M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 25

Have I Really Got This or Am I Just Fooling Myself?

The answer is yes – and wholly dependent on me and my actions.Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash

As I’m writing this, I’m preparing to take my annual trip to the gargantuan medieval event in SW Pennsylvania.

However, leading up to this point has been quite probably one of the craziest years I’ve experienced in a long time.

Let me sum up 2023: At the start of the year, I was recovering from COVID; we learned my mother-in-law had a terminal brain tumor; and my wife got COVID. My mom started to have a whole host of new and unusual medical issues, and to a lesser degree so did my stepdad.

While I love my job, over the last 4 months things have gotten distressing, and my certainty in elements of the gig has been seriously shaken.

On top of that, I’m nearly the heaviest I’ve ever been, and today I’m feeling deeply frustrated.

I talked to my therapist today. She reassured me that I’m on the right track, which helped.

But this nagging sense of offness – because I have no idea what else to call it – is really distressing me. Like I want to leap out of my skin and run around – which makes no sense at all.

I know, deep down, that I’ve got this. Because I always manage.

Still, I’m wondering – have I really got this, or am I just fooling myself?

What is this, anyhow?

I guess this is my life. The parts that I can control, the bits I can’t control, and everything in between.

For a whole host of reasons, I decided to quit drinking. Not because I’ve ever had a problem with drinking – when I did drink, it was a beer or a cider here, a glass of wine there, maybe a single malt scotch – and at most I drank once every few weeks, if not months. Not a lot at all.

My issue is that I don’t need the empty calories of alcohol and have no interest in the intoxicating effects in the slightest. Thus, I’m not bothering to drink.

I might still partake of scotch or wine here and there – I don’t feel the need to go full-on teetotaler. But casually, socially, I’m not drinking.

I think much of this is control. As in – have I got this? – is a matter of control.

Because many of the outside factors of my life that are currently craziest are utterly, totally, and completely out of my control.

Despite all the efforts I made to avoid COVID and all the vaccinations – I still got it at the end of 2022. It was barely more than a head cold – which I know is in part due to getting vaccinated.

I can do nothing to help my mother-in-law. Nor is there much I can do for my wife, save being emotional support and present for her. Hence, I have no control there.

The same goes for my mom, stepdad, and their medical issues. I have no control there, either.

Lastly – work. While there are elements of this in my control, the things shaking my certainty are not.

Ergo, what this is, in context, is control.

Have I really got this or am I just fooling myself?

On the one hand – yes. Because I can practice active, conscious awareness – mindfulness – to assert control where I have control.

On the other hand – no. I’m fooling myself. Because the matters out of my control are, frankly, out of my control.

This begs a better question: Do I want/desire control of these things?

No. Truthfully, no.

I have no interest in controlling other people or things because that just sounds exhausting.

Being in my own head is frustrating, confusing, fascinating, terrifying, brilliant, amazing, sometimes crazy, and once in a while all of the above. Really.

What winds up happening is that the brain weasels and thinky-thoughts all crowd together, making me question my sanity – but mostly making me feel massively uncertain and utterly without control.

Have I really got this? Yes. Am I just fooling myself? No – unless it has to do with control that’s not mine now or at all, frankly.

Ergo – I need to work on letting it go.

Photo by N Suma on UnsplashWhat you and I can control is a little and a lot

When all is said and done, you and I control very little. Most of what you and I do control is internal.

Externally we control – to a greater or lesser degree – how we look, what we wear, where we are, and who we’re with. (Granted – if you work in an office, you’re likely not in control of who you’re with and where you are).

Internally we control our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Hence, you have control over what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are or aren’t doing.

Which is, when you think about, pretty much everything.

Realistically, you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Brain weasels are ideas outsiders have presented to you that have impacted you and caused second-guessing, self-doubt, and similar issues. Thinky-thoughts are matters tagged to your beliefs, values, habits, and/or memories that you chew on – and similarly, cause you distress.

But take control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – and both brain weasels and thinky-thoughts can be dealt with.

Thus, I’m only just fooling myself if I strive for control over others and external bits that I can’t – and really don’t desire to – control.

Letting go to stop fooling myself

Writing this has been part of my process of letting go.

I can control this. These are my words. And putting this here on the screen lets me examine them and see where my control issues are causing unnecessary distress, doubt, and uncertainty.

It’s easy to forget that when it comes to external factors, I have no control. Recognizing and acknowledging this lets me choose to let go and not drive myself mad over what’s not mine to work with.

Life is crazy for everyone. Despite outward appearances, nobody has it easy or always gets it right. Everyone has challenges, struggles, issues, and concerns along the way.

We’re all perfectly imperfect human beings in the middle of this crazy road trip called life – and there’s no map and the GPS is getting no signal, either.

But the truth is – I’ve got this. And you’ve got this. When you work to focus on what you can control rather than what you can’t, you empower yourself. That can quiet the thinky-thoughts, murder the brain weasels, and help restore a sense of calm, balance, and peace.

Am I just fooling myself? Only if I seek control where none on my part exists. The same is true for you, too.

Can you see how you’ve got this and how you might be fooling yourself, too?

This is the six-hundred and seventh (607) 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.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info then click the sign-up button to the right and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

The post Have I Really Got This or Am I Just Fooling Myself? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Feelings and Emotions Are in a Constant State of Flux

This is why toxic positivity is so dangerous.Photo by Arun Prakash on Unsplash

Nobody lives a perfect life.

You’ve had both good days and bad days in your life. Like it or not, life has had its ups and downs.

Nobody ever experiences just one emotion or feeling. And that’s a good thing.

Why? Because you need to experience it all. That’s part of living life.

Life is made up of many a paradox and uncountable extremes. But most of life occurs somewhere between any given extremes.

Good/bad, happy/sad, positive/negative, light/dark, and so on. While you’ll sometimes find yourself nearer to one extreme than the other, most of the time you’re still somewhere between them.

That’s why extremes aren’t opposite sides of a coin, but opposite ends of a cylinder. What’s more, that cylinder is flexible, because the extremes can change, too.

Something bad today can become good tomorrow. The thing that brings you sorrow today could bring you joy tomorrow.

This is why toxic positivity is dangerous. Because it denies, ignores, and doesn’t recognize or validate other feelings and emotions. That’s counter to reality.

You will have bad experiences, negative emotions, and other things that occur throughout your life that – at the time – aren’t positive. Hell, they might never be positive – just less or differently impactful over time.

The truth is that feelings and emotions are in a constant state of flux.

Change is a constant inconstant

You have experienced change in one form or another all your life. If you’re no longer a child, you’ve changed your body shape, size, hairiness, and more as you aged. What thrilled and motivated you when you were 10 has likely changed – or at least changed in perspective.

Change has been with you and a part of you and your life all the time.

Change is the one and only constant in the Universe. It is always happening and can’t be stopped.

You can choose how it impacts you. Sometimes you can shift it, alter it, avoid it to a degree, and even change it again.

This is where the Buddhist ideal of impermanence is super helpful. Recognizing and acknowledging that nothing is permanent and everything changes lessens attachments. That makes it at least a little bit easier to deal with sudden, unexpected, and unwanted changes.

Change works visibly, invisibly, tangibly, and intangibly. Hence, it can and will impact your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being.

This is why nobody can exist in one single emotion. Your feelings are often a direct link to change – even when invisible. Something happens that makes you feel a certain way.

Know that there is nothing wrong with this or wrong with you. It simply is.

Feelings and emotions are in a constant state of flux because change is constant. Feeling and emotions regularly tie to change.

Feelings and emotions are in your control

This is another place where toxic positivity gets it all wrong. The implication that you can ignore, disregard, and put on blinders to all other feelings and emotions in favor of positivity is disingenuous.

Things happen that cause a visceral emotional reaction and/or feeling in you that, when it occurs, just is.

And it’s different for everyone.

That’s because the what of a feeling is different from the how. The what is the label and the how is the presentation. Mostly, the what is the feeling while the how is the emotion.

Anger, for example, comes in many forms. Red hot, ice cold, slow burn, flare-up, and more. And you likely don’t have the same how of the emotion every time you feel it. Different situations cause different feelings and emotions.

Beyond that, when something happens to set off an emotional response – good or bad – you don’t control that immediate, visceral reaction.

When you’re running late, stressed out, and already in a bad mood – getting into a car accident might enrage you. Or it might utterly depress you. You might feel like exploding or curling up in a ball and dying. But that immediate, visceral reaction – in the moment of that happening – just is.

Not long after, however, you gain the ability to be fully, actively consciously aware – and use mindfulness to control what your feelings and emotions are.

But that’s not permanent.

Photo by Jairph on UnsplashLife is in constant motion

One of my favorite quotes from Yoda says,

“Always in motion is the future.”

No matter what you plan – you have no control over what might occur. Random happenstance might utterly shock and surprise you.

The present is knowable via active conscious awareness. Practicing mindfulness by inquiring about what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you’re intending, and what you are or aren’t doing to make you present here and now.

That’s great, now. Five minutes from now? Maybe not. Tomorrow? Probably not. Next week? Almost definitely not.

Life is in constant motion. And that’s a major part of why feelings and emotions are in a constant state of flux. Because they’re changed both from within and without.

Let’s say you’ve been crushing on a person. You’re just really into them. Every time you see them, you get those nervous butterflies in your stomach. And then, unexpectedly (but consensually), they kiss you.

The feelings and emotions in that moment just are. And they occurred as part of life’s constant state of motion.

While you can choose your feelings and emotions, it’s only possible at this moment, in the here and now. Sometimes it takes a lot of concentration and work for you to do. But you can.

It doesn’t always feel like this is true. But recognizing and acknowledging the constant state of flux of feelings and emotions empowers you to use mindfulness for control in the present moment.

Recognizing that feelings and emotions are in a constant state of flux 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 your emotions are never one thing only – and constantly changing – you can seek opportunities to use active conscious awareness to control changing them. Knowing that everyone has good and bad feelings and emotions – and nobody can ever have only positivity or the like all the time – you can work with changing emotions because you are less attached to them, whatever they are.

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 to open 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’re 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.

Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-ninety-sixth 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.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive a free eBook.

The post Feelings and Emotions Are in a Constant State of Flux appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Changing Your Life Is Only as Difficult as You Make It

How difficult do you make it?Photo by Kristin Snippe on Unsplash

When it comes to finding the best ways to complicate my life, I’m an expert.

This tends to come from overthinking things, overanalyzing, self-doubt, uncertainty, fear, and similar factors.

Why? Sometimes it’s because of the idea that if it looks too good to be true (or too easy) it probably is. Other times because I’ve long believed that nothing worth having is ever easy. Then there are external factors like the opinions of others, societal BS, and the like.

And of course, my own fears, self-doubt, concerns, beliefs in being deserving or not, and so on.

However, no matter what the factor is – it all comes down to me.

Nobody but me is in my head, heart, or soul. Thus, nobody but me can determine what works or doesn’t work for me.

When it comes to my life and any changes I desire to make to it – I alone can choose those.

Yes, there are factors to take into consideration like the needs and desires of my spouse, care for our cats, and other things.

But for the parts of my life that are wholly mine – namely everything within me – I alone can change them.

Hence, changing my life is only as difficult as I make it. And that goes for you and your life, too.

More complexity doesn’t mean better

When I first started learning medieval fencing, the focus was single combat. Me versus someone else.

Then we got into melee combat – fencing as teams. This could be anywhere from 2 to 5 people, to a dozen or far more.

When it comes to melee combat, you generally serve in 1 of 3 roles. And sometimes they shift depending on the length of battle and what the opposition tosses your way. But those roles are soldier, commander, and cowboy.

A soldier takes orders, goes into combat, and if they’re told to move into a meat-grinder of swords and “die” – that’s what they do.

A commander might do the overall strategy for a battle scenario, like a general. But they might also adjust units tactically on the field, like a sergeant. Either way, they direct a battle strategically and/or tactically.

Cowboys either do their own thing, find their way into the backfield, act as distractions, or have a set goal – and are neither soldier nor commander.

My primary skill in this is tactical. Though I have a good head for strategy, I’m best at situational assessment and adjusting on the fly.

Here’s my point – the most basic, simple maneuvers are always best. If your plan includes more than 1 or 2 points of decision or mechanisms to function, you’ve created multiple points of failure.

If the idea is to roll your line of soldiers to the left, the simple approach is that all of them roll left. Adding a person as a pivot point means you’ve added a point of failure – but it’s still a simple tactic. However, have two pivot points, and now you’ve multiple points of failure and doubled the probability of it.

Hence why more complexity doesn’t mean better. It’s making something simple more difficult.

Changing your life is never one and done

The truth is that there is no one-time-only change that you can make for your life. Or rather, you can’t sustain your life on a single change.

That’s because change is constant. The only constant in the Universe. Change can, will, and does occur all the time. And most of it is not yours to control.

But there is change you can control – that’s your approach to life, the universe, and everything.

This is very specific to your life, your universe, your everything. But the truth of your reality is that it’s yours before all else.

As Albert Einstein said,

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

What that means is that how you perceive reality is dependent on you.

Your life experience, the environments you’ve known, the people you surround yourself with, the culture you experience and soak in, your education, and lots of other factors will form your perception of reality.

And that’s the illusion of reality that Einstein speaks of.

Collectively, there are aspects of “reality” nearly everyone agrees on. It’s still loosely defined enough that some people reject or don’t accept elements of it. Nonetheless, we share the world.

But your life, your reality, can be altered by choice by you. And that’s through conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness.

Photo by Seth Doyle on UnsplashMindfulness is easy

Being actively consciously aware is easy. All you need to do is focus on being present, here and now.

Then, to gain mindfulness of your life, ask questions answerable only here and now, like,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What am I doing?What are my intentions?

These questions can only be answered in the now. Thus, they make you actively consciously aware/mindful.

It really is this easy. Try it for yourself. Ask any one of the above questions and see how present it makes you.

If it’s not difficult and challenging, is it worthwhile? Absolutely. Life will have complex moments. There will be challenges and difficulties. Some situations will be easy, others seemingly impossible.

Changing your life – depending on where you’re starting from – can look incredibly difficult. But does it need to be?

No. It’s only as difficult as you choose to make it.

Changing your life step by step

For me, the most difficult part of working on changing my life has been chunking it down.

Changing your life will take time. Recognizing and accepting this is super important.

How old are you? That doesn’t matter, so much as looking at how long it’s taken to build what you already have. To become who you are now took time. And while you can change faster than the time it took unintentionally to become who you are now; it still takes time.

Chunking it down – when it comes to changing your life – is a matter of not just focusing on the end goal, but stepping stones along the way.

Want to start a business? You can’t just snap your fingers and start. There are lots of stepping stones you need to take to get from the idea for the business to the creation, building, and opening of it.

Changing your life works exactly the same way. Do you want to become healthier? You can’t simply snap your fingers and be healthier. You must take steps to get from where you are to where you desire to be.

But it really is that easy. You don’t need to overanalyze every idea, just start taking steps. As Lao Tzu said,

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Howsoever you desire to change your life, it’s only as difficult as you make it. Every little step you take, every action you do, is a part of the process.

You have so much more power than you realize.

If you’re working on changing your life, take at least one small step every day. It might simply be altering how you approach things, your self-talk, or general thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Keep it simple. That’s all you need.

How difficult do you tend to make changing your life?

This is the six-hundred and sixth (606) 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.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info then click the sign-up button to the right and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

The post Changing Your Life Is Only as Difficult as You Make It appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

One Simple Tool for Positivity and Mindfulness

This requires next to no time on any given day.Photo by Tim Goedhart on Unsplash

People are busy.

I don’t know anybody who isn’t almost constantly on the go. Between work, errands, socializing, and a general societal need for near-perpetual motion – people seldom pause for more than a moment or two.

Even when forced to take a break – like during the Pandemic – people mostly didn’t emerge with greater respect for themselves and their time.

This is part of the mental health crisis I feel has not been addressed. The world drastically shifted because of a global pandemic – and the levels of uncertainty experienced were beyond compare. And that doesn’t take into account those impacted by long COVID or those who lost friends, loved ones, and others to COVID.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, was impacted. But that’s been largely shunted away, buried under a false narrative about “returning to normal”. A normal that, frankly, wasn’t very healthy.

Look at office culture and how the pandemic exposed it for utter bullshit. How many jobs work perfectly well – if not better – when done remotely? Must the 8-hour workday remain the standard when people get more done in half the time under less pressure and unnecessary supervision?

And yet – the grind demanded you and I return to it. Now people are even more stressed out and negative than they ever were before – and nobody’s talking about it.

There are lots and lots of tools available to address this. But I’d like to offer one that is simple, repeatable, and requires next to no time.

One simple tool for positivity and mindfulness.

Breathing.

The amazing power of intentional breathing

Everyone is of 3 minds – unconscious, subconscious, and conscious. To summarize:

The unconscious mind is body functions like breathing, your heart beating, digestion, and so on.

Your subconscious mind is your operating system, and the home of your beliefs, values, habits, memories, and the like.

The conscious mind is your present, mindset/headspace/psyche self. It can be passive and active, but is of the present, here and now.

Breathing largely falls under the unconscious mind. You live, you breathe. This is a necessary function of the human body to power all your organs and keep you going.

But breathing can be done consciously. As opposed to the automatic, regularly unconscious breathing that you do, conscious breathing is intentional breathing.

This is an amazingly powerful tool that can build positivity, increase mindfulness, self-awareness, balance, and hone all your senses for greater clarity.

The act of intentional breathing can change a negative situation to a neutral situation, and even shift to positivity.

Intentional breathing can impact your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. It can settle butterflies and an upset stomach, slow down a racing heart, make thoughts and feelings clearer, and allow you to center yourself.

Intentional breathing can do wonders. It’s amazing. And you only need 2 minutes to use it effectively.

Two minutes with one simple tool for positivity and mindfulness

All that you need is a timer (smartwatches and smartphones are great for this) and a relatively quiet space. Really, your space just needs to be free of distractions that might interrupt you. Sitting or standing for this is best (lounging might be fine, but I don’t recommend lying down).

Set your timer for two (2) minutes.

Start your timer.

Breathe in, nice and deep. Try to breathe from your diaphragm. Then, exhale your breath all the way.

Repeat the breath in. Repeat breathing back out.

Do this for the full 2 minutes.

That’s it. One simple tool – and it requires little to no preparation. You don’t need purpose-specific special pads, chairs, or cushions. This can be done anywhere at any time.

It may not seem like much, and it might appear far too simple. But trust me – it works.

I don’t know anyone that can’t carve out 2 minutes, just 120 seconds of their time, on a given day.

Why and how does this empower you?

Photo by Eli DeFaria on UnsplashEmpower yourself through intentional breathing

How much do you/can you control on any given day?

Your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions are always yours to control. Apart from certain conventions (dress codes for school and work, for example) that you might or might not follow, how you dress, wear your hair, make yourself up or not is yours to control. When/what you eat and drink, who you spend time with, and so on are also at least somewhat in your control.

Every single one of these can be impacted by outside influences. Shit happens that causes a visceral reaction of anger, someone might make fun of what you’re wearing or change a dress code, food allergies change, and sometimes people you want to spend time with become people you want to avoid.

With so many things that can be out of your control via the unexpected, it’s easy to feel disempowered.

Intentional breathing, however, is controlled wholly by you. You, and you alone, can make the time, find the space, and take the action for the whopping 2 minutes to practice deep intentional breathing.

That 2 minutes – 120 seconds – of just breathing can create calm, a sense of peace, a renewal of purpose, and any number of empowerments. Why? Because you have full, complete, and total control of your deep breathing practice.

And let’s face it – control is hugely empowering.

One simple tool. You can empower yourself through intentional breathing virtually anytime, anywhere you choose. How amazing, positive, and empowering is that?

Recognizing the one simple tool for positivity and mindfulness 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 can find and/or make 2 minutes, at least once, on any given day – you can practice intentional breathing. Knowing that intentional breathing is utterly healthy and good for your mind, body, and spirit – as well as your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health/wellness/wellbeing – you can use this to increase positivity and mindfulness.

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 to open 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’re 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.

Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-ninety-fifth 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.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive a free eBook.

The post One Simple Tool for Positivity and Mindfulness appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

I’m Sorry – Yes, I F#*ked Up! Guess Who Is Beating Me Up the Most?

Spoiler alert – it’s me.Photo by Johann Walter Bantz on Unsplash

A few months back, in an attempt to offer a friend some encouraging perspective – I did exactly the opposite. I totally fucked up, caused my friend anxiety, self-doubt, and a host of other unpleasantness utterly the opposite of the intent of my words.

Immediately after, I was informed that I messed this up by a mutual friend. I apologized and explained my reasoning.

Now, months later, I learn it was so bad that it impacted my friend’s partner, and another mutual friend was asked to address me about this.

My intentions were good. But I can’t deny – and own up to – that I fucked up royally. With one careless statement – with no ill intent meant in the slightest – I upset a whole bunch of people.

I had no idea that this was happening, and deeply regret that I caused it.

And I don’t blame anyone involved for being upset with me, disappointed in me, discouraged by me, or otherwise pissed. I’m disappointed in me, discouraged by me, and pissed at myself for fucking up so royally and causing so much pain.

For someone who prides himself on usually being incredibly tactful, this was so very much the opposite of that. Tactless, unintentionally thoughtless, and frankly rather stupid of me.

The beatings will commence until morale improves

Please note – this is in no way, shape, or form me asking for sympathy. This is me admitting I fucked up, being accountable for my actions, and working through my grief, anger, and self-doubt.

Yes, grief. Because this was utterly not my intention with the words I said. Not in the slightest. And yet – it happened.

It’s done and over, and all I can do is apologize.

But wow, do I feel awful. Like, yeah, I felt bad when the first friend let me know I fucked up. Now? Now I feel terrible. Like, damn, what an asshole.

It was not my intention, and I can do nothing about how what I say impacts others. But I’m usually much better at considering all angles of statements I make than I clearly did this time.

Why am I sharing this? Because I both need to admit culpability publicly and work through the grief. I hope my actions didn’t ruin friendships.

Sometimes, I really need to remember to shut the fuck up.

Okay, so I can beat the ever-loving crap out of myself here. I can write all about the degree of misery I feel over this, how annoyed I am at myself for being so thoughtless, and go over and over again all the ways I fucked up.

And just for the fun of it – let’s start picking apart all the other fuck-ups of my life, shall we? All the ways I feel like this is just another sign that I am all the bad, terrible, hurtful things my brain weasels tell me that I am.

Or I can stop, take a breath, and do the only thing I can from here. Learn my lesson and move on.

Beating me up is not fun

I mean, maybe, if you’re someone not me beating me up, it IS fun. And hell, during fencing, when someone better than me is beating me, it can still be fun (unless I’m not giving my best or making my best effort).

But mentally, emotionally, and spiritually self-flagellating is no fun. Beating me up – on my own – also does me no good.

I can beat myself up all day and all night, lose sleep, and remind myself constantly about everything negative that I am or that I have done. Does that do a damned thing going forward? No.

I can offer apologies and seek ways to make amends now and going forward. That’s all that I can do externally.

Internally – I can learn a lesson. Do I know what I did wrong? Am I aware of how I did this thing? Will I take that into account so that I never make that mistake again?

Yes. Simply, candidly, yes. I get it. Lesson learned.

I’m going to still be mad at myself for a while – but me beating me up is the equivalent of beating a dead horse. All it does is rehash and recycle potentially endless negativity. All that does is disempower me. If I’m disempowered, do I truly learn from my mistake? Nope.

Photo by Baylee Gramling on UnsplashLetting go of what’s out of my control

Yes, I’m worried that many of my friends have lost respect for me because of this stupid thing I said. I also am concerned that they will trust me less, and want me around less.

Maybe all of the above is true. There’s nothing I can do about that. I will apologize to anyone else that I need to, offer what amends that I can – and that’s it.

How you feel about me is out of my control. It is what it is – and all I can do is be my best and do my best.

As one of my affirmations goes,

I give my best. I do my best. The thoughts and feelings of others are outside of my control.

This is the most challenging thing for me to do in my life in general. Due to all sorts of things not worth getting into here, I all too frequently seek validation from my peers. Acceptance. And I almost pathologically need approval from others.

Yet I know, intellectually, I don’t. But more than that, I know I have ZERO control over the thoughts and feelings of anyone else. It’s out of my control – one of so many things that are out of my control.

The other lesson from this – perhaps a more selfish lesson? – is that I need to stop letting things outside my control steal my focus and attention.

That mantra again:

I give my best. I do my best. The thoughts and feelings of others are outside of my control.

Me beating me up teaches me nothing

All that me beating me up does is keep me disempowered, derails me from any path I’m striving to walk, and teaches me nothing.

Life is constant learning. That’s probably the thing I love the most about it. I’m constantly learning. There are always new things to be learned about the world. But similarly – there are also always new things for me to learn about myself.

That’s because change is the only constant in the Universe. Ergo – who I am is constantly changing. And to recognize and acknowledge that requires learning.

Me beating me up is the equivalent of swallowing poison and hoping the metaphorical “other guy” learns his lesson while I suffer. It’s equally just as ludicrous and pointless.

Two lessons are my takeaway from this. The first and most important is to think before I speak – and think again, because I might not have thought it all through the first time. The second is to let go of what I don’t control – such as how anyone else thinks and/or feels (about me or anyone/anything else).

It’s not a fun lesson. And I still am going to feel bad about this for a long time. Nobody to blame, I alone fucked up here. But admitting that and being accountable for my actions is the most empowering thing I can do – for everyone involved.

When you fuck up, are you as good at beating yourself up as I am at beating myself up?

This is the six-hundred and fifth (605) 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.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info then click the sign-up button to the right and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

The post I’m Sorry – Yes, I F#*ked Up! Guess Who Is Beating Me Up the Most? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Is It That Uncertainty is Always So Certain?

How can you recognize, accept, and even find positivity in uncertainty?Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

I’ve written time and again that the one and only constant in the Universe is change.

It’s the only constant, but by no means the only universal truth.

There are others. These include the fact that every single person on the planet – you, me, and everyone – will experience these three things: Birth, life, and death.

The simplicity of this notion can feel harsh to some. But on the other hand – it’s a matter of useful perspective. Particularly when you take into account that life – and what it is – differs drastically for everyone.

Environment, education, nationality, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, and tons of other tangible and intangible factors will impact you and what your life will be. You have some control over how this is – largely via active conscious awareness – i.e., mindfulness.

Both passive and active conscious awareness are products of the present. They are the here and now. You can only be consciously aware in this moment.

The past has come and gone. What’s left behind is imperfect memory. You can’t specifically know what or how your past feelings were. And it’s dangerously easy to have nostalgia and romanticize the past in such a way that you strive to return to it – though it never existed how you remember it.

The future is unwritten. Numerous factors utterly outside of your control will make it what it will be. Thus, it is massively uncertain.

It is the certain uncertainty of the future that causes conflict, anxiety, distress, and other unpleasantness. People go to great lengths to find certainty in uncertainty.

But accepting uncertainty is all you can truly do.

Recognition and acceptance

No matter what you plan, what you set in motion, or what you’re doing here and now – the future is uncertain.

And uncertainty can be extremely distressing and disturbing to people.

If the pandemic taught us anything at all – it was that people have no idea how to handle uncertainty. When the world shut down – albeit briefly – the uncertainty of what was coming next did a real number on people.

And it’s never really been addressed. The mental health crisis that this sparked has hardly been dealt with. The world has worked to move forward – but to “return” to what was: perceived (but not genuine) certainty.

If anything, the world is more uncertain than ever, now. Yet recognition and acceptance of this isn’t much addressed. People pretend it never happened – or in some cases are still deeply afraid of what’s next.

The United States, at least, acts like COVID is mostly gone. Less, yes, gone, no. And frankly – like influenza, it’s most likely with us for every season to come.

If you do more to recognize and accept the certainty of uncertainty – you can better handle it when it comes up.

The future is made of uncertainty

No matter what you plan for the future – nothing is certain.

You can plan every detail of an event – say a wedding – and no matter how detailed your plan, it can all come apart via uncertainty. What if the bride or groom runs? What if the caterer drops dead on the way to the wedding? Does anyone ever expect someone to object if that question is posed?

You can’t be certain any of this will or won’t occur. And that’s the truth about the future. Uncertainty is the only certain thing.

You have zero control over the weather, other drivers on the road, people’s thoughts and feelings, how much charge a battery will hold or lose, and the list goes on. Uncertainty is certain in all these.

What do you control? Your conscious awareness. But even here – there can be uncertainty.

You can be utterly and actively consciously aware – mindful and ready for anything – except the unexpected and uncertain. Maybe you’re driving down the road, mindful of yourself and everything within you, set to be present when you reach your destination – and BOOM! – an asteroid hits the hood of your car and flips it.

I don’t care what the odds of such a thing happening might be – but the certainty of the uncertainty is unquestionable. It just is.

Is there anything you can do about this? Is there any positivity inherent in this? Absolutely.

Photo by Heshan Chamikara on UnsplashMindfulness is like half an octopus

As a friend of mine once said – forewarned is half an octopus (the saying is forewarned is forearmed – get it?) But applying this to mindfulness is apropos.

Why? Because mindfulness makes you present, here and now. You’re not working subconsciously by rote and routine, unconsciously, or focused on the future or the past. You’re present in the only time that’s truly real. The now.

When you are mindful – actively consciously aware – because you’re present, uncertainty is less disruptive. You weren’t looking back or thinking ahead when unexpected uncertainty hit – you were and are present. In the here and now.

That means you can adapt and adjust in the moment. You don’t need to get caught up first.

Yet uncertainty tends to be focused on the negative. It can also be positive.

Winning a lottery is not certain by any stretch of the imagination. Some promotions at work come out of the blue. If Netflix or Amazon Prime approached me to turn my sci-fi into a show, that would be positive uncertainty (AFTER the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved in favor of the unions). Thus, uncertainty can absolutely resolve as positivity.

That’s the key to all this. It’s not uncertainty that’s so uncertain – it’s what will come of it. Good, bad, amazing, awful, negative, positive – it’s all uncertain.

But part of living in a fear-based society – where collective trauma and mental health are largely disregarded – of course, uncertainty tends to lean negative.

Recognition and acceptance of uncertainty – plus active conscious awareness – is a choice. A choice you, and you alone, can make. And I’m certain that that’s incredibly empowering.

Recognizing that there can be positivity in uncertainty 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 uncertainty is always certain – and you actively work to be consciously aware of that – you can find less to fear, and even positivity in uncertainty. Knowing that uncertainty is always certain – but not always bad/negative – you can choose to be wary without being afraid and take control via mindfulness to better handle the unexpected when it occurs.

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 to open 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’re 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.

Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-ninety-fourth 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.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive a free eBook.

The post Why Is It That Uncertainty is Always So Certain? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

It’s Okay (And Normal) Not to Be Mindful All the Time

Nobody can be anything all the time.Photo by Feri & Tasos on Unsplash

Please allow me to make this blanket statement: The one and only constant in the entire Universe is change.

You have experienced change in your life before – and you will experience it again. The child you were, the teen you became, and the adult you (probably) are now represent change in you and your life.

Some elements, beliefs, values, and habits might be the same or similar. But they’ve still come up against change both wanted and unwanted, sought after and utterly random.

Everything in life is in constant motion. The sun rises and sets, seasons change, air flows, and more. That motion is a manifestation of the constancy of change.

Many elements of change are utterly, completely, and totally outside of your control. They simply are. Things and shit happen. The world changes around you tangibly and intangibly beyond anything you can control.

But – when it comes to you, and what’s in your head, heart, and soul – you can be in control. This occurs through active conscious awareness – here and now. Or, put more directly, mindfulness.

Mindfulness has become the focal buzzword of self-help, psychology, and all sorts of material and immaterial things in life. But mindfulness is – at its core – active conscious awareness, in the now.

That awareness is about your inner being, your self. It’s conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions.

Through mindfulness, you can take control of how you respond to the constancy of change in the Universe. You can also change what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and what actions you do or don’t take.

This can appear daunting. And it begs the question – Must you be mindful all the time?

The beauty of impermanence

Must you be mindful all the time? Short answer – no.

But the why is worth examining. And it’s this – because nobody can be mindful (nor anything else) all the time.

Not long ago, I wrote an article about impermanence and how positive and empowering it can be. But in summation – impermanence as a concept is recognition and acknowledgment of the constancy of change and that nothing is permanent.

No people, places, or things are permanent. Whether the object in question is 100 years old or 1,000,000 years old – it’s impermanent. It will cease to be sooner or later,

What makes this beautiful, to me, is that any and all bad, unwanted, and unpleasant things are not here for good. They’re impermanent and can and will change.

When it comes to things in life negatively impacting you, there might be few options available. You may or may not be able to walk away, cut a person or thing off, or otherwise externally remove yourself.

But internally – whatever you are going through, enduring, or enjoying, your states of being also are impermanent.

This is a primary reason why you can’t be mindful all the time.

Nobody is mindful all the time

Nobody is any given state all the time. There’s nobody who’s always happy, always angry, always this, that, or the other thing. States change constantly because change is the only universal constant.

This is, frankly, a really good thing. That’s because when you’re having a bad day, nothing is going as planned, and you’re feeling miserable and lost – it will (eventually) change.

Mindfulness can and will help these things along. But nobody can be mindful all the time. And that’s because nobody can be anything all the time.

Everyone needs a break now and then. Sometimes, you just need to not be wholly present. There are times when working by rote and routine on autopilot keeps unnecessary and unwanted thinky-thoughts at bay. Sometimes it’s good to just go with the flow and not actively, consciously be aware.

Your body does the vast majority of its work subconsciously or unconsciously. For example, your heart beats, neurons fire, and muscles follow those impulses to move as you command them – without any conscious effort. You breathe whether conscious of it or not.

However – mindfulness of your breathing opens you to controlling it. You can breathe deeper, from the diaphragm, and with intent for calm, balance, centering, and the like.

But it’s unnecessary to do that all the time.

Photo by Kevin Ku on UnsplashIt’s okay (and normal) to not be mindful all the time

When I write about positivity every week, I emphasize the difference between genuine positivity and toxic positivity.

Toxic positivity ignores, disregards, and actively rejects negativity. But because you can’t ignore, disregard, and actively reject negativity in life – that’s why it’s toxic.

Other elements of self-help along this line will shame you – sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly, occasionally unintentionally, and sometimes passive-aggressively – when you fail at mindfulness, positivity, and the like.

You might be made to feel as though it’s wrong and not normal to fail at mindfulness, positivity, conscious reality creation, and so on. Whether that’s done intentionally or not doesn’t matter. Because it’s just not true. It is normal and okay to be imperfect.

Perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Situations will arise – frankly, shit will happen – when you will be incapable of active, conscious awareness. Some pain – tangible or intangible – demands withdrawal from conscious awareness. Certain happenings are – at least initially – easier to work with/deal with by rote, routine, and subconsciousness.

You are not a bad person, bad at self-care, or in any way wrong when you are not mindful all the time. It’s okay, and normal.

But here’s a last, important thought for your consideration.

Forgive yourself

I am the most critical and judgmental person when it comes to me. Nobody else is as harsh, unkind, unempathetic, or as mean as I am when it comes to all that I am or intend to be.

I’m my harshest critic and most ardent taskmaster. Frankly – I’m quite the asshole towards myself.

Thus, when I get shit wrong, screw things up, or otherwise fail – I can be extremely judgmental and unforgiving.

Everyone I know with an inner monologue has mentioned similar experiences with this.

Here’s the thing – would you accept this from someone else? If somebody else were that unkind, cruel, and critical of you – how would that make you feel?

I’m going to venture a guess and say pretty lousy. I wouldn’t accept that kind of shit from anyone else.

So why do I accept it from myself?

This is why it’s incredibly important – and empowering – to forgive yourself.

Here’s the thing my friend – you, me, and everyone else is perfectly imperfect. Sure, there might be – likely is – room for improvement. But you won’t get it right all the time. Because nothing whatsoever is all the time, ever.

Thus, when you fuck up – and you will – after any initial, visceral, negative reaction – consciously, mindfully, forgive yourself.

Why? Because you’re human. Thus, you’re going to get it wrong. Nobody is anything all the time, including right, wrong, good, bad, smart, stupid, and so on.

When you recognize and acknowledge this truth – you can see why you are both worthy and deserving of forgiveness. Because you’re worthy and deserving of kindness, compassion, and empathy.

No path is perfect or unchanging. It’s okay and normal to not be mindful all the time.

How does the normalcy of this make you think and feel?

This is the six-hundred and fourth (604) 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.

Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info then click the sign-up button to the right and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

The post It’s Okay (And Normal) Not to Be Mindful All the Time appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Do You Face Your Fears or Live Life Afraid?

This is always a choice. And the choice is always yours.Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash

About the only certainty in life is uncertainty.

No matter what and how you plan, no matter what you prepare – the uncertain might well get in your way.

That’s because the one and only constant in the universe is change. And most change is utterly outside of your control.

This is where – I believe – almost every fear you and I face is based. After years of analysis, observation, and life experience, I’ve come to believe that the biggest fear of all is uncertainty.

But not simply the fear of uncertainty. Uncertainty is the root, the core. The real fear is the fear of suffering that might or might not happen.

Nobody likes to be in pain. There’s nobody I know who likes discomfort or any type of suffering – whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or any combination therein.

To that end, some people will go to great lengths to avoid any and all suffering.

Hence, to a greater or lesser degree – they live life afraid. And the fear they face is largely intangible, and not the thing they’re truly afraid of; It’s suffering as a result of the given occurrence that they fear.

Nobody – and I mean nobody – lives life without fear. And that’s not a bad thing. A little fear can cause you to think before you leap, speak, or do something that might go poorly.

Suffering is no fun. But like it or not – it’s part of being human.

Suffering conceptually misunderstood

The first tenet of Buddhism – the first of the Four Noble Truths – is that “There is suffering.” A regular translation of this statement is that “Life is suffering.” Many take this at face value – which is rather unappealing.

But when you stop to analyze the idea that “there is suffering”, you can see a different perspective. This is simply a statement of fact.

Face it – shit happens. The unexpected, random happenstance, consequences, circumstances, and more, will occur. They are outside of your control.

More than that, however, is the overall realization of the occurrence of suffering. To all intents and purposes, the First Noble Truth could be translated as “Shit happens.”

Recognizing this is one thing. Acknowledging is another.

You can recognize something, and then ignore it, disregard it, avoid it, and so on. Acknowledging it means facing and addressing it to one degree or another.

This matters in this instance because whether you believe in Buddhism or not – this statement is true. Shit happens. That’s life.

Some people face the fear of shit happening, and live life passively recognizing and acknowledging it. But some people are afraid of shit happening, and live life actively recognizing it and avoiding it.

Hence the choice – face your fears or live life afraid?

Living life afraid

The following might be controversial and make me unpopular. But I feel it needs to be written anyhow.

Being afraid is a choice. Avoiding what you’re afraid of is a choice. Keeping away from possible suffering is a choice.

I know a lot of people these days talking about triggers. I’m not disregarding that things trigger people due to PTSD, longtime abuse, and other factors in life. However – avoiding triggers leaves them as triggers for you.

This is the part that will upset people. Triggers are things you’re afraid of. Quite possibly for good reason, admittedly. But as long as you recognize them – but don’t acknowledge them – they’ll remain a trigger.

Maybe that’s unfair of me. But from personal experience, I’ve suffered traumatic things. I could still be triggered as a result of that. But I’ve made a different choice.

I face the fear and chose not to live life afraid.

I got hit by a car crossing a street. Just thinking about crossing a street could be triggering, right? I could spend my whole life afraid of crossing the street ever again.

With more caution than I had at the time – I cross streets regularly. I do not let possible fear of suffering – again – resulting from crossing the street stop me.

Fear is. Being afraid is a choice. Hence, living life afraid is a choice.

This might require therapy, and/or a lot of work – but you can choose what to do with it.

Or you can live life afraid.

Photo by Aaron Thomas on UnsplashTangible versus intangible and fear

In ancient times, fear was tangible. Fear kept our prehistoric ancestors from getting eaten by predators, falling off cliffs, drowning in unfathomably deep waters, and the like.

But once human beings tamed the land, domesticated animals, and created tools that allowed us to overpower the predators – fear shifted from tangible to intangible.

Hence, most of the fears that people have are intangible. They’re tied not to physical health, but instead to mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing.

Most of that fear revolves around uncertainty. Or put another way – shit happening.

Then, to add one more layer to this – it’s not the shit happening you’re truly afraid of. It’s the suffering that might or might not result from it.

Society has become deeply comfortable. Most of the world lives in this way – and if you’re reading this, you are, too. What’s more, you’re frequently being sold things that will add to or increase your comfort and lessen any potential suffering.

Fear is a powerful tool. Some use it very intentionally – with malice of forethought – to try to control you. Others use it more passively – maybe not even intentionally – to persuade, cajole, and maneuver you to do, have, or be something.

Either way – ours has become a fear-based society. When you stop to look at this, it’s easy to recognize.

But acknowledging it is a whole other matter.

It’s all about choice

Face your fears or live life afraid? The choice is yours to make.

To face any fear, you need to first recognize it. Once recognized, you must acknowledge it. Ignoring it, disregarding it, and/or pretending it’s not there closes you off from choosing to do anything with or about it.

Once you recognize and acknowledge any given fears, there are tons of tools you can use to deal with them. The best starting point is via active conscious awareness. Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is active conscious awareness here and now. It’s asking and answering questions to yourself about what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and/or aren’t doing.

That active conscious awareness in the now empowers you to take control. Then you can make choices and decisions to face fear, to face uncertainty, to take on your triggers, to have, be, and do just about anything you can imagine.

Does that sound like a superpower? That’s because it kind of is.

There is just one caveat to all of this. You can ONLY do this for you and your life.

You can make no choices or decisions for anyone else and their life – the only exception being children too young to reason or anyone in your care unable to care for themselves. Otherwise – you cannot choose anything for anyone other than you.

This is a matter not of selfishness, arrogance, or ego – but of kindness, compassion, and self-awareness. And you are worthy and deserving of being empowered thusly.

Recognizing the choice inherent in fear versus being afraid 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 shit happens that you cannot control – and suffering might result – you can choose to face your fears or live life afraid. Knowing that fear is unavoidable, but being afraid is a choice, you can use active conscious awareness – mindfulness – to take control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions to face your fears and not live your life afraid.

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 to open 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’re 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.

Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-ninety-third 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.

Please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter. Fill in the info and click the submit button to the right and receive a free eBook.

The post Do You Face Your Fears or Live Life Afraid? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Getting Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

This is a new and fascinating challenge.Photo by Prometheus on Unsplash

Walking my own talk isn’t easy.

Despite being a champion for mindfulness, conscious reality creation, and sharing my Pathwalking philosophy every week – I’m not always good at practicing what I share.

There are all sorts of reasons behind this. Please note – I am making no excuses here. This is an honest evaluation of how I don’t always walk my talk.

I can be easily distracted. I know ADHD is a serious problem, and I have never been diagnosed as such. But I refer to my issue as ADOS – Attention Deficit Ooooooooooo, Shiny!

For example – I’ve now interrupted working on this post to watch the new trailer for Ashoka – 3 times. Like, wow am I excited for this new Star Wars show. But – distraction.

Staying on task is an issue. Another is that I lose track of time scrolling through social media, pausing to check email, and other pointless, wasteful taxes on my focus.

Then – I allow myself to get caught up in the hype for things like Prime Days – hey, I can save money and/or get credit if I be a good consumer and buy – what? Is there something I genuinely need currently, or do I just want to buy because of the hype?

The point of this is that I am not as mindful of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions as I should be. Or more specifically – as I desire to be. Because who makes the rules about “should” and “shouldn’t” when it comes to me and my life choices?

That would be me.

So how do I address this and improve my work?

Recognize and acknowledge the heart of the matter

Do you like being comfortable? Soft clothing, a good temperature to the air, a full belly, or anything else that feels – tangibly or intangibly – comfortable?

I know I do. And while the tangible is sometimes easy to quantify, it’s the intangibles that deserve more consideration.

What does that even mean? Intangibles cannot be seen. They just are. And they are usually impressions and attitudes constructed by thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

In this instance, the attitude/impression I am recognizing is comfort.

Not in the sense of being cozy and literally comfortable – but in the sense of familiarity and perceived stability. This is how it is, has been, and is being. Why change it?

The trouble is – comfort and comfort zones – are a misnomer. It’s more familiarity, presumed stability, and understanding than comfort itself. There’s a sense of stable comfort born of feeling like you shouldn’t rock the boat, lest you cause discomfort.

Which is, again, not about being uncomfortable. The reality is that this is about being uncertain.

Stability and familiarity are in many ways the opposites of uncertainty. But as they get tied to comfort, uncertainty of the unknown is tied to being uncomfortable.

Recognizing that this comfort zone is the issue is the first step to addressing it. The second is to acknowledge it.

Recognition and acknowledgment are not the same. I can recognize something – then walk away from it, ignore it, or just outright pretend it’s not there.

Acknowledgment means addressing it. You open yourself to change and empower yourself that way.

Thus, I need to acknowledge my “comfort” and then release it to get uncomfortable.

What does getting uncomfortable mean?

The answer will vary from person to person. My comfort zone is not yours. What makes me uncomfortable might not even impact your shields. And vice versa.

For me, getting uncomfortable takes several forms. Among them are these:

I need to be more mindful of my eating. This isn’t about diet. This is about stopping myself when I’m nearly – but not quite – full. This will be literally uncomfortable. But necessary.

Instead of sticking with Amazon alone for self-publishing my books, I’m starting to expand to a wider distribution and other eBook retail options. This is not comfortable because I’m on unfamiliar ground here.

Working more on expanding my writing career as my main job is simply uncomfortable. The pay isn’t steady (yet), and there are no guarantees.

But that’s the truth of everything. Life is impermanent. Change is the only constant in the Universe. No matter how comfortable, familiar, or stable something is – it won’t remain so forever.

Getting uncomfortable is about working with the impermanence of life and rolling with change. It’s being intentionally unsettled and not entirely comfortable.

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is all about being better able to improvise and work with change.

This doesn’t mean accepting change, however.

Photo by Markus Spiske on UnsplashChange and how you work with it

Again, change is the only constant in the Universe. As such, it can, will, and does occur all the time.

Sometimes it’s blindingly fast, other times glacially slow.

Change can be ignored, neglected, accepted, and resisted. But it can’t be changed back nor undone. At least, not in the way most people would like it to be.

Change is progress. You can’t raise a mountain that falls – but you can decide what to do with what remains. Clean it up? Use it to build something new? Leave it as a field of debris? Some other option?

What you can’t do is change it back. And that’s the biggest issue with change. There is no going back, redoing, or undoing.

What you can do is make new choices and decisions in response to – and in light of – change. You can decide if you will resist it, accept it, fight against it – or create something new from there and make another change.

That’s where getting uncomfortable comes in. It’s knowing that change is full of uncertainty and accepting that for what it is.

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

This is essential to me walking my talk. If I am going to choose a path in this life that’s not the norm, I must recognize it won’t be entirely comfortable.

Rather than retreat, allow distractions to get in my way, and not get my work done – it’s time to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

It’s not a wholly literal idea, and I know that. But it’s a necessary part of active, consciously aware, mindful change.

If I desire to be empowered and in control of my life experience – it’s necessary to be uncomfortable in this way.

But there is one more final, important matter to address. Forgiveness.

The hardest person to forgive is yourself.

I’m not perfect, and I don’t always walk my talk. But that’s okay – so long as I recognize, acknowledge it, and strive to do better with it.

Yet I must also forgive myself for screwing up. Perfectly imperfect is utterly human. And that’s me.

Recognizing and acknowledging what I must do, it’s on me to go forward and act accordingly. And be kind, gentle, and compassionate with myself while balancing that with being uncomfortable as written above, too. I won’t always get it right and must forgive myself for that and start again.

Tedious? Maybe. But this is me taking control of my conscious awareness and striving to live as fully as I can every day. That’s my ultimate goal – and worth a little discomfort.

Do you need to be more comfortable with getting uncomfortable?

This is the six-hundred and third (603) 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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The post Getting Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What’s More Powerful – Compliments or Criticism?

The answer is much simpler than most tend to make it.Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

When you do something – doesn’t matter what it is – how do you prefer it be received? Would you rather be complimented for it – or criticized?

I’m going to presume your answer is the same as mine: complimented.

How does it seem to be so easy for people to forget this?

Why do I say people forget this? Because I think if more people paused to think about – and what they’d prefer – they’d be a lot less critical than they are.

Then, maybe, since they likely prefer to get complimented – perhaps they will give more compliments.

Is it really that simple?

Search your thoughts, feelings, and intentions

Do you like to feel put upon? Judged? Shamed? Berated? Belittled? Do you like being dressed down, unfairly compared to others, and treated like a screw-up?

Again, I’m going to hazard a guess here and say no. No, you don’t like/want/desire/prefer any of the above.

Read the comments on virtually any post on social media and you’ll see criticism, judgment, and shame. People shoot things down, rob you of joy, lessen victories, and generally criticize way more frequently than compliment.

Why? Maybe it’s a product of the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency worldview that the pundits are always on about. Perhaps it’s advertising and its promises of ways out of that same worldview – if you just buy the product or service (that you likely don’t genuinely need). And maybe some people are just mean, spiteful, and cruel by nature.

Chances are it’s a combination of all of these. But whatever it is – people online, especially, have come to criticize with great frequency and vehemence.

And it’s all too easy to join right in. Even more so when presented with people, places, and things to be critical of.

But is this what you desire to receive for yourself? When you are consciously aware – mindful – of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions, do you desire criticism? Or would you rather receive compliments and praise?

Given that – for the most part – criticism feels bad and compliments feel good – I prefer compliments.

Why is it so hard to give compliments?

Maybe it’s hard to give compliments because for many people it’s hard to receive compliments.

The simple act of saying “Nice job!” can go a long, long way toward building good relationships and respect. These two complimentary words make you feel good when you hear them.

But they can also make you feel awkward. What if it was a team effort? What if you’re not fond of the spotlight? Do you feel like you’re neither worthy nor deserving of compliments? If any of these are applicable, then you might feel awkward when you receive compliments.

But it still feels good, doesn’t it? Being told the work you do or have done is valued is a really good feeling.

But that doesn’t lessen how it might be an awkward feeling. And more so, perhaps, because as a society, we’ve gotten better at giving and getting criticized rather than complimented.

Photo by Adam Ford on UnsplashMindfulness and choices

When you stop and think about it – would you prefer compliments or criticisms? If compliments – you can work with that to give more.

Like gratitude, the more you give the more you get. Choosing to give more compliments tends to get you more compliments.

This is not an arrogant or egotistical thing. Everyone is worthy and deserving of being complimented. And via mindfulness, you can choose to give compliments rather than criticisms.

The first step is to recognize and acknowledge if you are criticizing or complimenting. If the former, choose to stop. If the latter – keep at it.

That’s not to say that there aren’t times when constructive criticism should be neglected. But the difference between constructive criticism and criticism is intent. If you offer nothing to build on – that’s just criticism. Constructive criticism offers complementary ideas with it.

You can always choose to give compliments. And before you criticize – especially online – think about how you would feel on the receiving end. If the answer is bad – then choose to give good instead.

This means being consciously aware – here and now – of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. But with this awareness, you gain active mindfulness. That can be employed to lift people up rather than tear them down.

So, what’s more powerful – compliments or criticism? Whichever you, yourself, prefer to receive.

Recognizing the power of compliments 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 compliments are something you prefer to receive over criticism – you can choose to give more to others, and actively avoid providing criticism as well. Knowing that it tends to feel bad to be criticized but good to be complimented, you can account for that when you choose whether to be critical or complimentary towards others.

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 to open 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’re 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.

Don’t you think that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share?

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-ninety-second 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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The post What’s More Powerful – Compliments or Criticism? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.