M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 31

Why is Disconnecting From Toxic People So Difficult?

Maybe because some of those toxic people are friends and family.Photo by Jules D. on Unsplash

Towards the end of 2022, I removed myself from Twitter. There was already far too much toxicity there for my liking, and when Mr. Musk decided to let Trump and several other assholes back on the platform, I removed myself and my support from it.

I was only on Twitter mostly to promote my writing work. I don’t miss it or the toxicity of it.

This week, my wife departed from Facebook. Citing increased toxicity and the need to not be constantly bombarded by it – she chose to cut the cord. There was no fanfare, no big post explaining her impending departure (or the attention-getting post to cause people to beg her to stay) – she just stopped, cold turkey, and disconnected.

I fully support this – and were it not for my work needs for social media – I’d consider doing it, too. While it’s nice to stay in touch with and maintain connections with faraway friends – the toxic people across Facebook and other social media are becoming increasingly difficult to disconnect from.

And it’s even hard when they are friends.

I have to wonder if these people know they’re toxic. My guess is that they don’t. But between the needs of some to always be right; the desperate need to be seen and validated by others; and the complaining about policies, other people, and various things without offering alternatives or solutions – it quickly becomes overwhelming.

The choices this leaves you to make are not easy.

The impact of the disconnect

If anybody noticed my departure from Twitter, they never mentioned it. But I suspect that’s because my engagement overall was limited and largely in the interest of promoting and sharing my writing.

My wife’s departure from Facebook instantly drew attention. I think that’s because, unlike Twitter, Facebook has Messenger – and the option for at-the-moment communications. Mutual friends, concerned, reached out to me to question my wife’s suddenly non-existent account.

Again, I fully support her decision. And she reported, after only 1 day disconnected, that she was feeling lighter and less put upon. The toxicity wasn’t poisoning her anymore. Those she still actively desires to be in contact with know the alternative ways to reach her.

I applaud her bravery. Because in many ways, I’d like to leave the toxic people of Facebook behind, too.

Yes, along the way, some people might be upset by her departure. Others might take offense and treat her differently in other social circumstances.

But then, those who are toxic either won’t notice – or their disconnect will additionally validate my wife’s choice to leave them behind.

The impact you have on toxic people and others from the disconnect isn’t what’s important. What is important is the impact this has on you.

Toxic people poison us

I read an article recently where the author gave a rather stark explanation about how our culture – if you can call it culture – is utterly toxic. Full to overflowing of stealthy and not-so-stealthy fascists, narcissists, demagogues, and others admired for – well, frankly, toxicity.

A great deal of this is a result of social media. The relative anonymity of online personas – where all you get is a typed-out statement lacking in the nuances of gestures and tone – has emboldened people to spew intentionally and unintentionally toxic things.

The social justice warrior calls out everyone – even allies – on their imperfections. That lonely friend puts up posts to be reassured of their worth and get constant validation. The underpaid worker shares their complaints and memes about the awfulness of the system with zero alternatives or solutions offered.

It’s all too easy to scroll through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and be overwhelmed by toxic people. Before you know it, you’re wasting your time, doomscrolling, feeling bad, and wondering if anything is worth it. These toxic people poison you into believing in lack, scarcity, and insufficiency which isn’t true.

And this is hardest to reconcile when they are friends and family.

The choice – tell them or step back from them

Multiple people I call friend have gotten increasingly toxic in the past 5 years.

Sure, you can blame the pandemic for this – but the reality is that the pandemic just gave their toxic nature purchase.

Rather than seek options to effect useful change, they spew toxic complaints, concerns, cries for validation, and the like. They’re angry, upset, terrified, and almost impossible to approach.

You can only walk on eggshells around someone for so long before the eggshells get cracked.

Thus, you have a choice. Tell them, or step back from them.

This isn’t an easy choice. Even friends and family, when they’re being toxic people, will be resistant to being told they need to reevaluate. If you confront them about their toxic behaviors, they may double down, lash out, and make you feel awful.

But if you love and care about them, you might feel that you need to do what you can to help them recognize their toxicity. But the price you might pay is that they choose to cut you off. It’ll sting – in part because you didn’t choose it – but it removes toxic people that have been negatively impacting you.

Sometimes, it’s just easier to step back from them. Like quitting smoking, the cold turkey approach is best. When you decide the toxic people in your life are poisoning you and making you sick – slowly removing them means you’re still being poisoned by them and their toxic behaviors.

There will be consequences. And you will probably be called selfish. But the opinions of others about you and what you do are not what make you, you. Self-awareness is what makes you, you. And that’s a choice to be mindful of who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on UnsplashYou can’t detoxify toxic people

This is the hardest reality to accept. There is nothing you can do to detoxify toxic people.

Whether you point out their toxicity to them or walk away from them – if they’re unwilling to look within and recognize their toxic behaviors, you can’t make them recognize them. Neither can you do anything about it for them.

If you do choose to show them the ways they are being toxic, be prepared to be rejected. Chances are, they will not appreciate you telling them anything – and they might even lash out at you with an even larger dose of poison. But unless they recognize, acknowledge, and then seek to change their toxic behavior, you can’t do jack shit to detoxify toxic people.

You can tell them you are leaving and why in the hope that your departure will inform them of their toxic nature – and then cause them to desire to change it. But that’s not without risk of hurting your already broken relationship.

Or you can just disconnect – and maybe, if they notice, tell them why more abstractly, if at all, when they question it (if they do).

Should you disconnect from them?

I love my friends and family. They mean something to me, and I desire nothing more than to help them be as amazing as I believe they are or can be.

But nobody is immune to poison forever. Eventually, it will begin to hurt you, particularly if you are dosed with it again and again and again. And the poison from toxic people often builds so slowly in your system that you don’t even notice it until you’re sick.

Sick how? Angry, feeling frequently negative, losing hope, and otherwise seeing only the bad, lack, scarcity, and such. You don’t know how you got so upset about that thing – but you are. Why? Because you’ve been poisoned by the subconscious absorption of toxicity from toxic people.

Disconnecting from toxic people will come with pain. I won’t lie to you about that. But the truth is, you need to care for yourself because nobody but you is in your head, heart, and soul. Toxic people poisoning you disempowers you.

And that’s why disconnecting from them is often the cure for toxic people. But you need to weigh the pain versus the relief that will come from a disconnection.

While I know first-hand that cold turkey is the best disconnect, I also know for my business, I can’t remove myself from social media.

But I can limit my time there and replace the action of going scrolling through Facebook or Instagram with something else. Such as standing and walking away from my desk, playing a game on my phone, playing with one of my cats, or some other action that is better for my mental health.

You ultimately determine how toxic people impact you – if at all

You alone know if you should disconnect from toxic people in your life, and how to do it. While it won’t be easy, per se, the benefit to your health, wellness, and wellbeing should be of greater import to you than connections to others. Even those you care about and love.

Finally, know this – disconnecting from toxic people won’t leave you abandoned and alone in the world. It’s even possible that your disconnection from them – with or without explanation – might wake them up to their toxicity. But given the only person you can control is you – why not choose your health, wellness, and wellbeing? It’s not selfish to practice self-care.

You are worthy and deserving of living your life without being frequently poisoned by toxic people – intentional or unintentional as they might be.

Will you choose to disconnect from people – toxic or otherwise – for the good of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing?

This is the five-hundred and seventy-seventh exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using 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 Why is Disconnecting From Toxic People So Difficult? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why You Don’t Need to Love Yourself but DO Need to Like Yourself

It’s because you are always with yourself, all the time. But that’s just the start.Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

Nobody is ever, truly, alone.

Why? Because no matter where you go, there you are. Or in other words – you always have yourself.

Here’s the thing – your entire life, you have yourself. That means that you have all that you are, good, bad, and otherwise, always with you.

For many people, that’s disconcerting. You have yourself – but isn’t that a lonely proposition? If you only have yourself, what does that mean?

You don’t only have yourself. You always have yourself. Yes, you will change along the way, and who you were before is not who you are now nor who you will be. But no matter how much time passes or what happens along the way – you’ll always have you.

That’s why you should learn to like yourself.

Why? Simple – how do you feel about spending time with people you dislike? I would rather not. Do you prefer to be with people you like? I do.

Since you are with yourself all the time – you need to like yourself. When you like you, it makes being with yourself – which you always are – pleasurable rather than a chore or otherwise less than pleasant.

No matter what you’ve experienced along the way, you are ultimately likable.

Self-like, like self-love, is not selfish

Let’s cross one of the biggest hurdles with this notion. It is not selfish to like yourself.

There is a big, big difference between you liking yourself and narcissism, arrogance, conceit, egoism, and the like.

Self-like is a product of self-respect and self-care. You be yourself and work on being the best you that you can be. That means you don’t lack compassion, kindness, caring, or empathy for others.

But you do actively work on liking yourself.

It’s all too easy for you to not like who, what, where, how, and why you are. Tons of messages in advertising tell you that you’re imperfect, lacking, insufficient, unworthy, and the like. You don’t do enough of ‘x’, use enough of ‘y’, and so on.

When you are subconsciously bombarded with those messages – and not actively working to be self-aware – they sink in and cause you to be less kind to yourself. They also show you all the bad and none of the good in who you are.

Between diet programs, gym memberships, designer clothing, and the like, it’s easy to see numerous places you need to be, have, and do more. Lots of lack that eventually translates to reasons not to like yourself.

But it is in no way, shape, or form selfish of you to work on liking yourself. Because you are always with you, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Another important element of learning to like yourself is that it can be massively empowering.

The empowerment when you like yourself

Because you are always with yourself, and spending the whole time you occupy that body with you, doesn’t it make sense that you like yourself?

Of course, it does. And when you learn to like yourself you become more empowered to be, have, and do the things you desire to.

How does liking yourself empower you? Because when you like yourself you are better able to connect with your mindset/headspace/psyche inner being. Which is your conscious self.

When you are more aware of your conscious awareness, you’re in a better position to use mindfulness to control what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and any actions you take. That, ultimately, empowers you.

Why like yourself? Because you are the only you that there is. You’re the only you that will ever be. And the reality of this fact is that you’re amazing.

Everyone has bad days. We all go through shit. But through it all, we’re all incredible miracles of life. You are special because you are you, in the here and now. And worthy and deserving of being liked not only by others – but by yourself.

Unless you have bad intent and actively, knowingly hurt and/or harm others, you’re a good person. That in and of itself makes you worthy of being liked. I know that can be hard to see and process – but it’s the truth.

Why? Because you have the power to be anything you genuinely desire to be. If that wasn’t true, you would never have started to read this in the first place.

You have all the power and empowerment as such.

When you like yourself – you show others how to like you, too.

Photo by Drop the Label Movement on UnsplashYou’re not just likable, but lovable

When you learn to like yourself, it becomes easier to learn to love yourself.

Here’s the thing – we, as a society, are too stuck on ideals of romantic love. These notions of soul mates, twin flames, and other ideals of falling in love with someone.

But love is bigger than that. Love is the sun in trees, the dew on the grass, and life itself. Love is a powerful force of creativity that is akin to the Force – but without a dark side.

That’s one of the great lies. Love can’t hurt you. Love, like gratitude, is not something that can cause hurt or harm. But often, in the guise of love, people will be harmful in mental, emotional, and physical ways.

But if you can’t wrap your head around this – and there’s nothing wrong with you if you can’t – take it a step back. Focus on liking yourself rather than loving yourself. See your worth as someone to hang out with, spend time with, and enjoy overall.

If you can’t – how can you change it? Because you can change it. Why? Because you alone are in your head, heart, and soul. If you don’t like who or what you find you have all the power in the universe to change.

That begins with mindfulness – conscious awareness – of you. You can choose to change anything about your inner being that you’re not so fond of. And if you can’t do that alone – seek help. Therapy; a trusted confidant; a book, blog, or podcast on the element you desire to change; any combination or all of the above.

You can change your inner being. And unless you actively, knowingly – and with malice of forethought – hurt and/or harm others – you’re a good, worthy, and deserving person. Not just likable but loveable.

Doing what it takes to like yourself isn’t hard

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

When you accept that you are always with you – all the time – you can choose to change elements of yourself that you are not fond of. Knowing that you are in control of your mindset/headspace/psyche self, and the only person who occupies your head, heart, and soul, you can see why it’s good and useful to like yourself. And you’re worthy and deserving of being liked by all, yourself included.

This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Then that can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.

Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, 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 positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their empowerment.

To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-sixty-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 Why You Don’t Need to Love Yourself but DO Need to Like Yourself appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is It Normal To Question The Path That You’ve Chosen to Take?

It is not just normal to question the path, but necessary.Photo by Dale Nibbe on Unsplash

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, I had an opportunity present itself to me.

I was in the position to pursue the path I most desired to take.

That was writing full-time. This excited me. So, I redoubled my efforts. That led to me publishing 3 books in 2020.

An idea sparked a new direction for my writing. Rather than writing by the seat of my pants (i.e., writing as a Pantser), I did a bunch of worldbuilding. I also created an outline, even going so far as to break down the chapters in each book (i.e., writing as a Planner). That which I had long feared would interfere with my creativity increased it.

Thus, by the end of 2021, I had written and published 6 more books.

I continued to plot, plan, and write more books. I completed one series by planning the final book, plotted out 4 more books for an existing series, and 6 books for a new series. Then I proceeded to start writing them.

Despite having a total of a dozen sci-fi, fantasy, and Steampunk novels self-published – sales have been less than I’d desired. A lot less. As in, I realized that I’ve spent more on editing and book covers than sales have covered. So much more, that I was unable to send any of the books I’ve finished to an editor or cover artist and published nothing new in 2022.

This harsh reality has caused me to question the path I’m on. A path I’ve believed was the one I should be on for a long time.

Hence why I ask – is it normal to question the path you’ve chosen to take?

What’s normal?

Normal, like beauty and perfection, is in the eye of the beholder.

Seriously, what is normal? Is it going to an office every day, sitting in a cubicle, being present from 8:30 to 5, then repeating that 5 days a week? Is it a home life with a spouse, 2 kids, and a dog? Might normal be spending weekends doing chores, watching sports, and paying bills?

The answer is both yes and no.

Eight billion people are living on this planet. Normal for Americans is not the same as normal for the people of Europe or Asia. What’s normal for a coastal service-industry office worker isn’t normal for the midwestern automobile assembly line worker. Normal is as subjective and different as all of us human beings are.

Not everyone actively chooses a path in life. And sometimes, the choice is passive, and other times subconscious. Still other times, no choice is made, and you go with whatever comes your way.

Thus, normal is indefinable. Because normal for me won’t be normal for you.

One of the best ways to learn anything at all is to ask questions. This is true of paths available to you. Or not. But if you don’t ask questions, you don’t learn anything. So how can you know if your path is still working for you – or not – if you don’t question it?

Question the path

Nobody has just one singular path in life.

Or maybe, more specifically, there’s no one way to travel in life. Perhaps you have a “destiny” or similar thing you believe you’re here to do. But how you do it isn’t set in stone.

Nothing in life is set in stone. That’s why, even if you are thoroughly certain of the path you’re on, it’s still wise to question the path.

Why? Because maybe it’s not as satisfying as you thought it would be. Maybe it’s not who you are supposed to be or what you should be doing. Are you in the here and now, fully aware of “what is”? Or are you trapped looking forward to the always-in-motion future, or backward to who you were in the past?

Whatever the case might be, it’s normal to question the path. That’s because the path shifts, moves, evolves, and changes.

You might think you’re on the path – but somehow the path shifted out from under your feet. That happens. You have pretty much zero control over the one and only constant in the Universe.

That’s change. And you and I have NO control over it at all. But it always happens – whether glacially slow or disturbingly swift.

Change happens. Thus, you need to question the path for surety.

Photo by Werner Sevenster on UnsplashWhat if it’s not the right path?

Let’s face it. Yesterday’s right path is tomorrow’s wrong path.

For example, you could be in a relationship that’s on the path to marriage and children. But then, maybe you get dumped, or your significant other passes away – and with that, the path dissipates.

You can’t do jack shit about this. It can and will happen. And, yes, it sucks when it does.

Choosing a path means you have opted to be mindful of who, what, where, how, and why you are. That mindfulness lets you choose what you desire to do with your life experience actively.

But because of the nature of change and its constancy, it’s healthy to question the path. Any path. Because you might find that adjustments are necessary.

I’m working to find new and better ways to promote my books to sell more. Meanwhile, I’m also seeking alternate income sources so that I can pay my bills AND get some edits and book covers done.

This means that my path is shifting. But when I question the path, I find that I still believe in the path. But I also see that I need to be more flexible and make some adjustments to address matters in the present that can’t be ignored.

Is it possible that this is not the right path for me? Anything is possible. But my love of writing doesn’t abate. Whether it’s fiction or these blog essays – writing brings me joy.

It normal to question the path

In as much as there is ever a normal, it’s normal to question the path you’re on.

Even if you find it’s still working just fine and there’s no need to change anything – asking the question hurts nothing. What’s more, it keeps you better able to handle change when it occurs, make new choices and decisions, and be more capable of rolling with the punches when the unexpected happens.

An unquestioned path is a dangerous one. Why? Because that’s what leads to zealotry, closed-mindedness, and believing in demagogues who tell you what you want to hear but don’t care in the least about you. The unquestioned path will cease to be one you would choose without you even realizing it. And then you’ve ceded what you have every right to control in life.

Questions and being awake or “woke” to life lead to more freedom, not less. They open more doors, not fewer. And they help you decide who, what, where, how, why, and all that you desire to be.

That’s why it’s not just normal to question the path, but necessary.

Have you questioned the paths you’ve chosen while traversing them?

This is the five-hundred and seventy-sixth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using 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 Is It Normal To Question The Path That You’ve Chosen to Take? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Do You Do When You Feel Like You Can’t Win?

When you feel like you can’t win you always have options.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The past couple of weeks have not been good.

I got COVID. Even though I took lots of precautions and was as vaccinated and boosted as possible – I still got sick. However – it was no worse than a cold, and there seem to be no lingering effects. Vaccines work – thank you, science.

Right on top of that, my mother-in-law had to be hospitalized. Without oversharing, she’s doing better now – but there remains a lot of recovery ongoing and work for my wife and sister-in-law to come.

My wife spent a week at her mom’s place so that I could isolate myself. We missed doing our usual Christmas stuff between COVID and her mom’s hospitalization, and nearly missed New Year’s. I tested negative, she finally came home – feeling like garbage. And now she has tested positive for COVID.

To add to this, when taking a detailed look at book sales and earnings from writing, I learned I’m earning close enough to nothing to need to consider a new approach.

This is a lose-lose situation, right?

Here I am, at the start of a new year, feeling like I can’t win. I can let that sink in, feel bad about it and myself, and sink into a nice, deep, downward-spiraling depression.

Or I can choose something else.

What do you do when you feel like you can’t win?

The first thing to do is get clarity

Clarity begins by looking at your situation and circumstances with a neutral eye.

What does that mean? It means stepping outside of the situation and seeing it for what it is. Not what you think it is or how it’s affecting you – but what it really, truly, actually, is.

For example – let’s just disregard and ignore the feeling that you can’t win. It might or might not be true – but that’s utterly subjective. Let’s look instead at reality.

I had COVID. Keyword – HAD. I have since recovered and tested negative. And, even though my wife has it now, after a lot of research, it looks like I should be most likely immune. Just to be safe, I’ll consult with my doctor’s office.

My mother-in-law is recovering. Full recovery is going to take time, but all signs point to her recovering.

My writing isn’t earning what I would like it to be. So, I can choose to take new approaches to marketing it – or give up.

Finally – there is nothing WHATSOEVER I can do about my wife having COVID, my mother-in-law’s hospitalization, or my disappointing book sale numbers. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All I can do is be here for them however they need me and keep writing or not.

Lose-lose? If I choose to view it from that perspective, looking towards the negative – then yes. But it’s a choice. I choose to see this as a you can’t win situation – or not.

When I’m clear on what I have control over – all of which, spoiler alert, is my inner mindset/headspace/psyche self – the situation as it is becomes clear. Not as I think it might be (i.e. I can’t win) but as it genuinely is.  

With that clarity, I can make informed choices for what to do now.

You feel like you can’t win – but is it true?

In her brilliant Loving What Is, Byron Katies explores what she calls The Work. This involves asking 4 questions, here and now, to identify what is – versus what you might believe is – and turnarounds for the things you are questioning.

The first question is – IS IT TRUE? The answer is either yes or no. If you need an explanation to justify it – you’re not providing a true answer related to what is.

Is it true that I can’t win? No. It might feel that way – but the truth is that this is depression, sadness, frustration, and other emotions expressing themselves. In the face of elements that are – COVID, my mother-in-law’s hospitalized, and my low book sale numbers – win or lose is nothing but a perspective I assign. All three of these things just ARE – or, what is.

This is part of why feelings are so damned complicated. It’s bad enough that there’s both a what and how attached to feelings. But they tend to defy logic, rationality, and reason. Because of that – they can make us believe that things are worse than what is.

As I’ve written before – positivity and negativity aren’t opposite sides of a coin. Rather, it’s a cylinder – and a flexible one at that. You and I exist somewhere between those extremes. From where we are on the cylinder between them, we choose which way to face all the time.

Yes, it sucks that I had COVID, my wife now has COVID, my mother-in-law is still in the hospital, and my book sales are low. But by accepting what is – rather than assigning the idea that you feel like you can’t win – you choose whether to face the positive or negative end of the flexible cylinder.

Photo by Louis Hansel on UnsplashThe next thing to do is choose your perspective

This is a choice. You are on the flexible cylinder between positivity and negativity. You get to choose which direction to face.

It’s also possible to choose neither. But even facing out and not towards one direction or the other – you’ll likely lean in a direction subconsciously. Which means you cede the control that’s rightfully yours.

Hence why it’s best to choose your perspective. Because that empowers you.

If you feel like you can’t win – that’s going to take root in your mindset/headspace/psyche self. That, in turn, will connect to your subconscious mind. Before long, you’re going to feel bad.

Yes, that might look like an oversimplification. That doesn’t lessen the truth of it. Feeling like you can’t win is a feeling in your control.

How do you control it? Via mindfulness. Specifically, you need to ask

What am I feeling?How am I feeling?

And just for good measure,

What am I thinking?What are my intentions?

These questions can only be answered in the present, here and now. The answers will put your conscious awareness in the driver’s seat – giving you control.

This is a matter of active versus passive action. Choosing to be consciously aware via mindfulness is active. And that opens the way for you to take control.

Hence why, when you feel like you can’t win, you always have options.

Seeing what truly is when you feel like you can’t win isn’t hard

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

When you recognize that feeling like you can’t win is a perspective that’s not truly aligned with what is – you have numerous options to alter that. Knowing that you can choose to face the positive or negative, you can decide to employ conscious awareness – mindfulness – to take control over what you’re feeling and change it as needs be.

This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Then that can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.

Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, 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 positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their empowerment.

To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-sixty-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 What Do You Do When You Feel Like You Can’t Win? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Do You Do When Your Path Isn’t What You Think It Is?

It’s your path – you can choose to reclaim it when you lose it.

Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

It doesn’t matter what paths you choose in life. I don’t think they ever go as intended.

Why? Because life is full of uncertainty, situations, and circumstances way outside of your control.

For example, I knew the plans we had around Christmas for months now. I was all set to carry them out. Everything was in place and set to go as of the Wednesday before Sunday’s Christmas.

Then it all fell apart.

One case of mild COVID and the necessary isolation, alongside a random, utterly unexpected hospitalization of another family member later – the plans were shot to hell. Nobody could do a damned thing to control, plan for, or otherwise have expected this. The previously clear, known path was gone, erased, and utterly unclear.

I’ve taken all the precautions, had all the vaccinations and boosters, wear a mask on most shopping trips – and I still got COVID. Fortunately, a very mild case of it – probably because I’m vaccinated and boosted.

This path over the past week hasn’t been what I thought it was. Despite my plans and expectations, what IS is something different.

What do you do when your path isn’t what you thought it is?

Be here now with what is

I’ve just finished reading Byron Katie’s Loving What Is. And let me tell you – it’s an eye-opener is what it is.

Her idea – called The Work – is all about letting go of the false narratives you believe about your life, the people in it, your stories, and pretty much everything else about the way reality works.

I think The Work, applied, perfectly ties to Einstein’s quote,

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

The reality of illusion is based on what you know, believe, and value. That, in turn, is colored by your education, environment, life experiences, family, friends, circumstances, and everything else you take in consciously or subconsciously.

Ergo, my reality is a different illusion from your reality.

How you believe reality to be, isn’t necessarily what is. That’s Katie’s point. What is can be frequently disconnected from what you think it is.

Likewise, the path you choose to follow in life is based on the same stories you believe that form reality. As such, the path can slip away from you because it’s surprisingly easy to lose sight of what truly is.

What does that mean? What is, right here and now, simply is. No ifs, ands, or buts. The questions of what is are yes and no questions. For example – did my plans for Christmas go as plotted? Answering with either “No, but” or “Yes, but” isn’t what is. “No” is the simple, what is, answer.

Any hesitation or added but, except, however, or the like tagged to the answer means you’re not here, now, with what is.

Photo by Alexey Taktarov on UnsplashYour path must be adaptable

Long ago, when I first started to learn the fundamentals of melee combat (teams on teams), one of – if not the first – rules is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

What does that mean? In combat, that means that any plan you make is contingent on the opposition doing something expected. If we go left, they’ll go left and open their flank, for example.

If you stick to that assumption – and instead they move right before you can go left, the plan hasn’t survived contact with the enemy.

Hence why flexible plans that can be altered on the fly and are simple tend to be the best. The more complicated a plan the more points of failure it has that the opposition can exploit.

That’s life, too. We had all the plans in place for Christmas – and then they were derailed. The path was not as anticipated. Everything changed because it had to.

Random happenstance, unexpected circumstances, and unanticipated things happen all the time. Nobody plans to get cancer, lose a job, get dumped, get into a car accident, or the like. But it happens anyhow. And then your path isn’t what you thought it is.

Hence why your path should be adaptable.

How? Two things. First – be here, now, and enjoy the journey as it happens. Often the occurrences along the way on a journey can lead to interesting, unexpected places. You might gain something cool you wouldn’t have found had you just blindly focused ahead and ignored the journey itself.

Secondly – know that there is never One True Way. Getting from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’ isn’t a solitary, one-of-a-kind straight path. Because life itself is never a single, solitary, one-of-a-kind straight path.

Being adaptable helps you work with this.

Your path and what is

As we depart 2022, and I move into the eleventh year of Pathwalking, I’m striving to work more with what is, rather than my story of the illusion of reality.

What the hell does that mean? It means that I am working to be clearer about what really, truly, is. Not what I think is or the story I believe about what is – but what is.

When you are more here, now, and attuned with what is – you suffer a lot less. There’s more peace, more calm, and you’re more centered. From that place of balance, you can better see paths from where you are – and what is – to where you desire to be.

I’m finding more and more that life is only complicated and difficult if that’s the story I tell. What’s more, there only control I have is of myself. Specifically, via mindfulness, I control my conscious awareness. That control tells me who, what, where, how, and why I am.

To gain conscious awareness, I need to know what I’m thinking, what and how I’m feeling, what my intentions are, and why I take any actions I choose to take. That mindfulness is the control available to you, too.

When you are here, now, and living in what is, you can adjust your path. When you find that your path isn’t what you think it is – you have the power to change it as necessary.

My New Years’ Action for 2023 is to do The Work more regularly, learn to love what is and what that means, and keep creating, sharing, and doing.

What does your path look like now and going forward in 2023?

This is the five-hundred and seventy-fifth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using 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 What Do You Do When Your Path Isn’t What You Think It Is? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

When Life Sucks, What Do You Do?

Even when life sucks, YOU choose what you do with it.

Photo by Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau on Unsplash

Christmas 2022 has come and gone. And this was a truly, spectacularly lousy holiday for me. It sucked. Lots.

First, yes, I acknowledge that I’m whining. But I have a point to make and you need the context.

It began Wednesday night when, for the first time in years, I felt a cold or something coming on. The next morning, I felt majorly off and unwell, took a COVID test – and it was negative. But I felt progressively worse all day and had a fever that night. Friday morning, I took another COVID test – and it was positive. Christmas weekend – with COVID. Delightful.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. No, it sucks much worse. My wife got a call Thursday morning that her mom was taken to the hospital. She packed up a few things and went the 2 hours north to take care of her mentally challenged aunt, who had been staying with her mom.

FYI – every Christmas is spent with my mother-in-law and family at her place. We have a large meal, open gifts, and are there with each other.

They found a problem that they are working on resolving – but my mother-in-law is still in the hospital. What happens next is utterly unknown – so we’re all in limbo with this.

And my wife is still up there at her mom’s place. Fortunately, my wife has remained COVID-free, and I’m isolating.

But we have spent this holiday apart. First time since we got together 11 years ago.

And so, it all sucks

What do you do when it all sucks?

Lament or live

It would be very, very easy to lament what’s going on. I love my mother-in-law – and it’s very upsetting that she’s unwell. My wife’s family is very tight-knit, and this is hard on everyone.

COVID sucks. However, I did all the vaccinations and boosters I could – and apart from one night with a fever, it’s mostly been the equivalent of a nasty cold or sinus infection. I’m breathing fine, never lost my sense of taste, and I suspect I’ll be back to my normal self in a few more days.

Still, I could go on and on about how much all of this sucks. I could lament multiple potential, unknown futures resulting from all of this. I could wallow in the total suckage of this situation – and let it pull me down into a depression.

Or I can live. I can accept that this sucks, it’s not fair or fun, but it is. And since lamenting it will just make me feel worse, I suppose I can choose to live and keep on keeping on.

How? Mindfulness, of course. I can be here, consciously aware, right now – and live. Or I can lament all that’s come to pass and potential, uncertain futures that may or may not be.

I don’t about you, but the logical choice, to me, is to live.

But given the emotions involved, sadness, loneliness, annoyance, anger, and other negative feelings – not lamenting feels challenging.

And that is why this is a choice.

Sometimes life sucks

That’s the truth of it. Sometimes, life sucks. Shit happens. People get unexpectedly ill. You get sick. Relationships end. Jobs are lost. Friends become dumpster fires. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it.

If you’re like me, that doesn’t sit well with you. Why can’t you do a damned thing about it? Because it’s not within your control.

Do you like to be in control? I do. Do you like to direct your life experiences to desired outcomes? I suspect that, for the most part, you do. And that’s the hardest thing of all to accept – no control.

But apart from you – specifically your inner being and thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – you have no other control. Just that seemingly limited amount.

However – that’s actually quite a lot of control. Why? Because it’s really, truly, all about you.

Most, if not all, of the things that make life suck are not in your control. And that’s why life sucks sometimes.

I didn’t ask for COVID. My mother-in-law didn’t ask to be hospitalized at Christmas. My wife didn’t ask to be responsible for her aunt. Yet here we all are.

When you recognize and acknowledge that you have no control – you get to choose what to do next. Lament or live? Complain or accept? Fight or flee? Your reactions are yours to control in the face of whatever sucks in your life right now.

Photo by Amin Hasani on UnsplashChoose negativity, neutrality, or positivity

Rather than be miserable and lament my situation – I’m writing. We got a new kitchen gadget I’ve set up for us to use. And I’ve made a plan for deep cleaning the apartment when I test negative for COVID again.

I’ve chosen positivity in the face of suckage. I also recognize that as much as this all sucks – it could be far, far worse. And I’m grateful that it’s not.

Maybe how life sucks for you isn’t going to give way to positivity. That’s fair. But given that positive and negative are opposite ends of the flexible cylinder you live life upon, which way you face is a choice you can make. And at the least – face neither and recenter. Choose a neutral stance upon the flexible cylinder of life between the positive and negative extremes. Just make a choice.

Of course, you could choose negativity. Lament what sucks, express how much woe it causes, and allow your feelings to spiral downwards. No matter how you might feel about this, it is a choice.

There is no wrong choice. But all choices have results, consequences, and other outcomes when made. But choice in the face of suckage is a matter of taking control via your conscious awareness of your life experience. As opposed to yielding control to unseen forces of the Universe.

What do you do when it all sucks? The choices are yours to make.

Choosing what to do when life sucks isn’t hard

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

When you recognize that you have no control over anything that makes life suck, you get to decide how to react and what to do with that knowledge. Knowing that it’s about things over which you have no control, you get to choose to focus on something positive, negative, or neutral, and work with that and whatever the circumstances of the experience are from there.

This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their own empowerment.

To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-sixty-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 When Life Sucks, What Do You Do? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Much Can You Trust Your Gut Instincts?

Trusting gut instincts depends on mindfulness here and now.

Photo by Jake Young on Unsplash

Thought and feeling can be easy to define when you’re mindful. Conscious awareness, here and now, lets you know what you’re thinking and what and how you’re feeling.

But what about gut instinct? And how is that defined?

For me, gut instinct goes deeper than thought or feeling – and is a combination of both. It’s a certain, instinctual awareness that exists somewhere deep within. I can’t explain in words how it feels, but it’s like an in-depth knowledge of how my thoughts and feelings blend into certain knowledge that simply is.

It’s also something only recognizable in a present mindset. Conscious awareness of active thoughts, feelings, and intentions can put you in touch with gut instinct. But if you’re not aware of your mindset/headspace/psyche conscious self, you can’t know your instinctual self.

There’ve been arguments that humans lack instincts other animals have. I disagree. We’re just so focused on controlling and dominating our environments, we lose sight of our inherent instincts.

And then, just to make this that much harder, trusting our gut instincts can be a very questionable process.

You’ve likely experienced this in your life. I have, and recently. And that’s why I’d like to share this with you.

Allow me to elaborate.

Too good to be true

Last week, someone claiming to be an HR representative of a major company reached out to me via email. They claimed that my LinkedIn profile had caught their eye, and as such, I’d be perfect for a job they were looking to fill.

FYI – the first gut warning was here. They had my name very wrong in the email.

We went back and forth with a few more emails, and then they shared the job description. And it was very nearly a perfect job for me – including an amazing salary.

We set up an interview via MS Teams. It was – unusual. And the whole thing wasn’t a video chat, but a typed chat.

All this was on a Friday.

This led to an offer for another interview with the Head of the department I would be part of. FYI – the second gut warning was here. The interview was happening on a Saturday.

The interview was via a bad mobile phone connection – and the interviewer had a sometimes challenging accent. And here came my third gut warning – he didn’t ask me questions I would expect from someone qualifying me for a job. He largely rehashed my previous interview answers.

Then he offered me the job. Awesome, sure. But with my gut instincts giving 3 warnings, I was skeptical.

I awaited the paperwork and similar info. When the direct deposit paperwork arrived – it didn’t look at all like what I expect from a corporation.

AND – also of interest, the job they were offering me is not listed on the job board they use (I did due diligence here).

My gut instincts screamed at me that this was too good to be true. There’s sufficient evidence to prove that, too.

Good thing I didn’t send the direct deposit form back, right?

Photo by Tyler Nix on UnsplashGut instincts are warnings

I am not 100% convinced that my gut instincts are correct, here. There are, however, 2 other nails in the coffin. The first being the over-eager HR person has gone silent, and the other is that my references weren’t contacted. Yeah, at this level, and in this type of organization, and at this pay rate – references are contacted.

There’s a Russian proverb apropos to this – and handling gut instincts overall:

“Trust, but verify.”

Based on my homework and various empirical and circumstantial evidence – it appears I can verify that these specific gut instincts regarding this job are trustworthy.

That’s unfortunate. But – I’d rather that than have fallen prey to this scam and given them access to my bank account (and who knows what else by providing them with my social security number).

My gut instincts gave me warnings. And rather than ignore them – I remained skeptical and wary of my situation. And used mindfulness to investigate.

There’s another excellent example of using gut instincts from The Fifth Agreement by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz. That’s the fifth agreement itself.

“Be skeptical, but learn to listen.”

When it comes to gut instincts, it’s wise to be skeptical BUT learn to listen. Because your gut will only sound a warning. You must engage conscious awareness, here and now, to observe and work with whatever you’re being presented with.

Gut instincts awaken mindfulness

Trusting gut instincts depends on mindfulness here and now.

The gut will tell you nothing about the past. Why? Because it’s already come and gone.

Likewise, the gut can’t tell you about the future. Why? Because it’s unwritten and uncertain as such.

However, when you are consciously aware – mindful – here and now, your gut instinct can help you discern a present situation that might have a future impact.

For example – had I not listened to my gut and filled out that sketchy direct deposit form – I’d probably be looking at an unexpectedly empty bank account, debts created with my name and SSN, and who knows how many other problems?

Being present, here and now, I made a more informed choice – which my gut instincts opened the way to.

While I am disappointed that this potentially amazing situation turned out to be false – I’m grateful that I was mindful enough to save myself a whole lot of grief. And that came from listening to my gut instincts and mindfully investigating the warnings they provided.

You have the same power to mindfully use gut instincts in your life experience.

Have you followed or ignored your gut instincts?

This is the five-hundred and seventy-fourth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using 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 How Much Can You Trust Your Gut Instincts? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What’s So Great About Accepting So Little Control?

It’s empowering when you accept what control you DO have.

Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash

The only thing over which you and I have control is ourselves.

Even then, there are limits to what you can and do control.

All of them are internal. Sure, there are externals that you can direct – but control is not the case. You can change your body shape, eye color, hair length and color, what you wear, and maybe a couple of other elements of yourself. That’s pretty much the extent of your external control.

Internally, you control yourself. But that’s not always obvious, and it requires conscious awareness to be controlled. Because when you aren’t consciously aware – and in the now – your habits, beliefs, values, and subconscious/egoic self are behind the wheel.

Before I get into the subconscious/ego further, let’s consider what you do control via conscious awareness. It’s your mindset/headspace/psyche self – and that’s via active control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Do you know what else you can control? Nothing. That’s it. You have only control over what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, the intentions you have, and the actions you do or don’t take.

That’s not much, it is? What if I told you that accepting so little control is actually incredibly freeing and empowering?

Less is more

There are 8 billion people in this world. Can you imagine having to control another person other than yourself? How about multiple persons among those 8 billion? That’s pretty overwhelming.

What if you could control the weather? How about other drivers on the road? What about controlling the sunrise and sunset? And – this would be in addition to your own self-control.

It would be a lot. And maybe you could do it once – but constantly? All the days of your life? You’d probably lose your mind.

Besides – how often do you truly assert control over what you do control? How often do you practice mindfulness, and via your conscious awareness take control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions? Chances are, you don’t assume that as often as you could.

Most of us get focused on things happening in the world around us. You see the news about the war in Ukraine, ongoing insane partisan politics, billionaires being incredibly selfish, and other things far outside your control. It’s easy to get distracted by these outside pictures.

But then you dial it in closer to home, but still with a focus on things you can’t control. The poor choices of friends, family, and coworkers; spouses and partners doing questionable things; and people in your life and the things they have going on in general. It’s easy to get distracted by these outside pictures, too.

No matter what you do – you have zero control over these matters. None whatsoever. Goose egg. Nil points.

Recognizing and acknowledging this – why would you try to take any control of it whatsoever? Since you can’t – why be bothered?

Probably because you want to show that you care. That’s great – until your efforts to control these things leave you with no fuel for yourself.

Taking control of what you can control is empowering

What if – rather than focus on the things outside of yourself that are likewise outside of your control – you turn it inwards? What if you focus on what you can and do control instead?

How does this work? It starts with conscious awareness. This is mindfulness and only works in the present, here and now.

To do this you begin by asking questions like,

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

These are questions that can only be genuinely answered here and now.

Once you have those answers, you gain control of your mindset/headspace/psyche self. This means you gain control of your present life experiences.

And if you don’t like the answers – you’re empowered to take that control and change them.

It doesn’t always seem like you can change your thoughts and feelings. But why not? Whose are they? Yours. And only yours. Which means you, and only you, can change them.

I don’t know about you – but to me, that looks like a ton of control that’s super empowering.

Photo by Courtney Corlew on UnsplashNot as little as you might think

Who else but you is in your head, heart, or soul? Nobody else, that’s who.

If that’s so, then can you be in someone else’s head, heart, or soul? No, you can’t.

You can impact someone, inspire them, annoy them, and otherwise get into their consciousness – but not their conscious awareness. That’s for them alone. And the same is true for you and me.

When you stop trying to control things outside of yourself – it’s deeply freeing. You stop worrying needlessly about people, places, and things you have no power over. That tax on your time and energy ceases to be.

Does that mean you stop caring? No. You can still care about people, places, and things outside of yourself. But when you cede control of them – or attempts to take it – you can care without smothering, wasting time and energy on something you have no impact on, and care in the most genuine and legitimate ways that you can.

What’s more, when you have control over your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, you manage your life experience. You can make new choices and decisions for yourself that can open the way to greater care for others.

The other thing is this – you don’t just get control and then have it for good. Change being the one and only constant in the universe – what it takes to assume control changes. Thus, it’s an ongoing process to get and take that power – even over your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

A note about the subconscious mind and ego

Your subconscious mind is where your habits, beliefs, and values live. Often, they were created and embedded in your subconscious when you were unaware. You might not even recognize them for what they are and how they impact you until you take control of them.

Your ego is a construct created like a bridge between your subconscious and conscious mind. Your ego is both how you project yourself outwards to the world and reflect inwards when you don’t consciously assume control with mindfulness. Thus, your ego will often have been created to show elements of who you were rather than who you are.

What’s more, your ego is protecting you from harm – but often in a way that’s causing harm. That’s because the ego tends to be resistant to change.

Mindfulness and conscious awareness – via taking control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – removes the ego from behind the wheel and lets you take charge.

Who should drive your life? You from years ago, someone else, or you as you are here and now? The control to do the driving is yours for the taking – and ultimately, it’s empowering when you accept what power you do have and take it.

Recognizing the little control you do have isn’t hard

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

When you recognize that you have control over very little in the world – and that’s mostly your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – you gain a degree of freedom like nothing you’ve experienced before. Knowing that taking charge of your conscious awareness reduces tension and stress from trying to control other people, places, and things, you open yourself to controlling your life experience for your betterment.

This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their own empowerment.

To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-sixty-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 What’s So Great About Accepting So Little Control? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Are the Best Intentions Sometimes Not Enough to Avoid Conflict?

Your best Intentions are great – until they meet reality.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Everybody makes mistakes.

Some are big, some small. Most can be forgiven to one degree or another.

When it comes to our intentions, it’s very easy to screw up. When you have no intent on causing hurt or harm – and then do – that’s a pain point.

To quote playwright Oscar Wilde,

“It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done.”

More than once, I did something with the best intentions to spare someone’s feelings, to avoid causing them distress or hurt, and/or to lessen anxiety or such. And though my intentions were good – I still caused hurt.

You’ve likely made a similar mistake. As far as I can tell, most people have. You intended to do something – and it completely backfired or came out the wrong way. Rather than not hurting someone – you did.

Does that make you a bad person? No. It just makes you human.

How do your best intentions fail you?

No plan survives contact with the enemy

When I started melee combat in medieval fencing – that’s team combat akin to warfare – one of the first rules I learned was that no plan survives contact with the enemy,

What does that mean? Let’s say you plan to attack the enemy head-on. The plan doesn’t anticipate what the enemy will do, however. It expects them to just be there and take it. But what if they split their force and attempt to flank you? Your plan has not survived contact with the enemy – since keeping the head-on attack will get you nowhere.

In other words – you control yourself, and only you. What the other person or people in the equation do is not something in your control. Thus, expecting them to react in one way – when they react completely differently – leads to unintended consequences.

I have no ability whatsoever to choose anything for your and your life experience. I have no control over what you think, what and how you feel, your intentions, or your actions. Likewise, you have no control over mine or anyone else’s but your own, either.

Hence, best intentions might be all well and good – until they meet the facts. The reality of the situation presents unknowns, the unpredictable, and other variables that nothing you can plan for will stand up against.

That which you were doing to avoid causing stress, harm, anxiety, or whatever else now causes not just what you were trying to avoid – but worse.

Because now you must account for the flaws in your best intentions.

The best intentions might not be best

Let me share an example of this sort of thing.

I was in a polyamorous relationship. I started to see someone new in addition to an existing secondary relationship. Said existing secondary relationship and her primary expressed interest in seeing the first someone new I mentioned above.

Yeah, a little complex, but stay with me. Because I had known that my secondary wouldn’t be comfortable that I was seeing that someone new, I delayed telling her. Why? To spare her feelings. It wasn’t going to come up for a while – except my secondary and her partner were now interested in my new person – and it was necessary to tell my secondary about the new person.

Did I choose poorly? Yes. But I had the best intentions. Suffice it to say – that didn’t matter, and I screwed up.

Yes, you can probably analyze all that I did here – and tell me that my best intentions were foolish on my part. That it would have been better to just be forthright with my secondary at the start. And you’re not wrong about that. But I can’t unring that bell.

However, I can learn a lesson from this experience. And from that lesson – consider if my best intentions are going to avoid a conflict – or might lead to a worse situation, and cause undesirable hurt.

Photo by Harli Marten on UnsplashSometimes it does work out

Once in a while, the plan works exactly as intended. And your best intentions lead exactly where you desired them to lead.

But you can’t count on this. It’s not too different from flipping a coin – at best, it’s a 50/50 chance. Even a partial success resulting from your best intentions can have consequences – like lessened trust between you and another, unintended third-party involvement, and increased anxiety for you to experience.

One important point of clarity – best intentions are not about lying. This is kind of a grey area, where you are not telling a lie, but rather taking a circuitous route. Possibly avoiding someone, something, a conversation, or something else. Maybe hedging on something in a way you believe will prevent pain and/or suffering.

You still will go from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ – but rather than take the direct route, you take one that also passes points ‘C’, ‘D’, and maybe ‘Q’.

Outright lies are selfish. They have nothing to do with best intentions – no matter what you might tell yourself. Lies are not a part of this notion of best intentions – where you are trying to spare someone’s feelings in some way or other. Lies spare only your feelings.

What do best intentions have to do with Pathwalking?

When you choose your life path, you will inadvertently hurt other people. Not intentionally – but when you are choosing what’s best for you and your life experience – others will not see it that way.

When you say no to things you might have said yes to before, when you set boundaries where you didn’t, or you stop being accommodating for your own good – that will be seen as selfish. Self-absorbed. Potentially even as unkind and uncaring.

This can cause you to choose best intentions at times to spare the feelings of others whom you care about. Which is all well and good – save that often, that doesn’t avoid conflict.

And what’s more, the other issue is this – if you are mindfully choosing a path to walk, it’s imperative that you be as genuine and true to yourself as possible. Likewise – that should apply to those you care about, too.

You are not meant to live life for the benefit of anyone else. Yes, if you are a parent, you must consider your children in all you do. If you share your life with a spouse, parent, or any other of import – it’s necessary to consider them, too. But this is still your life – and you get to choose what that looks like when all is said and done.

Mindfulness includes intentions, along with thoughts, feelings, and actions. But this is about intentions for yourself. That’s because you can only control your intentions and how they align with your thoughts, feelings, and actions. That’s Pathwalking 101.

You are worthy and deserving of choosing paths for your life. But be mindful that you will impact others, and sometimes best intentions will cause conflict you’re trying to avoid.

Have your best intentions ever backfired on you? What did you learn from that?

This is the five-hundred and seventy-third exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using 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 Are the Best Intentions Sometimes Not Enough to Avoid Conflict? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Will the Truth Truly Set You Free?

I believe that the truth sets you free. But what IS the truth?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Long ago, I came to this notion: There are three brands of truth. Mine, yours, and the absolute.

The truth, as I perceive it, is colored by my life experiences, education, environment, associations, and the imperfection of memory. Just because I remember something having been a certain way doesn’t make it so. But the truth, as I believe it to be – no matter the topic – is colored thus.

The truth, as you perceive it. is colored by your life experiences, education, environment, associations, and the imperfection of memory. Just because you remember something having been a certain way doesn’t make it so. But the truth, as you believe it to be – no matter the topic – is colored thus.

The absolute can be totally hidden and unrecognizable. That’s because, apart from here and now, memory is faulty and colored by the above-mentioned things. It’s for this reason that people can believe in things that are proven to be untrue in the absolute – like the Earth being flat, vaccines containing microchips, evolution being unprovable, and the like.

So, if the absolute of is such a challenge to recognize – how can it set you free?

By recognizing the fluidity of truth, and that what you cling to might not be.

Also – sometimes the truth is not important in the long run. That knowledge also sets you free.

When the truth is less important

Many an argument is over whose truth is right.

I’ve had many arguments that were all about trying to prove myself right. It doesn’t matter what the argument was over or who it was with – it was all about my attempt to prove that I was right, and they were wrong.

Or in other words – to prove my truth was right and theirs was wrong.

But a huge part of the problem with these arguments is that meeting in the middle can be challenging. And sometimes impossible. Because there are plenty of times when the absolute variation of the truth is nowhere near where you or I are at.

That’s part of the problem when it comes to the truth. My truth might be ‘x’, yours might be ‘y’. But the absolute is ‘q’.

Sometimes getting to the absolute truth isn’t worth it. Why? Because in the long run, it doesn’t matter. You fight so hard to be right and legitimize your truth that you lose sight of much more important matters.

What’s more – unless the other person cares to change, desires to change, or wants to change – they won’t. Now I’m not saying that if they’re expressing their ignorance on a given matter you shouldn’t point out where and how they’re wrong. But know recognize and acknowledge – for yourself – when the truth is not the point.

Usually, this is around interpersonal relationships. When you stand against those you love for the sake of your truth – which might or might not be different from the absolute – you foment conflict that can hurt both of you.

And only you know if it’s worth it or not when all’s said and done.

The worthiness of fighting for a truth isn’t a direct reflection of your worth, however.

You are worth it even if it’s not

There are definitely times it’s worth sticking to and fighting for your truth.

You, and only you, know who, what, how, where, and why you are. Ultimately, only you can ever know that. No matter how much you let others in – you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul.

If you are defending your identity via your truth – then that’s worthy of you. For example, if you were born male but identify as female, that’s a truth worth fighting for.

When you’re fighting for something unimportant, or just for the sake of being right or winning an argument – is it really of value to you? For example – if you’re arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes – and you’re certain you’re right that it’s not yours – is it all that important for you to win this argument?

Your mental health, wellness, and wellbeing are the most important things you have. Yet it never ceases to amaze me how often they get neglected, taken for granted, or given away.

When you are running on empty, you limit what you can give. What’s more, it’s a lot easier to wind up arguing about something that doesn’t truly matter. Petty things that are not important are easy to blow out of proportion.

And that is part of the truth. The truth that truth is subjective – surprisingly often – can set you free. How? Because you stop clinging to a notion of lesser import.

This is a matter of mindfulness, accountability, and responsibility.

Photo by Daniel Mingook Kim on UnsplashMindfulness is freedom

When you are mindful, you’re consciously aware. Conscious awareness is a product of the here and now. By being present, consciously aware here and now, you take control over your life experience.

That control empowers you. That empowerment shows you who, what, where, how, and why you are right here and now. And with that, you can choose what fights are worth your time and energy – and that truth ultimately sets you free.

When you’re accountable for your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, you choose what to pursue. Or not. So, you can decide if fighting for your truth versus theirs versus the absolute is of value and worth to you – or not.

After that, you can choose to be responsible, and state your peace and walk away, stand your ground and fight for your truth, or leave it be and move on. Or – because there is an or here – some combination of all the above.

Mindfulness, accountability, and responsibility for your truth – in light of theirs and the absolute – help you choose to face the positive or negative end of the given spectrum of whatever topic is up for debate. And that can be truly freeing, don’t you think?

Ergo – the truth, no matter if it’s mine, yours, or the absolute – truly can set you free.

Recognizing how the truth can set you free isn’t hard

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

When you recognize that the truth as you know it might or might not be aligned with the absolute, you gain insights as to whether it’s worth the time and effort to defend it. Knowing that the three brands of truth – mine, yours, and the absolute – can be worlds apart, you get to choose via mindfulness to stand with a truth, work with a truth, or walk away for the sake of your better health, wellness, and wellbeing.

This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their own empowerment.

To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the four hundred-and-sixty-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 Will the Truth Truly Set You Free? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.