energized with feeling. I like the smell of this ground bean. Now, intent comes into play. I intend to put the ground bean in a strainer over my cup and pass hot water through it. That leads to action. I’m making coffee.

Thought + Feeling + Intent + Action = A creation!

Mindset enters into this if you stop and question the validity of the process, or if someone else causes you to question it in some way. This will never work; I’ll probably get some nasty undrinkable sludge is one mindset. This will work, I’ll get a nice hot cup of coffee out of this process is another mindset. The former sets up failure. The latter sets up success.

When your approach is with a negative mindset, you’re putting an unnecessary obstacle in your way. However, when your approach is with a positive mindset, you’re clearing obstacles from your way.

Mindset matters in every choice because it creates more ease or difficulty.

Photo by Jackie Hope on UnsplashBut it’s imperfect

When I enter into rapier combat with a mindset that I’m going to lose, I’m far more likely to lose. On the other hand, if I enter into combat with a mindset that I’m going to win, that’s more likely to be my outcome. However, I might somehow win with the loser mindset and lose with the winner mindset. It’s imperfect.

Yes, it is. Know what else is imperfect? Perfection. What’s more, perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Let’s insert an important aspect of reality here. Only three things are guaranteed and true for everybody. Birth, life, and death. Everyone is born, everyone lives, and everyone dies.

Harsh, right? But realization and acknowledgment of this fact also shows the importance of why mindset matters.

Do you honestly desire to be miserable? Are you a fan of thinking less of yourself, having a negative mindset, expecting the worst, and so on?

Hell, maybe you are. If that works for you, please tell me how and what it looks like.

I desire to be content/happy/joyful. I’m a fan of thinking well of myself, having a positive mindset, striving for the best, and so on.

This doesn’t reject reality, however. Shit happens. It’s sure as hell happened to me. Yet the more I work with having a positive mindset, the more easily I find or can create good things in and for my life.

Mindset matters to mindfulness and control

When you engage in active conscious awareness – mindfulness – you open yourself to assuming control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. When all is said and done, that control is pretty much the only control you really, truly, have in life.

However, this is massively empowering. Why? Because taking control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions lets you move your life how you desire to. It empowers you to be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.

This is what my Pathwalking philosophy is all about. Making conscious decisions about how my life is. Mindset matters because if I see my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions aren’t what and/or how I desire them to be, mindset is how they’re changeable. However, a negative mindset sees change as more of an impossibility, whereas a positive mindset sees it as possibility.

Hence, if you desire to change what you can control, your mindset matters. Without engaging your mindset positively or negatively, your conscious awareness amounts to nothing. You might as well stick to the rote, routine, and subconscious existence.

Best of all – mindset isn’t permanent. You can control it, choose it, and change it as necessary. This ultimately empowers you.

If you’re having a bad day, mindset will show you if this will be the whole day, or if you can act to change it. Any changes you desire to make, new things you’re trying, challenges, and opportunities before you, will be impacted by the mindset you have at the time. That’s why mindset matters with everything you choose to do.

How do you approach your mindset in any given situation?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-first (621) 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 How Come Mindset Matters With Everything You Choose To Do? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do We See More Clearly That It’s Not a Race?

The human race is not, in fact, a race at all.Photo by Capstone Events on Unsplash

Nearly every message you receive, no matter the source, is a constant reminder that you need to go go go. Keep going. Always doing. Rest is for the wicked. You can sleep when you’re dead. And so on.

The idea of the “rat race” created this notion, long ago, that life is a constant race. Being first. As such, gets a whole lot of emphasis and is given importance. If you win, you win it all.

But what do you win? For real, stop and ask this question. What do I win at the end of the rat race? Retirement? All the money to do anything and everything I’ve ever desired? Peace of mind?

Unfortunately, the truth is this – you get nothing and you can’t win.

But there is an even larger, far more important truth about this that must be recognized and acknowledged:

It’s not a race at all.

Living life is not a race

Everyone who lives has the same three experiences, no matter who they are. You’re born. Then you live. You die.

Birth is the awakening of you in that body you occupy now – and will continue to occupy for the rest of your life. Let’s utterly ignore arguments about life beginning at conception or all else – life begins for us at our birth. That’s where it all begins for everyone on planet Earth who lives now, and who ever lived before, too.

Life ends in death. Period. Maybe there’s something after this body ceases functioning and ends – but who knows? It’s an equally intriguing and terrifying question. But no matter what the answer is or might be, the simple truth is that the vessel your energy resides in – your body – dies.

Between birth and death is the longest, most important element of being human. Life. You get life from birth to death. During that lifetime – however long it may or may not be – you get to have experiences. Good and bad, happy and sad, awesome and awful, positive and negative, and everything in between.

One experience, one lifetime. That’s the truth for everyone. Your life will be filled with experiences, lessons, people, places, things, ideas, tangibles, and intangibles. The only utterly reliable constant in any given life is change. Change can, will, and does happen for everyone.

Given all the above truths – where does a race come into play? It doesn’t. There is no race for goods services, tangibles, or intangibles. The only race is the human race, which all of us are in together.

The idea of the race is promoted by a false notion of competition.

The truth: We are not in competition

Unless you’re on a sports team playing against another sports team, a spelling bee, or participating in any activity that’s labeled as a competition – you’re not in competition.

We humans are not in competition with one another by default. There is no competition but artificial competition.

Competing for education, jobs, financial freedom, recognition, and any other form of social acceptance is utterly artificial. It’s based on made-up notions of competition that are not, in fact, true.

The trouble stems from a combination of consumerism and our fear-based society. Consumerism, because everywhere you turn, they’re trying to sell you something. Fear-based, because artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are bombarding you with ideas that there’s not enough, supplies are running out, and worse – “they” will take it from you.

None of this is true. “They” seldom desire to take what you have or even what you desire. That’s because what you desire and what “they” desire might be similar, but are seldom and rarely the same. Most of what you are told is running out, scarce, or insufficient isn’t. But the fear of missing out – cutely branded as FOMO – gets weaponized to make us all compete.

But the truth is that we’re not in competition. This is largely because what we really, truly, genuinely desire is not tangible.

Most of the things people need are not things. The latest iPhone is not going to make you feel empowered. But connectivity, empathy, kindness, and other intangibles can, will, and do. Thus, the race to buy it all and have it all is utterly artificial and not real.

Just in case I’ve not made this clear enough: WE. ARE. NOT. IN. COMPETITION.

We are not in competition because all the intangibles – that which we all most desire – are utterly abundant.

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on UnsplashThere’s more than enough

The idea of competition and the rat race is designed to create a hamster wheel of endless struggle.

Do this so you can have that because without this or that you’re less than him/her/them and on and on and on. Look familiar? That’s part and parcel with our crazy race that’s not a race when you get down to it.

This is because what most people genuinely desire isn’t a given thing. It’s an intangible. Intangibles are abundant, and there is more than enough of them for everyone, and then some.

Every human being on Earth needs food, shelter, and clothing. Despite economic turmoil, poverty, and ludicrous wealth, there’s actually more than enough of all these for everyone. Greed, fear, ignorance, arrogance, and a whole host of things have created the imbalance of haves vs have-nots. But when all is said and done, there’s no competition for any of these tangibles. It’s just false artifice and socio-economic structures both logical and illogical. They were invented to form artificial social stratifications that are utterly made-up but very, very hard to change.

Beyond this, however, humans need connectivity with thought, feeling, and emotion. We all desire kindness, compassion, empathy, and love. All of these exist in extreme abundance. Way more than enough for everyone and then some.

It’s not a race or a competition

It is not a race and not a competition to get these for yourself. The human race is not, in fact, a race at all, it’s life itself and no two people move at the same pace. No matter how fast you go, or how hard you strive to win in life, the ending will be the same. There’s only death at the end of life.

Hence, my point here – live. If, as I’m increasingly sharing, the meaning of life is simple, and TO LIVE: Why would you make a race? Your time in this body is finite. Does racing through it make any logical sense? If the end is the same for everyone, and nobody “wins”, why is it a race?

It’s not.

Mindfulness of this helps us to make better choices along the way. One such better choice is to seek, find, and/or create positivity or things that help you look towards the positive end of the spectrum between the extremes. However, the choice – and making it or not – is yours.

Pause and look both within and without more closely. Open yourself to your senses, and what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and what you are and aren’t doing. That’s how you can see more clearly that we’re not genuinely in competition and it’s not a race.

Seeing more clearly that it’s not a race 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 we’re not in competition with each other, and that the rat race and the like are utterly artificial – via active conscious awareness – you gain clarity of the truth. Knowing that life is not a race and that we only get one experience with it, you can mindfully make new and better choices to get yourself out of the race, set your own pace, and live purposefully, passionately, and more contentedly.

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 tenth (510) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

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

The post How Do We See More Clearly That It’s Not a Race? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Does Everyone Experience Overwhelm From Time to Time?

If they’re a human being, then yes. What comes next is a choice.Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Human beings were not designed to have overwhelm be our default. But here we are.

It should come as no surprise to anyone. Between billboards, TV, radio, social media, email, the internet, smartphones, and various other media we encounter daily, we’re frequently, utterly inundated.

Odds are, you’re reading this on a phone, tablet, or PC. All of these are devices that were created to better connect us. They’re also meant to make our lives easier on multiple levels.

But software developed for these devices has changed society in unexpected ways. Now, rather than direct interaction, many of us are happy to simply text back and forth. Information once delivered once a day on TV news – from sources with mandated integrity – is now available 24/7 from sources both legit and utterly bullshit.

Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to sell you something. Goods and services are subtly and blatantly in your face demanding you buy them. Then, we’re being pulled every which way by friends, family, so-called leaders, influencers, and total strangers with a virtual bully pulpit of one form or another.

Messages of go, do, be, have, go, make, find, create, go, and never stop are everywhere we turn. Anyone not living up to the idea that we must be doing to get anywhere faces character assassination in various public fora.

Does reading the above make you start feeling boxed in, squished, and overwhelmed, even a little bit? I know that it makes me feel overwhelmed. This is not healthy.

We don’t recognize the danger

Do you keep your smartphone by your bed at night? According to Gallup, as of 2022, 72% of people have their mobile phone with them when they sleep. And 64% of people check it first thing in the morning, whether it was with them in the night or not.

What’s the problem? The problem is that, while you might just take your phone to bed with you to use its alarm to wake up in the morning, it’s still right there. The temptation to be connected – at all times – is like a siren song. The allure is amazing.

But when it becomes rote, routine, and habit, we position ourselves to be easily overwhelmed so easily.

The major downside to the instant, constant connectivity of our smartphones, the bombardment of messages in our environments, coupled with the need for acceptance and human interaction is a potent brew that, unchecked, ferments to overwhelm.

We’ve been increasingly indoctrinated to not recognize the danger. We just accept half a dozen billboards back-to-back-to-back on the road, advertising on busses, music in bars and restaurants, and the propaganda of the “new normal”, until we are so overwhelmed that we lose perspective, lose awareness, and have no idea how we got here.

Both internal and external forces contribute to this. The former, however, is often a product of the latter unchecked.

What does that even mean?

You can recognize overwhelm in yourself

The only person in your head, heart, and soul, is you. Nobody else can think, feel, intend, or act for you. If you don’t work it, nobody else can or will.

Despite this, it’s amazingly easy to get overwhelmed and not recognize that’s our state.

Why? Due in part to the aforementioned “new normal”. We’re expected to accept being bombarded and overwhelmed by this, that, or the other thing as our default setting. We receive frequent messages telling us that that’s how it is and how it’s always been.

This, however, is a lie. The first smartphone wasn’t sold before 1994 (almost 30 years ago). The term “smartphone” didn’t come about until 1997, and it didn’t become the norm before 2007 and 2008, when the first iPhones and then Android smartphones were released. Not counting the early adopters, I would guess the “normal” of smartphones didn’t really get going before 2010. That was only 13 years ago.

I’m not blaming overwhelm entirely on smartphones and other tech. But they are indicative of our belief that overwhelm is and has always been the human state of being.

When you stop, however, and consider all the data you are absorbing daily – passively and actively, subconsciously and consciously – it becomes apparent that it’s a lot. Quite possibly a metric fuck-ton of data.

But you can recognize this. That, then, empowers you to do something about it.

Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on UnsplashThe choice is yours

You live in this world with all the messages constantly scrabbling for your attention. Thus, you get to decide if you allow them to reach you, impact you, and sink into your psyche passively or actively, subconsciously or consciously.

How? Active conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness. Mindfulness is active conscious awareness, here and now, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. With that active conscious awareness, you can choose to make any necessary changes.

Overwhelm will impact your thoughts and feelings first. It’s a product of both. You have too many thoughts vying for your attention, and that naturally causes you to feel uncertain, boxed in, and overwhelmed.

But guess what? This is utterly normal. Everyone experiences overwhelm from time to time. The problem is that we don’t talk about it.

Whether you’re walking a chosen path or just letting life live you, overwhelm skulks in the shadows, ready to pounce when you least expect it. Everything can be utterly copacetic, and then, out of seemingly nowhere, KA-POW! – you feel overwhelmed.

The choice in this is whether you allow it to settle in and be your norm. Or not. You can mindfully take steps and various actions to reduce, lessen, and fix the impact of overwhelm. But it’s not passive, it’s only achievable via active choices.

There are tools available at no cost that can help with overwhelm.

Overwhelm reduction tools

This is not a comprehensive or professionally created list by any stretch of the imagination. But each of these can help you reduce overwhelm in your life. I’ve employed all of these myself and found them to be quite helpful.

Put away your smartphone

Put your smartphone/tablet/laptop down and walk away. If you can help it, don’t take your phone into your bedroom at night. Allocate time away from the constant connectivity. Choose to disconnect yourself.

Go to nature or out on the water

Go somewhere without the constant advertisements and messages. Take a walk in nature; go for a boat ride; meditate somewhere quiet, or with binaural beats or similar sounds to separate you from it all.

Journal therapy

Journal. Write down what’s overwhelming you, why and how it’s having that impact, and put into it the feelings. If needs be, write it out and destroy it in some way – if just journaling it doesn’t free some of the sense of overwhelm.

The vessel of overwhelm

Here’s a visualization tool my therapist taught me. I named it the Vessel of Overwhelm.

Find a place you can have privacy for at least 5 minutes. Take a deep breath. Visualize a container of some sort – a bag, box, pack, or something you are intricately familiar with. See it in your mind’s eye. Take it in hand and feel its composition, weight, texture, and all else that makes it seem as real as possible.

Then, visualize opening the vessel. Once it’s open, take everything that’s currently having an impact on you – mentally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually – and place it, item by item, in the vessel. This is a bag of holding, so it can be any size, shape, weight, and so on. Take all the pains, fears, discomforts, annoyances, and all else you don’t desire to deal with now, or that you recognize you have zero control over, and put it in the vessel.

Once done, seal it up. Feel free to visualize locking it tight, placing it in a safe, or otherwise setting it somewhere secure and away. Take a few deep breaths in and out, staying with the visual of those things you removed and placed in the vessel. Welcome back. How do you feel?

You can take control

Does everyone experience overwhelm from time to time? Absolutely, yes. But not everyone chooses to actively reduce and separate themselves from overwhelm. But it’s always a choice available to you. You, and you alone, can use your active conscious awareness – mindfulness – to do so. What it takes will vary from situation to situation.

Why bother? Because this is one of the few things in life we can control. Overwhelm can be overcome via action. But only when you choose to act on it.

Can you see how overwhelm impacts you and that you ultimately have the power to overcome it?

This is the six-hundred and twentieth (620) 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 Does Everyone Experience Overwhelm From Time to Time? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Can A Negative Experience Be Used for Positivity?

Life is a matter of balance and choices.Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash

For every extreme, there’s an opposite extreme. Up and down. Small and large. Left and right. Black and white. Tall and short. Good and evil. Positive and negative.

Often, these extremes are personified as opposite sides of a coin. The problem with this is that coins are flat, and most things exist not at either extreme end, but somewhere between them.

Take black and white, for example. Between these extremes is every color you can imagine. Then, beyond that, there are many shades of grey. This is true whether viewing black and white as literal colors or figurative opposites.

For this reason, I equate these extremes not as opposite sides of a coin, but instead as opposite sides of a cylinder. Taking the coin analogy and necessarily stretching it.

But there’s one last twist to this. Extremes are not constants. Good today can turn to evil tomorrow. Thus, the cylinder between the extremes is flexible.

This also reflects on the reality that there is only one constant in the entire universe: Change.

The reason I’m laying out all of this for you is because it’s necessary for understanding how a negative experience can be used for positivity.

The short of it is that you choose – from wherever you exist on the cylinder between extremes – which way to face. Thus, when something negative occurs, you choose to continue to face that way – or turn towards the positive.

It always comes down to choice. But before we get into that, let’s address an important reality of life.

Bad things happen

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you have, or anything else at all in life. Bad, negative things do, can, and will happen to you.

Relationships will end, friends will depart, loved ones will die, jobs will evaporate, plans will fail, and so on and so forth. Yes, this is all harsh – but it’s the truth.

This is where toxic positivity gets it wrong. We cannot avoid, deny, or pretend this isn’t the way of life. Nobody can or should exist in positivity all the time.

Why? Because when shit happens, it presents an opportunity. It can be a chance to learn, grow, and evolve. From bad things, we can be encouraged to take new steps, seek different options, try new things, and so on.

The problem is, some people see bad things as being their right, their curse, their punishment for something or other. They experience something bad and anticipate more bad to follow.

Believe it or not, the Law of Attraction is real, and consciousness creates reality. Remain facing negativity and you’ll get what you ask for.

No, I’m not suggesting grief, trauma, and the like can or should be ignored. But neither should they be the defining factors of your life. However, some people choose to be traumatized and victimized as their identity. I get it, some shit went down – but it only defines you for as long as you allow it to.

Leaving behind trauma and grief might require professional help. But it is always possible. A negative experience can be used for positivity.

How can a negative experience be used for positivity?

Let’s say someone you love dearly has died. It feels like a piece of your heart was ripped out, and your grief is terrible.

Do whatever grieving is necessary for you – there’s no wrong answer here. But in time, as you’re still here, you must move on. And I’m fairly certain that your loved one would not want you to wallow in pain, but instead see you live on.

Hence, you can take that pain and use it to do something you might previously have felt you couldn’t do. Perhaps that loved one’s death spurs you to action, to change your life so that you can live more for both of you.

This might seem extreme, but it’s an example of how a negative experience can be used for positivity.

This is not a disservice to a lost loved one. On the contrary, you’re honoring them by making a new start and living despite them being gone.

This is just as true for less devastating and traumatic things. A lost job can be the impetus to entrepreneurship, new educational choices, training, or choosing to do something more worthy of you.

The reality of nearly every negative experience is that it provides an opportunity for growth, change, evolution, and the like. Yes, that can truly suck on a lot of levels. But sometimes it takes extreme measures to make good and necessary changes in your life.

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on UnsplashSome personal experiences with this

I’ve experienced this phenomenon first-hand, more than once.

Almost 24 years ago, I was hit by a car while crossing the street. My injuries were severe, and there was a distinct possibility for permanent damage and necessary – but unwanted – changes to my life. While this was painful, deeply unpleasant, and awful on many levels, I didn’t allow it to negatively define me. Instead, I chose to find positivity from this accident, and used that to better myself, my approach to life, and my desire to experience as many possibilities and all the potential as I can.

I could’ve focused on the negatives. There were plenty. But instead, I made the choice to use this negative experience to find and create positivity on multiple levels.

Less devastating, but nonetheless upsetting, I had what I believed to be an amazing relationship fizzle out. It’s not that I won’t be accountable for my actions – I take full responsibility for my culpability in the happenings of my life – but I don’t know what I did. A communications breakdown left me in the dark.

This sucks. But rather than let it dissuade me from future relationships, I’m moving on and letting it go. What’s more, rather than let the negative experience color future relationships (intimate or otherwise), instead, I’ll make certain to be as open and honest a communicator as I possibly can.

Yes, in both above instances, there was pain – physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. There was suffering. However – I made a choice. Can’t avoid, disregard, or pretend a negative experience didn’t happen – so why not seek to find and/or create positivity from it?

No matter the degree of negativity – you always have a choice along the way.

Be mindful that you have choices

It’s all too easy to allow grief, trauma, sadness, and negativity to dominate your life. It certainly doesn’t help that we live in a fear-based society that hyper-focuses on artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Additionally, it doesn’t help that we’re frequently encouraged to fall into groupthink, live our lives by rote and routine, and not be mindful.

But we all have a choice. Each and every one of us can choose to be more actively consciously aware. Conscious awareness opens us to being more present, here and now, and mindful of who, what, where, how, and why we are.

Mindfulness is active conscious awareness. It’s employed by recognizing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and what you are and aren’t doing. But it takes effort to be actively, consciously aware.

You’re empowered to employ mindfulness so that you can take a negative experience and use it to build positivity. But only if and when you actively choose to do so.

I’m going to generalize here, but if you’re living and breathing, you always have choices available. They might be imperfect, but they exist. You, and you alone, can choose to apply them. Or not.

When you recognize and acknowledge any choices available to you, you can take a negative experience and find and/or create positivity from it. It might take some time and effort, but in my experience, it’s always worth it. And so are you.

Finding positivity from a negative experience 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 negativity is unavoidable, shit happens, and you will go through negative experiences in life, you can be more capable of taking them and reshaping them into something positive. Knowing that you can use mindfulness to see a path from a negative experience to positivity – and that a lot of space exists between these extremes – you can choose to do the necessary work, let it go, and move forward.

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 ninth (509) 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 Can A Negative Experience Be Used for Positivity? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Deep Does Your Subconscious Mind Go?

The depths of the subconscious mind are nearly unfathomable.Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

Every human being is of 3 minds.

The unconscious mind is not in our control in any way, shape, or form. It is via the unconscious mind that your heart beats, neurons fire, internal organs do their thing, and so on. While breathing is part of this, your control of it is through a conscious act (and for some, the ability to speed up and slow down their hearts).

The conscious mind is your present, aware mind. As your eyes scan these words on your screen, your conscious mind translates them to something you can make sense of and understand. Decisions and choices are made via the conscious mind. You can also use your conscious mind to access your subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is where your memories, beliefs, values, and habits live. Whenever you allow yourself to simply go with the flow of life, it’s your subconscious mind driving, via rote and routine. Everything you take in, actively and passively, makes an impression on your subconscious mind. Some you retain and can easily access, and some goes really deep.

But how deep does the subconscious mind go?

The depths of your being

First and foremost, I have no formal training in psychology, neuroscience, or any other sciences of the brain. What I share here is based on my study, observations, and life experience.

I believe that part of what determines the depths of your subconscious is experience, education, environment, and both passive and active observation.

Thus, people who do more, study more, constantly learn, and work to better understand life, the Universe, and everything, develop a lot of depth. Unlike a hard drive, which has limited capacity, the human mind is nearly limitless.

The thing is, the subconscious mind is not just deep, but multi-layered. Because it’s subconscious, it’s not accessed via the conscious mind without active intent. So, the subconscious will not just hold things within, but sometimes bury them deep.

Why? One reason is that when we learn something new, something old and less useful gets shunted away. You forget it, or it is so infrequently accessed that it gets buried out of the way in the depths of your subconscious mind.

Probably the main reason is trauma. Shit happens that is unpleasant, painful on one or many levels, deeply upsetting, and traumatic via random happenstance, malice of forethought by another, accident, and the like. Once this has been experienced, it can create shadows, echoes, and other residue that can lead to PTSD, memory loss, depression, anxiety, and other issues.

Sometimes this is quite obvious. Other times, it’s far more mysterious and multilayered. It can also be a matter of memory, beliefs, values, habits, and/or all the above.

Sharing some parts of my subconscious mind

I’m going to share two examples from my life. One is passive, the other more active.

Let’s start with the passive. On November 30, 1999, I was hit by a car crossing the street about a quarter mile from my apartment.

This incident created traumatic amnesia. Hence, I have no memory at all of leaving my apartment, crossing the street, the impact of the car, the first hospital they took me to, or most of the first week after the accident.

Why do I define this as passive? Because I appreciate my brain locking this away. I do not need to recall what it was like to be hit by a car while on foot, nor any of the immediate unpleasantness, pain, and suffering that ensued. Somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I know the memory lives. It can stay buried there for the rest of my life, thankyouverymuch.

Now, the active bit. Somewhere around the age of 5 or 6, my parents divorced. This was in 1977 or 1978, before it was as common as divorce is today. This created a whole lot of impressions on my young psyche, many of which would be buried in my subconscious – even with therapy over the years – for decades.

Please note – I don’t blame my parents for this. However, the result has been ongoing issues I’ve been working through via mindfulness, meditation, and therapy tied to deep-seated fears. These mostly manifest in me as a fear of failure and an equal fear of success, as well as repeated self-sabotage.

The root fear, in the deepest depths of my subconscious, I’ve long believed, is abandonment. If I do or don’t do this, that, or the other thing, I’ll be abandoned.

Recently, I’ve discovered that something deeper than that might be the root.

Photo by Luca Calderone on UnsplashA bottomless chasm?

Every time I’ve dug as deep as I thought I possibly could, another depth often was revealed even deeper down.

For years, I’ve believed that the root of my fear, the reason for all the times I’ve self-sabotaged, was fear of abandonment. Again, no blame towards my parents and their divorce – but that’s what started that notion.

If I fail, people will abandon me. If I succeed, people will abandon me. Get it right, get it wrong, abandonment. Then? Suffering.

Yet now I’ve learned something new. Fear of abandonment and suffering from abandonment doesn’t sufficiently explain numerous aspects of who I have been, who I am, or who I desire to become. It doesn’t explain certain aspects of my self-sabotages. It’s something deeper, something else.

But what is it? I don’t know yet. However, I’ve seen that the roots are deeper down than I realized before. I see there’s more digging to be done.

Meditation, therapy, journaling, and all the tools I’ve developed along the way will be used to see how deep the chasm goes. Is it bottomless? I doubt it. Only time will tell what I’ll find.

The subconscious mind is a many splendid thing

The more I explore the depths of my subconscious mind, the more I learn. But then, the more I learn, the more I see that the learning will never end. That might upset and infuriate some people. Me? That excites me.

Learning is how I grow and evolve and become more and better along the way. While there’s always something new to learn from without, there’s also always something new to be learned from within.

Not all beliefs, values, or habits are obvious and up-front. Many are in the untold depths of the subconscious mind. Often, they’re hiding, passively, behind some disguise or other.

Fear of failure and fear of success have reflected a deeper fear of abandonment in my psyche. Now, I’m learning the fear of abandonment is a mask for something else. Yes, this is frustrating and disturbing. But it’s also enticing and exciting.

Why? Because I have a desire to know myself to my core. And to be the best me that I can be, in this meat popsicle I’m existing within, which involves constant, ongoing learning both within and without. The unknown and what I might uncover can be scary and uncertain. It can also be exciting and enticing.

My subconscious mind is deep, and I know this from years of probing. And I am excited to see what I might learn tomorrow, and how that might alter the direction and approach I take for my life experience.

So – how deep does your subconscious mind go?

This is the six-hundred and nineteen (619) 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 How Deep Does Your Subconscious Mind Go? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Are Intentions and Feelings Frequently Misaligned?

No matter your intentions, you have zero control over anyone’s feelings but your own.Photo by Radek Kilijanek on Unsplash

Lots of people approach things with good intentions. But what does that mean? It means that you might say or do something that’s not intended to be hurtful, mean, offensive, or otherwise upsetting. You have good or neutral – not bad – intentions.

How come, even when your intentions are neutral or good, you still cause hurt to someone? Because you can control the feelings of only one person on the entire planet. That’s you.

On the receiving end, this can be especially challenging. While I can control my feelings – there is a degree of work and effort that goes into action on that. Why? Because human beings develop visceral, automated reactions to things via time, experience, education, environment, and more, that go into the routine and automatic programming. This is. In part, to free us to think and feel actively on other matters.

Most reactions are instantaneous. What’s more, they’re frequently something you didn’t expect or prepare for. That’s because the other people in the world are often unpredictable.

Hence, when someone’s intention impacts you – unless there was a prior discussion between you, it was unexpected. Ergo, your automatic, pre-programmed reaction handled it.

Despite our beliefs that we can multitask – the truth is, we can’t. At least, not nearly to the degree we believe possible. Your subconscious mind is in constant motion – and only accessed via your conscious mind… sometimes. And that can be either passive or active.

To better handle both your own reaction to intentions – and anticipate the reactions of others – we must begin by recognizing and acknowledging this universal truth:

Intentions and feelings will be frequently misaligned.

You feel what you feel

How you feel, despite another’s intentions, is utterly valid.

See if any of these experiences I’ve had/am having are familiar to you:

Situation 1: I inquired about attending a writing group event. The software for the sign-up wouldn’t let me complete the form. I reached out via alternative means. The one response I got didn’t tell me it would be okay for me to attend. The intention of the responses and non-responses is neutral, I know – but I still feel rejected. It still feels like I was ignored and unwanted.

Situation 2: I thought we had a good relationship going. Last year, she went through a bunch of stuff, and I’ve kept my distance – and we were virtually non-communicative for months. Then, we reconnected. But I told her I needed her to make some effort to initiate communication going forward. It could not be all on me. Despite repeating this multiple times – she’s not initiating communication. I feel hurt and rejected – and I have no doubt her intention is neutral or good (keeping her messy psyche clear of mine). But I’m feeling hurt.

Situation 3: I loved her. We started something I thought would be amazing. Then, I said something she clearly disliked – and rather than talk it out, she phased me out of her life further and further. It felt like she ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it – and maybe her intent was neutral, maybe it was selfish. I don’t know. But now I feel more angry over this than hurt.

No matter the intentions of the other parties involved, I feel what I feel. My feelings are valid. Ergo, no matter what anyone intends to or for you – when you feel what you feel, it’s valid.

Intentions and feelings misalign frequently

I have zero control over the thoughts, feelings, actions, or intentions of anyone other than myself. Only my thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions, are under my control. In any way, shape, or form.

Thus, you have zero control over the thoughts, feelings, actions, or intentions of anyone other than yourself. Only your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions are under your control. In any way, shape, or form.

I keep reemphasizing this because it’s easy to forget. Especially when someone you care about repeats a hurtful – but unintentionally hurtful – action.

For example, when someone told me I was being unfair claiming that they didn’t get me – then made a statement that starkly reflected that they didn’t get me – it hurt.

It’s important here that I make it clear I’m not just a victim of intent gone wrong. I’ve perpetrated it, too. For example, I was in a relationship with someone, and something came up that I chose not to address, with the intent not to hurt her. But my intent didn’t matter – not addressing the matter hurt her.

My intent in pointing out the above person not getting me is neutral, a statement of fact. But despite my intent, it will likely translate as hurtful (which is why I’m not naming this person).

Give or take, feelings and intentions frequently misalign. What can we do about this? There is no solution because reactions and the feelings of others – and to some degree our own – are outside of our control.

But we can be more actively consciously aware of this issue and misalignment.

Photo by marcos mayer on UnsplashThe power of mindfulness

We can’t do much to align intentions and feelings. Again, we have no control over how what we intend will impact another’s feelings. We also have no control over another’s intentions and how we feel.

What we can do, however, is practice greater active conscious awareness. That’s mindfulness.

Active conscious awareness – mindfulness – starts with recognition of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. From there, you gain access to your subconscious, and your values, beliefs, habits, and memories.

Why does that matter? While the initial reaction you have is automated – how long you hold it is on you. If it’s negative and drawing more negativity to it – you have the power to change that. Mindfulness lets you recognize the negativity from that initial reaction. That empowers you to change your thoughts and feelings toward it.

Mindfulness also makes you more consciously aware of your intentions. That added awareness can help you to see how someone on the receiving end might react to your actions no matter what your intentions may be.

Ergo, if you know not telling someone ‘X’ is going to be more hurtful than the hurt of telling them – and your intent is not to hurt them – you can choose what to do with greater clarity. However – that still might not work in your favor (because you can’t control how someone else feels or reacts to something).

The takeaway is this – intentions and feelings will frequently be misaligned. But with mindfulness, you can both manage your feelings and reactions to another’s intentions and have greater awareness of how your intentions might produce undesirable reactions and feelings.

Understanding why intentions and feelings often misalign 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 cannot control how anyone feels or reacts to your intentions, you become more cognizant of the truth of this for you, as well. Knowing that good intentions might produce negative feelings – and that the good intentions on the part of others might produce negativity for you – you can be more actively consciously aware (mindful) and choose to alter your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions as needs be.

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 eighth (508) 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 Are Intentions and Feelings Frequently Misaligned? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What If The Meaning Of Life Is The Simplest Thing Ever?

What if it’s staring us all right in the face?Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

The quest to find the meaning of life has occupied the human mind for most of recorded history. Why are we here? What are we doing? What’s the answer to the question of life, the Universe, and Everything? (That one we know – it’s 42).

It’s easy to argue that philosophy, religion, and science are all on the exact same quest – to discover the meaning of life. Each has their own approach to the question. Religion gives the meaning to an unseen God and serving his/her/its/their purpose. Philosophy gives the meaning to abstract notions of being, sometimes connected and other times disconnected (though largely philosophy has no straightforward answer). Science gives the meaning of life to empirical evidence, painstaking research, and discovering new laws, theories, and dynamics of the cosmos, great and small.

Even with centuries, and sometimes millennia of work, the answer remains unclear. As the once-popular novelty Magic 8 Ball tends to tell you,

“Ask again later.”

Thick tomes and deep volumes of books have been written in the quest to discover the meaning of life. Often, every question produces only more questions. The deep meaning of our purpose is a challenging, difficult question to answer.

Oh, let’s complicate this further. Can there possibly be only 1 answer that’s correct for all 8 billion people alive now (not to mention the probably 177 billion people who’ve ever lived on Earth)?

Maybe. And that’s why I believe that the answer to the meaning of life is quite possibly the simplest thing ever.

Without further ado – what if the answer to the meaning of life is this: TO LIVE.

How can it possibly be that simple?

Here are the reasons why I make this claim.

First – how many people do you know that don’t genuinely live their lives? Oh, they’re here, they exist, they’re surviving. But living? Growing? Thriving? Experiencing? Exploring the potential and possibilities all around us? I don’t know about you, but too few of the people I know are living beyond merely existing and surviving.

Note – nobody is constantly, always, actively living as above. Everyone goes through periods of simple survival, rote, routine, and getting by due to things and circumstances. But some people seldom, if ever, choose more than mere survival – and “live”, as such.

Secondly – how do you feel when you are acting intentionally? Doing something with purpose? How does it feel when that something is a thing you love, that brings you joy, that lights you up? When you’re actively, intentionally doing something – that’s living.

I don’t know about you, but the more I can feel that the more satisfaction, contentment, happiness, and joy I experience. What if that’s what it’s all about?

Thirdly – We are all energy. Energy makes up the core of absolutely everything both tangible and intangible in the entire cosmos. Microscopic to macroscopic, energy is the root of it all.

If energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead transmutes from one form to another to another, then your core energy transmuted from another form to the body you now occupy. That vessel, your body, contains your core energy at its ultimate, invisible root.

Why transmute from pure energy to a body if not for one reason – TO LIVE?

Lastly – Occam’s Razor. The idea of Occam’s Razor is that when presented with multiple possible answers, the simplest is usually the correct answer. To really live life is the simplest answer to the question of its meaning.

Shouldn’t the answer to the meaning of life be deep and complicated?

The idea that the meaning of life is abstract, deep, and complicated has led to discourse, disagreement, argument, violence, and ultimately to war. Why else would two religions with the same overall belief in a single god go to war over frequently minor, barely notable differences?

In my all-time favorite book – Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist – much is made of the idea that the Masterwork of alchemy is an almost impossible achievement. (The Masterwork, if you’re not familiar, is the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone – which can turn any metal into gold – and the Elixir of Life – which can cure all illnesses and grant its creator near-eternal life).

In The Alchemist, it’s explained that the how of creating the Masterwork is inscribed on a single Emerald Tablet. But this has been rejected along the way for scientific tracts, philosophical explanations, and exhaustive study and research. Tons of books and research scrolls have replaced the simple symbols inscribed on the Emerald Tablet. Yet the path to the Masterwork is not through the endless books, but instead via the inscription on the simple Emerald Tablet.

(FYI, Alchemy is an allegory for the quest for the Meaning of Life).

Rejecting simplicity is human nature. While knowledge is certainly power, and better than ignorance, it comes with a price. The loss of innocence. That’s why children who easily lose track of time and place in the joy and simplicity of play lose that when they start school with its regulations, rules, and routines.

As we age, we’re expected to layer complexity on like shrugging into a heavy down coat before stepping outside on an icy winter morning. It becomes necessary to sustain us.

Photo by Caleb Wright on UnsplashRecognizing necessary from unnecessary complexity

To live in our society, it’s necessary to work for money so that we can have the necessities – food, shelter, and companionship. There are complexities involved here that are necessary.

Why? Do you want someone cutting into your body to remove your appendix who has ZERO medical training? Would you accept the pilot of the airplane you’re on having had no training nor experience as a pilot? Do you want a neighbor with no knowledge or experience working with electricity to rewire your house? Of course not.

That’s why there are necessary complexities. It takes time, study, will, desire, and training to learn skills like medicine, piloting, and electrical work.

Unfortunately, we add unnecessary complexities to our lives as well. To show that we have success, we spend money on things that we have little to no need of. Then there’s showing off our status as we desire others to perceive it. How many people will spend $100,000 on a fancy car – because they can – as a status symbol?

We add all sorts of unnecessary elements to our lives – often in the hope that it gives us a deeper sense of meaning. If I have it all, won’t I better know the meaning of life?

Unfortunately, the answer tends to be no. So, what do you need? Mindfulness.

It is via active, conscious awareness – mindfulness – that you can know who, what, where, how, and why you are. Mindfulness further reveals to you the difference between the necessary and the unnecessary.

And I would argue that via active, engaged mindfulness – we genuinely live. And that is the true meaning of life.

Mindfulness to recognize the meaning of life

Active conscious awareness is not about what’s in the world around you. This is about your inner being. It’s current, present awareness of your conscious mindset/headspace/psyche self.

Becoming mindful is as easy as knowing, here and now, what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and aren’t doing.

Via active mindfulness, you can choose to change your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Ergo, if they’re displeasing you, you can change them.

When it comes to the meaning of life, mindfulness informs you if you’re merely surviving and existing or living and experiencing. Are you making choices and decisions to learn, grow, see, do, feel, and experience all the potential, possibilities, and wonders of this life?

This is not about grand and glorious purpose. It’s about choices we make daily. Hence, some days we are only capable of surviving and merely existing. Welcome to the Human Condition, this is a normal thing. Shit happens, the unexpected puts obstacles on your life path, and life can be unpredictable in other ways.

Rather than make ourselves crazy seeking challenging answers to the meaning of life, isn’t it entirely possible it’s simply to live? That means experiencing all the good and bad, pain and pleasure, ups and downs, joys and sorrows, and everything in between. But when you choose to be mindful, and take actions to live – isn’t that, when all is said and done, a singular purpose every single one of us can get behind?

What if the meaning of life is the simplest thing ever – and that’s to genuinely TO LIVE and experience it all?

This is the six-hundred and eighteenth (618) 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.

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Do We Really Need Positivity to Live Our Best Lives?

Genuine, non-toxic positivity is essential for everyone.Photo by Jabber Visuals on Unsplash

Toxic positivity is all over the place. Tons of messages about the power of positive thinking, the Law of Attraction, manifestation, happiness, and living our best lives all reduce down to positivity. Toxic positivity both blatantly and subtly tells you all negative thoughts and feelings are bad and must be avoided, ignored, disregarded, and not allowed to take root.

This is a lie. Why? Because nobody – and I mean nobody – lives a life with zero negativity. Life is too unpredictable. What’s more, too many things we can’t control at all can, will, and do happen to generate negativity.

Jobs are lost, relationships end, loved ones die, friends turn on you, plans fall apart, and more. This is natural and unavoidable. This is all part of the human condition.

It sucks. Bad things are not fun, undesirable, and can lead to worse things. But they can, will, and do happen. No matter what any pundits, gurus, teachers, spiritual leaders, or the like say – negativity is unavoidable.

This begs the question: If negativity is unavoidable, do we really need positivity to live our best lives?

Yes. Simply because negativity tends to destroy while positivity tends to build. (FYI – this is a generalization. They can totally flip-flop and reverse roles, too. More on that later).

The most important thing to know about how positivity helps us to live our best lives is to recognize toxic from non-toxic positivity.

How does toxic and non-toxic positivity differ?

The difference between toxic and non-toxic positivity is clear in how they each approach negativity.

Toxic positivity ignores, denies, rejects, and treats negativity as if it should be shunned. In toxic positivity, negativity is treated as an unwelcome enemy that needs to be eradicated. No negativity is ideal according to toxic positivity.

On the other hand, non-toxic positivity recognizes that it’s the opposite end of the flexible cylinder from negativity. You can’t have one without the other. Non-toxic positivity recognizes its debt to negativity and that they are the Yin and Yang of the Universe.

Toxic positivity takes itself utterly, overly seriously. There is no room for anything but positivity in the realm of toxic positivity. You must commit to it fully.

Non-toxic positivity simply is. It’s not forced, it comes from a choice. That choice is to turn towards the positive end of the cylinder from wherever you are now and choose positive things over negative things. Employ positivity to see the silver lining of the cloud, the opportunity for change, the potential and possibility to move from one place to another (literally or metaphorically), and the like.

Toxic positivity forces positivity to be your default approach to life, the Universe, and everything. Non-toxic positivity chooses positivity as your approach.

Toxic positivity will feel disingenuous. Which it is. Non-toxic positivity will feel genuine. Because it is.

What’s more, non-toxic positivity recognizes its existence is in attitude and approach to life, the Universe, and everything – and that it’s never static and/or unchanging.

We live our best lives on the flexible cylinder between extremes

The Universe is made up of lots of extremes. Opposites. Up and down. Large and small. Black and white. Love and hate. Good and bad. Positive and negative.

Many people compare these extremes as opposite sides of a coin. Flip the coin to determine which extreme is facing up.

The thing is, between all extremes, there’s a ton of grey and colored areas. Nuances. Middle grounds.

Very few things, people, and places, exist at the given extremes. That, by the way, is why they’re extreme. For example – Darth Vader isn’t entirely evil in the Star Wars movies. Both Amidala and Luke see that there’s still good in him. Ergo, the seemingly pure-evil Vader isn’t all the way at the extreme, evil side, opposite good. (Emperor Palpatine, however, is the rare example of pure evil at the extreme end of the spectrum).

Hence, I believe the extremes aren’t opposite sides of a coin. Rather, they’re opposite sides of a flexible cylinder.

This is how positive and negative are. On one side of the cylinder, unadulterated, pure, 100% positivity. On the other side of the cylinder, unadulterated, pure, 100% negativity. Between these extremes are you, me, and veritably everyone. Sometimes we exist towards the positive end, other times the negative. And sometimes we’re almost dead center between them – or at least feel that way – and get to choose which direction/approach to face.

You’ll note I refer to this as a flexible cylinder. That’s because positivity and negativity aren’t static. They can flip. Something/someone/someplace you once associated as a positive can and will turn negative.

This is the other major problem with toxic positivity. It doesn’t recognize that today’s positive can change into tomorrow’s negative.

Photo by Rafay Ansari on UnsplashAll of this is about choice

Change is the one and only constant in the entire Universe. It can, will, does, has, and will again occur. Desirable or not, change happens. More often than not, it’s beyond our control.

But in the face of change, we get choices. This is where choosing positivity to live our best lives comes into play.

Shit happens. Things will occur all the time you’d really prefer didn’t. When that happens, your initial, visceral reaction will simply be. That means your initial reaction might well be negative. That’s perfectly normal and natural.

After that initial, visceral reaction, however, you have a choice. Do you stay with the negative, or seek out to find and/or create positivity? Take a negative, defeatist approach – or – try a positive, potential, and possibility approach. That’s a choice we get to make.

What’s more, it’s seldom a one-and-done choice. Most of the time, if you choose wrong or choose poorly, you can change it. You can choose to change it.

The choice is wholly yours.

I know I give caveats by using almost, mostly, seldom, and the like. That’s in part because these things tend not to meet the extremes – but fall between them. Also, I’m a realist, and sometimes shit happens and your choices might be limited or virtually non-existent.

You get to choose if you face toward any given positive or negative. Your approach is wholly up to you. We all need non-toxic positivity to live our best lives because it’s an incredible tool for building with potential and possibilities.

Genuine, non-toxic positivity is essential for everyone. That’s because it lets us imagine and create tangible and intangible things to bring us to live our best lives in lots of amazing ways.

Employing non-toxic positivity to live our best lives 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 negativity is part of life, and can’t be avoided, escaped, disregarded, or ignored, you can use non-toxic positivity to grow and choose change. Knowing that genuine positivity is essential to building what we need and desire to live our best lives, we get to choose to face that end of the cylinder and employ it to our advantage.

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 seventh (507) 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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