M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 33

Can The Path You’re Taking Ever Be the Same Path Again?

Are we taking the same path we might have taken before?

Photo by Susanne Schwarz on Unsplash

There are nearly 8 billion people on this planet. Each and every one of us have our own paths to choose from in this life. At a minimum, that means there are 8 billion paths.

Given that we all have more than one path to choose from, that number is probably exponentially higher. There are more likely billions upon billions, if not trillions of paths to choose from.

Some people will start on a given path and then leave it for one reason or another. Maybe they leave by choice – maybe not.

But what happens if they return to that path? Is it the same path they might have taken before?

Short answer – no. But that answer offers zero explanation.

What’s more, there are a multitude of reasons why the path you’re taking will never be the same again – even if the fundamentals are similar.

Let’s explore why this is.

The only universal constant

There is only 1 constant in the whole Universe – and that is change.

Sometimes change happens so slowly, it doesn’t feel like anything happens at all. Other times, change is instantaneous. Good or bad, something changes and its impact is immediate.

Change can be personal and impersonal – sometimes simultaneously. But change is constant, unstoppable, and inevitable.

Why? The simplest answer is that on the grandest imaginable scales, the universe is expanding. Everything in the universe, from the largest galaxy to the tiniest subatomic particles, are drawn into that expansion.

Hence, change is always happening. We can’t see air flowing around us – unless pollen, dust, leaves, or the like are blowing around. But the invisible particles and molecules and all their constituent parts are in motion, too. Thus, the air you breathe at this moment changes from the air you breathe in the next.

Sure, they’re likely so closely similar that there’s no measurable, noticeable difference between them. But they have changed as part of the constancy of change.

How does this impact your path? Easy. Let’s say that 10 years ago, I started on a specific path toward a goal as a writer. Maybe I reached it, perhaps I abandoned it, or maybe I was forced off it for some reason out of my control.

Even if I have the same goal and start along that path again – it’s changed. Because during the 10 years that have passed, I’ve changed, circumstances have changed, and lots of other changes have happened.

Thus, even if my path is similar to one I’ve taken before, it’s not the same.

Change is the primary reason why the path is not and won’t be the same. But other factors might tie into it or be separate from change.

Similar path but not the same path

Related to change, there will be other alterations to a given, similar path.

Even if I succeeded on that path before – it’s not guaranteed that I will succeed again.

That’s because there are lots of factors related to change that will impact this similar path. My growth and life experiences, the people I associate with today that I didn’t before, a change of environment or location in my life, and similar factors can and will make this path different from one that might have been the same.

That can be deeply frustrating. But it’s also super empowering. That, too, is associated with change.

How I desired my life to look when I was 20 isn’t how I desired it to look when I was 30. Now, at 50, how I desire my life to look is very different from 20, 30, 40, and even nearer age 50.

That’s not just an agent of change. Desire shifts. How we’d like our lives to look and the things that turn us on and light us up will be different along the way.

True, this is part of change. But desire and drive can be constants in their own way. Change might not impact them.

For example, I desired to be a published author in my teens. I still hold that desire today.

Arguably, I’ve been on the path I’m on now before. But recognizing that it’s not the same path is empowering.

Why? Because that recognition gives me control.

Photo by Tara Scahill on UnsplashMindfulness of any path matters the most

The reason why acknowledging that the path we’re taking might be similar – but not the same – is to avoid pitfalls, obstacles, and detours that might surprise us.

Have you ever driven down the same road daily – and then either hit utterly unexpected traffic, an accident, a detour, a tree in the road, or the like? That path is similar to how it’s always been – but not the same. An adjustment or adaptation is necessary.

Even if the path you’re taking now is similar to one of the past – it’s not the same. Mindfulness of this makes you consciously aware and more capable of handling the unexpected.

Pathwalking is not as simple as choosing a clear open road and traversing it. I mean, maybe it can be once in a while. But overall, it’s not.

When you take a new but similar path to one you’ve taken before, recognizing and acknowledging that it’s not the same will make it easier to travel. That’s a product of mindfulness.

It’s also part of the necessary recognition that sometimes the path is of equal or even greater importance than the goal we intend to reach. Which is the last reason why the path might be similar but it’s not the same.

Have you ever walked down a road, and suddenly noticed a brightly colored house? Like, it might always have been that color, but you just didn’t notice it. Or perhaps it was painted recently. Either way – the path, though similar, is never the same again.

Don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone

New is likely to be at least somewhat uncomfortable.

People love to be comfortable. Our comfort zones are called comfort zones because they represent where we are content. They’re familiar. And leaving them – even with excitement – can be uncomfortable.

A known path, the notion of the same path, is comfortable. Recognizing and acknowledging that a similar path is not the same can help us overcome our fear of leaving our comfort zones. Even those built in the known paths of the past.

Change is a constant. Desire might be the same, but it will shift, too. You might be on a similar path to one you’ve taken before. But’s not and can’t be the same.

That’s empowering because who we are now is never who we were before. Elements might be unchanged – but it’s only who we are, here and now, that matters.

And it’s only in the present that we can mindfully choose any given path to take whatsoever.

You’re worthy and deserving of whatever path calls to you, new or similar to another.

Can the path we ever take be the same again? No. But that’s an incredible, empowering truth.

Can you see how today’s path you are walking might be similar – but is never the same as any previous path – and how that empowers you?

This is the five-hundred and sixty-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 Can The Path You’re Taking Ever Be the Same Path Again? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Life Is Always In Motion Whether We Choose It or It Chooses Us

We’re empowered to choose what our lives look like.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

It’s all too easy to feel despair.

Hell, lots of messages are being constantly screamed at us on TV, radio, social media, newspapers, and all other public fora intend to cause despair. Generally ludicrous, extreme, “or else” messages. Vote for that guy or else you will despair. Buy this product or else you will despair. Drive this car or else you will despair. Use this service or else you will despair.

Look familiar? This is part of the machine of our fear-based society. Coupled with all the distractions of our modern society, they’re intent on disempowering us.

How does that work? Rather than be mindful and thus consciously aware of life, we engage in the rote and routine of the subconscious. Distracted by the necessary and unnecessary of our culture and society, we are swayed to react to the despair being sold to us constantly.

I was not taught in any formal schooling I received how to be mindful of myself. Odds are, neither were you. Education has its place – but a great deal of it focuses on learning to be a cog in the machine of our society.

That’s not to say I didn’t have some incredible teachers during my school years that encouraged me to think above and beyond the lessons. I did. And because I loved school, and learning – I still choose to expand my knowledge. Keyword – choose.

So long as we live, life is always in motion. Every single day we choose to live it or let it live us.

But sometimes we don’t choose, too.

The three ways to exist

There are 3 ways to live this life. What’s more, all of us will vacillate between these three modes of existence.

Circumstances, happenstance, and the constant motion of life will push and pull us in different directions that shift us around these three ways to live life.

Let life live you. Rote, routine, subconscious living. You just go with the flow and let the routines carry you. General existence. This is largely neutral.Curl up in a ball and await death. Despair, depression, half-conscious living. You tend to see all as dark and dismal and suffer. Expectation of death and despair, literally and metaphorically. This is largely negative.Take the wheel and drive life. Conscious awareness, mindful living. You make choices and decisions and direct your routines. Seek to work with potential and possibilities. This is largely positive.

The truth is that we will flip between these at different points in our lives. Certain circumstances call for just generally exiting and letting life live you. Some happenstances cause the despair of curling up in a ball and awaiting a “death” – metaphoric or otherwise. But you always can choose to take the wheel at any time and drive your life.

It’s utterly normal to go through all three forms of the 3 ways to exist. The easiest is to let life live you. It requires little to no thought, minimal action, and provides occasional glimpses of the realization of our potential and possibilities.

But it’s not chosen. It just is. Life is still in motion.

Why choose to take the wheel?

I’m going to put a few harsh realities out here.

In our current bodies, we have approximately 80 years to experience life. Some will get more time, some less. During those 8 decades or so, you have 29,220 days.

We can look at this in one of three ways. There are 29,000+ days to merely exist, 29,000+ days of misery and despair, or 29,000+ days of potential and possibilities.

I don’t know about you, but of these three choices, the third is by far the most attractive. If I can choose 29,000+ opportunities for potential and possibility, that’s exciting.

The point is that it is a choice. One that you get to make a minimum of 29,000 times. Choose from these options twice on any given day, and now you get 58,440 times to choose. Four times a day, it becomes 116,880 times to choose.

I know that some people find that overwhelming. That’s a lot of choices. But you also choose if you allow it to overwhelm you or excite you.

Life is always in motion. Always. Even when we sleep, we’re still moving through life. All these opportunities constantly pop up for us.

When we choose to take the wheel, we’re choosing to use our mindfulness to take control of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. With that, we’re choosing to empower ourselves to find and/or create our lives how we desire them to be.

It often seems like there’s a catch to these choices. Yes, there is. But it’s not what you think it is.

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on UnsplashThe catch is a false narrative

At the start of this post, I got into the constant bombardment of messages of despair we all experience. An enormous part of our fear-based society is built on these messages.

By electing that asshole, buying the useless product, driving the overpriced car, and using the unnecessary service, we are led to believe we won’t despair. But then the asshole politician takes away your rights and doesn’t serve you in the least, the product you bought is just a distraction, the car constantly sucks your wallet dry, and the service serves only the person you bought it from.

Did the despair go away? Nope. It was worsened.

Empowerment and choosing to be consciously aware is going to pull you out of the cycle above. And that’s the price you will pay, that’s the catch to the choices you make.

Rather than join the masses and be a life lives you consumer, you’re doing the driving. And in so doing, you’re giving yourself permission to live life on your terms.

The catch is that when you choose this, some will call you selfish. People will think because you’re living more mindfully, you are being selfish, and not a productive part of society or doing what’s expected of you.

But this is a false narrative. Why? Because who but you is living in your body, your head, heart, and soul? Only you. And if you desire to control your life experience at all, the only thing you can control is how you choose to live in the motion of day-to-day life.

We experience all three ways to live life along the way

Even when you choose to take the wheel and drive, there will be days you let life live you. Similarly, there will be days when shit happens, and the pain of it causes you to desire to curl up in a ball and await death. But in the constant motion of life and the thousands upon thousands of choices you get to make – you get to choose what the majority looks like.

The empowerment that comes from conscious awareness and practicing mindfulness tends to face us towards the positive end of the flexible cylinder between the extremes. Life always being in motion, you always have a choice. Sure, sometimes it’s between bad and worse – but it’s still a choice. And so long as you draw breath and are alive, the motion of life will carry you – or you can take the wheel and drive it.

Conscious awareness is a product of the here and now. Take this moment to pause and reflect. What are you thinking? How and what are you feeling? What actions are you taking and what intent is behind them?

Knowledge of all the above gives us control over the one thing we can – our life experiences.

I know what I prefer to choose and how I desire to live my life the majority of the time. How about you?

To choose to take the wheel and drive the motion of your life isn’t hard

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

When we use conscious awareness to be mindful here and now, we give ourselves the power to take the wheel and choose to live life on our terms, rather than be driven by life or live in despair. Knowing that we have a finite amount of time – but are constantly in motion – we can choose to take the wheel and experience the vast potential and possibilities life has to offer all of us at any time.

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

Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.

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, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.

Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

This is the four hundred and fifty-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 Life Is Always In Motion Whether We Choose It or It Chooses Us appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do You Perceive and Handle Your Own Flaws and Imperfections?

Everyone is flawed and imperfect. Do you embrace or resist your flaws and imperfections?

The author’s imperfect leg

Nobody is perfect. And I mean NOBODY.

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, or anything else at all that you can think of – NOBODY IS PERFECT.

What’s more – perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. That which you might identify as perfect I might see as an imperfect, ridiculous mess. And vice versa.

Everyone has flaws and imperfections. Yes, everyone. All the nearly 8 billion people on this planet are flawed and imperfect.

Flaws and imperfections are utterly subjective. And most of the time, what we perceive as flawed and/or imperfect is a product solely of our unique, individual perspective.

It doesn’t help that society tends to imply or outright state that flaws and imperfections are undesirable. Or that they make you weak.

It takes something normal and natural and turns it into a mental health issue and a source of anxiety and depression.

Standards and norms are totally made-up BS

Everything that we identify as standard and normal is made-up bullshit.

Average body weight? Numbers practically pulled out of a hat that accounts for a very limited number of people. The same is true of average height, average income, and every indicator of “normal” you can think of. All of these are made-up bullshit.

What’s standard and normal? Who decides what these are? Sure, some government agency might have created a standard or normal for this, that, or the other thing. But if they hadn’t, it wouldn’t exist as a standard or norm.

Not counting weights and measures – also made up at one time or another – all standards and norms are made-up bullshit. Decided upon arbitrarily and accepted by one group or another as truth.

For a long time now, we’ve accepted a certain body type for men and women as the standard. Yet, in truth, no more than a single-digit percentage of people meet those standards. We’re all variable in our height-to-weight ratios, body fat, musculature, and more. Yet we do all kinds of things both good and bad to ourselves to meet standards and norms that are often nearly impossible to meet.

Or worse – after you meet them, they change.

Marilyn Monroe and Kate Moss were each considered a standard measure of beauty at different times. Their bodies are very, very different in lots of ways.

Hence why standards and norms are totally made-up bullshit. Yet we use them to identify our flaws and imperfections – be they material or immaterial.

And this can be utterly maddening.

Imperfect and flawed – so what?Your flaws and imperfections are yours

Nobody wants to have flaws or imperfections. Why? Because we’re frequently presented with messages that flaws and imperfections are undesirable. We’re told that they make us weak, make us unworthy, unlovable, unwelcome, and otherwise worthless.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Our flaws and imperfections are often a huge part of what makes us unique and amazing.

I’m only 5’6” – when I bother to stand up straight. Presently, I weigh a bit more than 250lbs. All my excess weight is in my gut – so I am an unusual shape. This doesn’t even cover my other imperfections from certain bone repairs and the titanium plates around my right clavicle.

Yes, for my overall health and wellbeing I’m working on getting into better shape. My weight needs to come down so I can avoid potential health problems as I age.

However, despite these flaws, I have a resting heart rate typically in the mid to low-60s. perfectly normal blood pressure, and better stamina and endurance than many who’re considered less flawed and imperfect – as well as considerably younger than me.

How do I handle my flaws and imperfections? I recognize and acknowledge them. Then, I work with, through, and even around them where I can.

Thus, I don’t allow my flaws and imperfections to derail my life or dictate who I should be. Sure, some I can and am working to change. But overall – I accept what’s mine and from there do what I can with it.

How do you do that?

Mindfulness of flaws and imperfections

Conscious awareness is a product of the here and now. To be consciously aware, you need to be mindful.

How? By knowing your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and related actions in the present. That is conscious awareness – and that is how you ultimately see yourself for yourself.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in the hoopla of normal, standard, and perfection. Everywhere we look we’re utterly flooded by messages to those ends.

When we are less mindful, our subconscious is driving us. That means we, like a sponge, absorb everything – even unwanted things.

When we practice mindfulness, we’re making a conscious choice. We’re deciding to be aware in the here-and-now of ourselves. From that awareness, ultimately, we gain greater awareness of all else around us.

Be careful, however, with this. It’s not about being mindful and consciously aware of the flaws and imperfections in others. Because that’s not for us to decide – since we can do nothing for anyone else and any flaws or imperfections we perceive.

Besides – who says what you see as flawed someone else doesn’t see as normal? Remember – it’s all subjective.

When we’re mindful of our own flaws and imperfections – we can decide how they impact us, if at all.

Remember, all standards and norms are wholly made-up BS. Flaws and imperfections are everywhere, and everyone has them.

Accepting this is the best way to handle our own.

And then, perhaps, from that, we can be less judgmental of others and their shortcomings, real or perceived. Within logic and reason, of course.

How you perceive and handle your flaws and imperfections will drive your life path – to the good, bad, or otherwise. The choice is yours.

How do you perceive and handle your own flows and imperfections?

This is the five-hundred and sixty-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 How Do You Perceive and Handle Your Own Flaws and Imperfections? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is Your Morning Routine Exhausting or Empowering? The Choice is Yours

You get to decide if every new day will be exhausting or empowering.

Photo by THE 5TH on Unsplash

During the workweek, when you wake up, do you begin your day feeling exhausted? Do you struggle to get out of bed, get going, and face all that lies before you today?

Or do you begin your day feeling empowered? Do you get out of bed, get going, and face all that lies before you today ready to experience potential and possibilities?

Odds are, neither is the case. Most likely when you wake up you have a routine. Years of habitual behaviors like hitting snooze on your alarm, getting up to pee before doing anything else, stumbling to the coffee maker, and everything else that goes into your typical workweek morning ritual.

Because it’s usually habitual, you don’t see it as exhausting or empowering. Rather, you see it as a neutral, regular, unremarkable experience. It probably doesn’t even cross your mind to give it much thought or look at what impact it has on the rest of your day.

Does it have an impact on your whole day? Of course it does. How we start our day, and the choices and decisions we make as we begin, will set the tone and direction for the rest of our day.

Ergo, if you begin already exhausted, it’s going to be a long slog of a day.

On the other hand, if you begin empowered, it’s going to be a day of potential and possibilities.

But to be fair – it’s never that simple.

Habits are habitual and subconscious

The things we do by rote and routine – our habits – are second nature to us. They’re automated activities that we just do. Most of them we don’t even give the least bit of active thought to.

Take how you brush your teeth. When was the last time you focused on how you brush your teeth? Do you move the brush up and down, in tiny circles, left and right, or some other way? Do you begin on the left, right, or center of your mouth? Top or bottom first?

You don’t even consider this activity to be habitual – but it is. And you do it probably exactly the same way every time you do it.

Why we form habits is to free the mind to work on more pressing and immediate matters. You don’t have to think about brushing your teeth – so as you do, you can consider your calendar, the emails in your inbox, an appointment later in the day, etc. One activity so automated and subconscious that you can give your thoughts and feelings to other matters.

Habits are often largely neutral. But we all have both good and bad habits. Smoking, eating fried food in every meal, chewing your fingernails, and the like are bad habits. Taking a walk every morning, reading books, eating balanced meals, and the like are good habits.

Both good and bad habits are equally automated products of our subconscious.

Habits can be changed. But to do so, we need to move them from our subconscious – where they’re rote and routine – and bring them to our conscious awareness. We need to become mindful of them. This requires us to identify the habit, recognize and acknowledge it, then determine how it makes us think and feel subconsciously.

Then we can act to change habits.

You can recognize if your day begins exhausting or empowering

Your morning routine has likely been in place for a long time. Why? Because it is what it is.

When you first begin something new – a new job, a new relationship, a new venture – it has no routine built into it yet. The process is unknown, and everything you do at the start is conscious. You’re mindful of what you must do, what you’d like to do, and what you shouldn’t do.

Once you get into the swing of things – you develop a routine. If I do ‘x’ the result is ‘y’. For example – if I show up to the office on time, the donuts are still fresh and I can pick any flavor I desire – or – if I give a compliment to my new relationship, their face lights up in that amazing smile – and the like. If I do ‘x’ the result is ‘y’.

The more you do ‘x’ to get the ‘y’ result, the more routine it becomes. After enough time passes, it becomes habitual. And you probably don’t even know that’s what happened because it’s wired into your subconscious and thusly automated.

Habit doesn’t eliminate choice – it automates it. But we can always decide to change it.

How we start the day can impact everything we do. If you begin with it being exhausting or empowering will set a tone that affects the rest of your rote, routine, and habits. Unchecked, this can lead to a sense of longing, feelings that you’re missing something, or their opposites.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on UnsplashHabit change is a choice

Not so long ago, my morning routine was exhausting. I stumbled out of bed, mindlessly sat at my computer, and played a couple of Facebook games. No spark, nothing interesting, and my day would often leave me wanting and unsatisfied. I felt drained and uninspired.

I was dissatisfied with my life on multiple levels. Why did it feel like every day was just exhausting, right from the get-go? Because my morning habits were exhausting and unhelpful.

So, I made a choice. Since I’d unsuccessfully tried to read at night before bed, I thought – what if I read first thing in the morning?

The difference has been incredibly empowering.

Now, I arise without an alarm – usually with the sun, between 6am and 7am. I get up, feed the cats, and start the coffee. Then I sit down on the couch – and read for the next 30-60 minutes. I read 2 books at a time, 1 fiction and 1 nonfiction.

After I read, I go to my home office, and post – or write and post – the day’s blog. After that, I go for a walk – come home, shower, and get to work.

When I wake up, I look forward to reading what’s next for the characters in the fiction, and what I will learn from the nonfiction. I’ve chosen not to waste away my morning on mindless games – but on improving my mind.

Your morning routine can be exhausting or empowering – and that’s a choice you get to make. I’ve chosen mine to be empowering.

Room for change and improvement

Even with my current, empowering morning habit – there’s room for improvement.

For example – in addition to going for a walk, I need to get back to the gym. I also need to limit how much I read. With some of the fiction I read, I can easily get so caught up in the story I don’t put it down and it takes so much of my morning I fall behind on the rest of my day.

But to change any habit – you need to become consciously aware of it. That means you must work on more mindfulness.

While relatively easy – the challenge tends to be that it’s not a one-and-done act. Because mindfulness is a product of the moment, it shifts with the moment. That’s because only in the now, the present, can you genuinely be aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. What they were or will be doesn’t matter – because you can’t change the past or control the future.

The first step to changing your morning routine is to thoroughly examine it. You can do so now – but it’s more powerful to do so when you wake up. Don’t just fall into your habitual actions – take the extra time to be mindful of what they are and how they impact you.

Then, you can see if they are exhausting or empowering.

It might take a few mornings to work it out. But if you spend your day dissatisfied and wanting – start at the start and be mindful of your morning routine and if you’re setting up your day positively (empowering) or negatively (exhausting). And if you’re still not sure – choose anew what direction you desire to face at the beginning of your day.

Identifying if your morning routine is exhausting or empowering isn’t hard

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

When you take the time and make the effort to examine the habits in your morning routine, you can identify whether you’ve begun by exhausting or empowering yourself. Knowing how your habits and routines at the start of your day impact you, you can make new choices and decisions to alter them to better suit you and direct your life how you most desire it to be. 

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

Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.

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, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.

Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

This is the four hundred and fifty-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 Is Your Morning Routine Exhausting or Empowering? The Choice is Yours appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do You Silence Doubts, Fears, and Other Negatives In Your Head?

Mindfulness, of course, is the key to finding and/or creating silence.

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

I read a lot.

Every morning, I spend about an hour reading. A chapter or two of fiction, and a chapter or two of nonfiction.

Most of my nonfiction reading is along the same lines I blog about. Mindfulness, self-awareness, self-encouragement, psychology, and like topics. I read this to increase my knowledge base and find new ways to live this life on my terms. And live it as fully as possible.

This is not a perfect, always-on, always-successful process. It’s a practice – and sometimes it doesn’t quite work as desired.

What’s that mean? It means that I must constantly work on my conscious awareness – and mindfulness, as such. That means things like limiting my time on social media, avoiding news media, and steering as far from political advertising as possible – while still keeping tabs on the world at large.

Spend about 60 seconds on any given social media platform and you’ll be exposed to bad, sad, frustrating, infuriating, and otherwise unfortunate news. If you’re anything like me – and you have the dual struggle with guilt about your privilege with also working to live life on your terms – doubts, fears, and other negatives come up in your head.

The only way that I know to silence them is via mindfulness.

Mindfulness processes

Mindfulness, in this context, is conscious awareness of yourself. Specifically, awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

With that conscious awareness, you make active – rather than passive – choices and decisions about your life.

There are, of course, a few things about this process to keep in mind. But there’s one that’s the most important:

Remember that it’s ongoing. Mindfulness is not one-and-done. You need to constantly check in with yourself to be in your conscious mind rather than your ego or subconscious.

Self-check-in is all about asking questions of yourself such as,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What’s my intent?Why am I doing what I’m doing?

And the like.

Each of these questions, when asked directly in the here and now, makes you mindful. Because their answers exist only in your conscious mind, and thus in the now.

Of course, there are questions like these that are different. But any question of this sort – asked in the present – opens you to your conscious awareness, and from there lets you confront the doubts, fears, and other negatives.

But there’s a very important truth to acknowledge here.

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on UnsplashThe silence is seldom permanent

Yes, I acknowledge that this sucks. But it’s still the truth, like it or not. The silence is seldom permanent.

Why? Because we live in a fear-based society that constantly provides us with reasons to doubt and be afraid. Both active and passive messages to this end bombard us regularly.

Then, we confuse healthy skepticism with unhealthy.

What’s the difference? Healthy skepticism is pausing to consider before accepting. Unhealthy skepticism is pausing to consider, demanding proof from both reliable and unreliable sources, then accepting – but only with great wariness. The increasing demands of unhealthy skepticism have increased doubt, fear, and other negatives in our society exponentially.

But with healthy skepticism – doubts, fears, and other negatives can serve us.

How does that work? The only way to grow, evolve, and change is by breaking out of our comfort zones. What that means is that we must confront doubt, fear, and negatives to actively be uncomfortable to grow, change, and evolve.

A little doubt, some fear, and other negatives are utterly, totally, and completely natural. And we need them, frankly. They’re part of what spurs us to make active choices and decisions to change.

We sometimes need those negatives to build positives from. For example – when something makes you angry, rather than be thrown off or otherwise distracted by that, you use it to make a change or do something new.

When our doubts, fears, and other negatives are just there – not necessarily tied to a current happening – those are the ones we need to silence. Particularly because they tend to be based on our ego and/or subconscious mind.

Silence what’s not helping you

How can you tell if the doubts, fears, and other negatives aren’t helping you?

Mindfulness, of course. Specifically, mindfulness of what you’re feeling.

When you know what you’re feeling – here and now – you can tell if it’s a slight feeling or an overwhelming feeling.

And you can also tell if what you’re feeling is in the moment – or based on something subconscious or from your ego.

To clarify – your subconscious mind is where your beliefs, values, and habits live. Hence, matters can get in there – without your conscious awareness – that then interact with your beliefs, values, and habits. Before you know it, doubts – less in the now and more general – override your desired outcome.

And those are the ones to silence most often.

The ego is both how you project yourself to the world without and reflect back inwardly. It exists at a point between your conscious and subconscious minds.

The ego loves to be comfortable. And since it’s detached from your conscious awareness, it can be the source of doubts, fears, and other negatives. Most are attached to ideas like how will this impact others and/or those I care about? and such.

When you’re mindful, you gain insight into whether the doubts, fears, and other negatives in your head are of any use to you – or are in the way of your progress. Either way, you can use mindfulness to silence them and move on.

You’re empowered to choose a life path you desire. Likewise, when doubts, fears, and other negatives in your head are overwhelming your path, you can use mindfulness to silence them. It just takes action and a little work.

Do you use mindfulness to silence the undesirable negatives in your head?

This is the five-hundred and sixty-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 How Do You Silence Doubts, Fears, and Other Negatives In Your Head? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Did You Know That What You Believe – Positive or Negative – Is True?

Positive or negative – what you believe is true.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

Even if you don’t buy into the Law of Attraction – like gravity, thermodynamics, and other elements of nature – it still exists and does its work whether you are conscious of it or not.

This is why what you believe is true. At least, from your unique, one-of-a-kind perspective.

Every single person on earth has their own perception of reality. Ergo, we all have unique perspectives on life, the universe, and everything. Even given that, we all tend to hold multiple perspectives. So that means that there are at minimum 8 billion (8,000,000,000) singular perspectives and perceptions.

As Einstein said,

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

This means that reality is how each of us uniquely perceives it. While there are elements we collectively agree on – it’s still an illusion when all is said and done.

That being written – what you believe about yourself, other people, life, the Universe, and everything is true. But that truth is yours and yours alone.

Hooky-spooky mumbo-jumbo? Nope. Quantum physics agrees that this is so.

What does this mean to you and me? It means that we have far more power than we tend to realize or allow ourselves to enjoy and make use of.

But this can also lead down a messy rabbit hole or two.

Toxic attitudes can be both positive and negative

The notion of positivity has gotten used and abused to the point where just the word itself can be triggering for some. Mention positivity, and people automatically tune you out.

Why? Because of toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is abusive in that it neglects, ignores, and disregards negativity or anything else that’s not positive.

Toxic positivity puts on blinders to anything that’s not positive. Which is understandably disconcerting.

The Universe is made of yin and yang. We need the opposites to balance, as almost everything exists somewhere between given extremes. Good/bad, up/down, positive/negative, and so on coexist symbiotically.

Ergo, you must have negativity. Thus, ignoring it, disregarding it, and otherwise turning a blind eye to it serves nobody.

By the same token, toxic negativity is also a thing – and equally as dangerous as toxic positivity.

Toxic negativity is seeing naught but bad, misfortune, garbage, and awfulness in life, the Universe, and everything. It includes presumptions of worst-case scenarios, failure of good, and a general attitude of distress, unfortunate circumstances, and overall negativity towards everything.

We all know people who always see bad before they see good. They presume they’ll lose, be screwed over, and suffer endlessly. Some are more blatant about it than others – but we all know them.

Why are both equally toxic? Because they are the extremes that most of us exist between on the flexible cylinder. That’s where we get to choose which direction to face – positive or negative, good or bad, up or down, etc.

Toxic positivity and negativity exist directly up against their related extreme. That’s not where most people exist in any given reality.

What you believe is true is as you choose

Let me be clear. This isn’t literal. Because belief is seldom completely literal.

Thoughts, feelings, and intentions exist in each of us individually. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul – just as much as I’m the only one in my head, heart, and soul. Thus, you alone think, feel, and intend for you.

Beliefs are created, maintained, and changed by thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Hence – any belief we have created we believe in – at least, in the abstract.

That’s why old, outdated beliefs still exist deep inside our subconscious long after they cease to serve us.

What do I mean by that? Let’s say, as a child, your parents presented you with constant negative ideas about money. Stuff like money doesn’t grow on trees, wealth doesn’t make good people, we never have enough money, and so on.

On the surface, most of these are rather innocuous.

But when they get drilled into your subconscious – particularly before you have the tools to be more self-aware – general beliefs around them are formed. Maybe they were stated without malice by your parents, but your subconscious mind created a belief that money is hard to come by and brings out the worst in people.

Now, as an adult, you desire to make more money – but keep running into roadblocks, obstacles, and other challenges. Maybe they seem out of nowhere – but they’re likely connected to the long-ago-formed belief that money is hard to come by and brings out the worst in people.

Because what you believe is true – money presents challenges in your life. This can also be applied to employment, relationships, politics, religion, and anything else we believe – consciously or subconsciously.

Our subconscious beliefs are why belief is seldom completely literal.

Photo by Hudson Hintze on UnsplashHow do we take control of our beliefs and our truths?

The short answer is mindfulness.

When you are mindful, you become consciously aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, intentions you have, and actions you take related to it all.

With that, you gain the ability to take control of your beliefs and choose your truth for yourself.

Also, when you’re consciously aware, you gain the ability to reach into your subconscious to see and evaluate your beliefs, values, and habits within. And if you find they aren’t what you desire them to be – you can take actions and make new choices and decisions to change them.

Hence, if you believe in the negative – lack, scarcity, and insufficiency – that’s your truth. Conversely, if you believe in the positive – possibility, potential, and abundance – that’s your truth.

If you haven’t been making a consciously aware choice one way or the other, your subconscious is being allowed to do the driving. Your truth might not be truly yours. But if you desire to take control – you can make what you believe is true positive rather than negative.

Yes, bad things will still happen. That’s life. But you still choose if positive or negative is the dominant direction you face. That, ultimately, is your truth.

Thus, what you believe – positive or negative – is true to and for you.

Don’t like where that leads? All the power to change it is yours. Mindfulness is the tool to make it happen.

Seeing that what you believe is true isn’t hard hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that many of your beliefs, values, and habits are subconscious and outdated, you gain the power to change them at will, looking towards the positive or negative of the cylinder as you desire. Knowing that conscious awareness via mindfulness puts you in control, you can see how what you believe is true – and if you aren’t enamored of that, take steps to change it. 

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

Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.

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, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.

Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

This is the four hundred and fifty-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 Did You Know That What You Believe – Positive or Negative – Is True? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Which Do You Fear More – Rejection or Suffering?

It’s not the rejection you fear so much as the suffering that’ll come with it.

Photo by Lukas Rychvalsky on Unsplash

Nobody likes to suffer.

Suffering – mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually – is unpleasant. The pain that comes with suffering – tangible or not – is unpleasant, distressing, uncomfortable, and just plain awful.

But do you know what’s worse than suffering? Often – the fear over how and what it’ll be.

Frequently, we don’t recognize suffering as our fear. It gets cloaked in another, more recognizable, seemingly more tangible form – like rejection.

Fear of rejection is distressing in and of itself. But why do we fear rejection? What’s behind it?

The reality is that it’s not being rejected we fear. It’s what else will come alongside it, as well as the fear of suffering due to it.

Let’s break it down for more clarity.

What does rejection look like

What, precisely, does rejection look like?

That depends on the what and how of the rejection. It can be personal, professional, coincidental, and impersonal.

Personal rejection tends to include getting told “no” when you ask someone out, a friend or loved one shooting down an idea or project you present, being snubbed or left out by a friend or loved one, and the like. It tugs at your head, heart, and soul and can impact you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

Professional rejection generally includes not getting a job you applied for, being overlooked or otherwise not getting a promotion, having a plan or project denied funding or backing, and the like. Professional rejection can be akin to personal but tends to tug more at your head and soul than your heart.

Coincidental rejection includes missing a bus, failing to get tickets because they sold out, being picked last for a team, and the like. It still hurts, annoys, and is unpleasant – but because it’s coincidental, its toll is mostly mental and possibly spiritual.

Impersonal rejection is similar to coincidental, but it still directly impacts like personal and professional rejection. This includes a friend or loved one taking someone other than you on a trip or to a gathering, witnessing an equal get an accolade you feel you also deserve, placing second or third in a competition, and the like. Not personal, but more impactful than coincidental rejection feels in the head, heart, and soul.

Everyone is going to experience one or more of these forms of rejection at some point. And because that’s true, it’s not so terrible in the grand scheme of things.

But that’s where suffering comes in.

Fear of suffering is often the real fear

Not to put too fine a point on it – but it’s suffering we tend to be most afraid of.

Yet that’s not the name we give our fears. Instead, we fear intimacy, heights, arachnids, success, failure, abandonment, rejection, and lots of other tangibles and intangibles.

But really, it’s not those things we fear. It’s the suffering that could occur because of them.

Intimacy? You fear a broken heart and the suffering that comes with it.Heights? The fear is falling from them and how much suffering being broken in that fall will amount to.Arachnids? Suffering that they might cause you in a myriad of ways.Success and failure? The suffering that will occur due to the impression you make on people and their reactions to you.Abandonment? The fear of being all alone with nobody to turn to.Rejection? The fear you’ll suffer because you lost out, missed out, or otherwise have been refused

No matter the name we give it above, it always returns to suffering. As I wrote at the start – nobody likes to suffer.

In the words of Paulo Coelho from his brilliant book, The Alchemist,

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”

The truth of suffering

All of us suffer from time to time

Everybody gets hurt – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. EVERYBODY. Sometimes the hurt is almost completely unbearable. Other times, it’s just annoying and irritating. And sometimes, it spurs us to action.

If you are still alive, then you have overcome suffering. Yes, I recognize some of you are always suffering – chronic pain and illness, as well as mental illness, can be sources of constant suffering. And while you have bad days where it’s almost unbearable – you’re still here. And I commend you for that.

For everyone else, suffering tends to be incredibly variable. And it’s different for everyone.

Take the death of a loved one, for example. Some people hardly grieve at all, while others are nearly crushed by their grief. Some people grieve, then move on – largely unchanged, while others totally shift their lives as a result of their grief.

Grief is a form of suffering, and its impact differs on many different levels. But it is suffering, whatever degree and form it takes.

Frequently, any fear we experience is over how much suffering will occur if the negative we’re afraid of comes to pass. We fear the worst possible level of pain, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or some combination therein.

We like to be comfortable. I know that I do. Thus, when we’re in danger of losing comfort, how bad that loss could be manifests as a fear of the suffering we’ll experience, and how uncomfortable it’ll make us feel.

I don’t know about you – but most of the time, the suffering I’ve experienced wasn’t half as bad as I feared it would be. That’s not to say I didn’t suffer – just that the fear of it was far less rational and painful than it really was.

Photo by Andrew Neel on UnsplashWhat suffering will rejection cause?

When all is said and done – it’s suffering after the rejection occurs that we’re most afraid of.

I’ve just taken a really big and scary step in my writing career. I’m asking for help in a way that induces a little guilt, and some discomfort – but after a lengthy analysis, still feels right to do.

That written, I am opening myself to potential rejection.

I’m afraid that asking for monetary help – specifically for my art, not a life-or-death matter – will turn people off and cause them to reject me.

What happens if they do? How much am I likely to suffer from such rejection?

Said rejection could be classified as personal, professional, coincidental, or impersonal. Wide range, right?

When all is said and done – it’ll make me feel sad, possibly annoyed and mildly angry, and a little bad about myself if they reject this, and me. But will I suffer from that rejection? Yes, I might be a bit heartsick, and yes, not raising the funds means I must seek another way. And yes, this could potentially cause a friend to drop me.

What happens if any of these come to pass? In truth, nothing devastating or earth-shattering. A little suckage, some disappointment, but then – life goes on.

The rejection and suffering it might cause would be unpleasant – but I’ll still be here. And thus, still capable of finding, choosing, and/or creating a new path.

Thus, it’s not the rejection I fear so much as the suffering that’ll come with it. And whether the fear is success, failure, clowns, or anything else you can think of to fear – suffering is the real culprit, and what we’re truly afraid of experiencing.

What can we do about this?

Fear is a natural reaction. And you will experience fear in your life because that’s part of life. Nobody escapes it.

However – when you experience fear, you get a choice. Allow it to dominate your logic and reason (even if it’s a logical fear) – or – choose to work with, through, and/or around it.

How? By practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness, in this instance, is conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – in the present. By being mindful here and now, you gain control over your head, heart, and soul.

Thus, when you fear something like rejection – and more genuinely the suffering that could come with it – you can mindfully seek rationality, reason, and logic to recognize the suffering likely won’t be as bad as you’re fearing it will be.

Mindfulness gives you control of your life experience because it puts you behind the wheel of your head, heart, and soul. And since nobody but you is in there – shouldn’t you be the one driving?

Lastly – you ARE worthy and deserving of not suffering and being overwhelmed by anything you fear. Mindfulness is the medium with which you get control of this truth. You are deserving and worthy of overcoming any rejection and subsequent suffering you experience.

What suffering do you fear and how can you use reason and logic to overcome that?

This is the five-hundred and sixty-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 Which Do You Fear More – Rejection or Suffering? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

It’s Time to Walk the Talk and Be My Own Best Advocate

Talk (or writing) is cheap. Action is necessary. My best advocate is me, after all.

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

In 2012, I began to blog once a week.

Less than a year and a half later, it became twice a week. From there, I expanded my efforts.

I’d said for a long time that I was a writer. And I had evidence of that being true – but not sharable evidence. Blogging regularly led to writing more frequently in general, which in turn led to self-publishing.

Ten-plus years later, I blog a minimum of 4 days a week, have self-published 16 total books (¾ fiction, ¼ nonfiction), and have 4 more in one stage of editing or another.

There are also 9 books planned and plotted that I’m writing, too.

As if that’s not enough – I’m expanding my Pathwalking life philosophy to the next level, and preparing to offer a webinar/talk on the topic. I’ll be building materials to go with it, potentially offering coaching and/or classes on this process.

Here’s the problem – I am still full of doubt. When it comes to discussing my work, I tend to point out my almost-traditional employment as a part-time assistant to the incredible entrepreneur I work for – before mentioning my own product. Like I am embarrassed to admit that I have been on this nontraditional path and intend to further expand on it.

Why do I avoid being my own advocate? How come I’m afraid to walk my talk more boldly and purposefully? How do I overcome whatever it is that’s holding me back?

Giving voice to the fear disempowers it

Point blank – I’m afraid. Of what? I’m afraid that I will either fail or succeed, which will then cause the people I care about to think less of me, shun me, and ultimately abandon me. When all is said and done, I’m afraid that I’ll be utterly, completely, and totally alone.

However, I have already experienced being “abandoned” in different ways during my life. When my parents divorced, and my dad moved halfway across the country – and then I saw him maybe only 4 times a year – that was a form of being abandoned. Likewise, when I moved away from where I was and friendships changed and faded, they “abandoned” me. Also, along this line, interests changed and friends and I “abandoned” our friendships and moved on.

Why am I sharing this? To show that even when I’ve been “abandoned” I wasn’t. I do still have a relationship with my dad, still have a line on the friends of my teen years, and many of those friends I’ve moved on from either are totally forgotten or I’m still civilly acquainted with.

Further – who but I am in my head, heart, and soul? Ultimately, it’s only ever me in here. And I won’t abandon myself.

So, taking this long way around, the point is this – my fear of abandonment and the suffering that will occur from it are much, much worse than the actual experience. I won’t be broken, destroyed, or otherwise ruined in the process.

Recognizing and acknowledging this helps to disempower the fear. I’ve written it out and shared it here – and now I can look at it and see it as the powerless non-entity it truly is.

Hence why giving voice to fear is more empowering than hiding from it.

Allow me to walk the talk as I advocate for myself

What, exactly, does advocating for myself look like?

For starters, I’m going to share more of the work I’m doing for myself, rather than for others. I’m going to put more into discussing my writing, as well as where I’m working to take my Pathwalking life philosophy to the next level.

For a long time now, I’ve held back.

To be fair, part of this has been to avoid some old, bad habits of my 20s and 30s. Back then, if you hung around me for long enough, I made sure you heard me toot my own horn on the regular. If you weren’t aware of who I was and what I was doing – and how great it was – I made you aware.

That didn’t serve me well, because that sort of thing never serves anyone well. Self-aggrandizement and bragging – even innocently – come across poorly.

Though I still slip from time to time, overall, I’m much more understated and reserved than I used to be.

This is why I avoid being my own advocate, and why I’m afraid to talk more boldly and purposefully about what I’m doing. Because I don’t like how I came across when I spoke for and about myself in my younger years. I’m scared that the progress I’ve made – and the growth I’ve experienced over the last decade – will be undermined and somehow undone.

And then – when that happens, the more insidious fear of abandonment comes out.

Knowing this, however, empowers me to turn my attention towards the positive end of the spectrum, and mindfully work on being my own advocate. Conscious awareness will allow me to temper my self-advocacy to steer clear of my past missteps.

Photo by Katrina Wright on UnsplashHow do I overcome whatever it is that’s holding me back?

As my favorite quote by Lao Tzu says,

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

You go nowhere without taking a first step. And on this journey, in particular, that first step is identifying the fear that’s been disempowering me.

Examining, recognizing, and acknowledging my fear allows me to be mindful of it. Then – via my conscious awareness – I can mindfully, actively disempower it. When I am consciously aware of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, I can control what they are.

Thus, I can disregard and release the fear.

But then, I need to take another step. And that step is to trust myself.

Who I was over a decade ago isn’t who I am now. That self-aggrandizing (due to fear) loud-mouth – though not entirely gone – is not dominant. And by being mindful of that, I can control my intentions and my actions mindfully.

What does that look like? It looks like this:

I’m an accomplished author with a dozen works of sci-fi and fantasy under my belt. There are new books I’m working on adding to my existing works – but I will need help to do that. (What that will look like is not in the scope of this article.)My Pathwalking life philosophy has done amazing things for my life. And I believe it can benefit others. Soon, I’ll be presenting a webinar about how anyone can use the tools I’ve created for this process. I hope to offer further talks, books, and/or coaching on this topic.

No bragging, no self-aggrandizement. Advocacy will be me marketing my brand going forward and openly sharing how it impacts more than my working life.

Walk the talk, be genuine and true

My mindfulness practices, work on positivity, and general self-encouragement and care are not just part of my work. They are part of my overall life experience.

I don’t live my life for anyone other than myself. And that’s not just true for me – it’s true for you. Frankly, it’s true for everyone everywhere. I believe that by being more genuine and true to myself, my goals, and my intentions – I can do a great deal to make the world a better place for others, too.

Because when all is said and done, ultimately, I desire to make a positive impact in the world. But for all that I write about and study it, more than anything – I must act on it. Change can only be controlled through action.

Hence why I must act to walk my talk, advocate for myself, and be the truest and most genuine me that I can be. Because that is how my life experience becomes how and what I most desire it to be. Then, from there, I can do more to help others have similar experiences.

To walk the talk and be my own best advocate isn’t hard

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

When I put more action into my thoughts, feelings, and intentions, I become more capable of consciously creating the positive-facing life I desire to most experience. Knowing that I can advocate for myself about who I am and what I do – with control and balance – I can best walk my talk and truly be the best, truest, most genuine me that I can be. 

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

Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.

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, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.

Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

This is the four hundred and fifty-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 It’s Time to Walk the Talk and Be My Own Best Advocate appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

I Owned Up to My Mistake and It Essentially Worked Out Okay

When you own up to a mistake accountability is empowering.

Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

I presently work 3 jobs.

First and foremost – I work for myself. Writer, editor, storyteller, podcaster, blogger, etc. I’m taking action and doing things to build the life I most desire to have for myself.

Secondly, I’ve been working for this amazing entrepreneur for the last year. She has multiple businesses and tons of amazing ideas. I am both her personal assistant and the managing director of her brands (part-time).

Thirdly, I’m entering month 4 of working for an online and digital education company. Though the scope of my work has shifted – overall there is a lot of creativity, and my coworkers are amazing. This job is also part-time.

Both jobs where I’m not working for myself are wholly remote. Given the work I put into creating my excellent home office space, this is ideal. And yes, I recognize how privileged I am to have this opportunity.

The reason I’m sharing this background is because of the very recent experience that came of it.

For my education company job, I had a large task of finding and adding appropriate photos to a Powerpoint deck. When I first saw this deck, it was maybe 200 slides in total. When I started on that assignment it had passed 550 slides.

Not all needed images – but a lot did. So I got to work.

And then I learned that I misunderstood a key element of the assignment. This was not a small mistake, either. More than half the images needed to be replaced.

Initially, when confronted with this, my heart sank. How will this turn out? What kind of trouble am I in? What happens next?

Fear of suffering versus real suffering

Due to the remote nature of my job, I saw on a social platform we use the first comments about my mistake late at night. Hence, the initial upset over the potential suffering that might come from this mistake hit at a time it would not have been best to address it.

In the past, “fear of suffering” resulting from such a mistake might have seriously impacted me. Various “what if?” scenarios, questions about my capabilities, self-indictments of my character, and more. Then, add to that, all the possible consequences – real and imagined – that might come from my mistake.

More than once in my life, I’ve spun out from similar situations. All the negativity I could imagine was dredged to the surface and impacted me. I’d envision the worst-case scenarios playing out, and my depression and anxiety would override my consciousness.

But not this time.

Step away from yourself to analyze the mistake

Rather than let all my worst inclinations and fears come to the surface of my consciousness, I stepped away from myself. I placed myself outside of my emotions, and even my own thoughts.

Then, I looked more closely at what happened. What went wrong? Was this a self-sabotage on my part or an honest mistake? Was the worst that could happen as a result all that bad?

By stepping away from myself I had the impersonal clarity needed to get answers.

What went wrong? I misunderstood the instructions I was given. I’d even written them down – but I had them wrong and the information I used to find the photos was incorrect.Was this a self-sabotage on my part or an honest mistake? It was an honest mistake. Non-malicious, even towards myself (ergo, not a matter of self-sabotage).Was the worst that could happen as a result all that bad? The boss will chew me out, and I might lose my job. But not my life, my birthday, or anything else important to me – so really, not a big deal.

That settled, I kept my calm and got a good night’s sleep.

Photo by Kostiantyn Li on UnsplashTime to pay the piper

When I woke up the next morning, there were a couple of twinges of anxiety. Yes, I resolved that I made a mistake – and would own up to it once I logged into work. But that was still a few hours away – and my morning routine awaited me.

I did my morning reading, posted my blog, took a walk (despite the cold and rain), showered, got dressed, and had breakfast.

It was time to log into work. I did. First thing, I owned up to my mistake.

Yes, I made this mistake. No, it wasn’t due to not listening or forgetting instructions – it was a misunderstanding. I apologized.

It was very clear that the boss was displeased with me. I was told to go back – as quickly as possible since I also had taken longer than originally expected in the first place – and swap photos for more appropriate ones.

Though given another time limit to complete my work – that I went over again – it was done.

Now? So far, it’s worked out okay.

When I owned up, I empowered myself with accountability

When you blame people, places, circumstances, random happenstance, or anything else for anything at all, you disempower yourself.

Why? Because you weren’t accountable to not just whoever/whatever you wronged, but more than that – to yourself. You were dishonest, disingenuous, and frankly unkind by throwing blame instead of owning up and being accountable.

I’m not going to lie to you – it sucks to have to admit to being wrong, making mistakes, and even outright fucking up. But when you do – you’re empowered. Why? Because you have been mindful.

To own up to a mistake you need to be consciously aware of it and your part in it. That requires mindfulness in the here and now. When you are mindful, you are empowered.

Everyone makes mistakes. And I mean EVERYONE. No matter the path you choose or don’t choose, mistakes can, will, and do happen.

Sure, there might still be consequences for my mistake. Hence my claim that it’s worked out essentially okay. But I still feel good about owning up to it – and empowered because I am driving this bus that is my life.

A very useful and cogent life lesson I felt should be shared.

When you make a mistake do you own up to it or blame someone/something, tangible or intangible?

This is the five-hundred and sixty-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 I Owned Up to My Mistake and It Essentially Worked Out Okay appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Acceptance Is a Matter of Positivity – And It Starts with Ourselves

Acceptance of ourselves begins all else.

Photo by Ifrah Akhter on Unsplash

For a long time, I was less than fond of myself.

All I seemed to be capable of was finding the fault in myself. I was always looking at how I managed to fail at jobs, screw up relationships, and remain overweight.

For about two decades, I lived indecisively, constantly finding the flaws in myself, and not accepting all of how I was uniquely me.

Sometime in my late 30s, though, that began to change.

I stopped resisting getting to know myself for myself. Instead, I started to really look at who I was, how I had gotten to the place I was at, and what about it worked and didn’t work.

There’s no specific “ah-hah!” moment I can point to, nor some other event or happening when I started to understand the necessity of acceptance of myself. But it happened. Somehow, I stopped the dominance of my self-criticism and negativity and began to accept who I was.

That’s not to say I’ve eliminated all self-doubt or negativity about myself. Also, while I mostly accept myself – there are still points of contention and conflict. But the overall, general acceptance of myself has opened far more doors than I previously realized there were in the first place.

With this has come a deeper understanding of the power of self-acceptance, mindfulness, and positivity in having and building a better life experience.

But like medicine, law, professional athletics, and the like – practice is ongoing and learning never stops.

Self-acceptance is where it all begins

Let me state, right off the bat, that I have not fully let go of finding fault in myself, being my own harshest critic, or self-doubt. Why? Because that’s impossible. Even the most enlightened people in history wrestled with these.

They no longer dominate the scene, however. And that’s the key difference. Where once the negatives held the greatest sway, and I was loath to accept myself – that’s not true now. Overall, I know who I am, who I have been, and who I desire to be.

Yet for months now, I’ve resisted a couple of different things to advance my life and goals. Why? Because I feared that in taking many of the steps that I desire to take I may alienate people. And that, in turn, would lead to less acceptance.

A recent conversation brought this to light in unexpected ways. It showed me that a lot of my acceptance of myself has become soft and flabby of late.

What does that mean? It means it’s not full acceptance. There is still underlying doubt that I won’t be accepted by others – and thus I’m not accepting myself.

Self-acceptance, however, is how change becomes ours to control. The centering and balancing that result from self-acceptance is necessary to work on active ideas to create change.

Self-acceptance is deeper than self-love because it’s an open embracing of ourselves. Acceptance doesn’t carry the not-true, but often held negatives that love does.

Accepting ourselves for who, what, and why we are opens us to see who, what, why, where, and how we are, have been, and could be. But accepting ourselves begins it all – and that starts in the here and now.

Mindfulness within leads to mindfulness without

To accept ourselves, we need to be consciously aware of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That conscious awareness is mindfulness.

Once we start to actively practice mindfulness, we gain the ability to delve into our subconscious. And it’s in our subconscious that our beliefs, values, and habits live.

Often, there are beliefs, values, and habits inside us that are outdated, incorrect, and even harmful. Being mindful of our conscious self lets us dig into the subconscious. When that brings about greater conscious awareness, we can start choosing how to implement change.

But it begins with acceptance. Accepting where we are now – even if it’s not how we desire it to be – is the first step in choosing anew.

Mindfulness is conscious awareness. When we apply that to ourselves, we gain insight into all that makes us tick – good, bad, or indifferent.

Rejecting who we are and pretending it’s not ourselves does us no good. We need to embrace who we are, accept ourselves – warts and all – and be gentle and forgiving for all the ways we’re not how, who, or why we desire to be.

To begin to make conscious changes, we need to look in the direction of positivity.

Photo by Phil S on UnsplashPositivity is a builder

Negativity tears down and destroys. Positivity builds up and creates.

Most of us exist on a flexible cylinder between extremes. Those extremes are all across the Universe and are probably very familiar. Positive and negative, black and white, up and down, short and tall, good and evil, etc. While we are aware of these extremes – most people, places, and things fall somewhere between them.

We get to choose – from wherever on the cylinder between various extremes we are – which way to face. Look towards negativity, tearing things down and destroying. Or look towards positivity, building things up and creating.

The true, genuine use of positivity is for building. It can’t and doesn’t exist without negativity because they are yin and yang. We can’t have one without the other.

But you get to choose which gets your focus and attention. Recognizing the destruction inherent in negativity versus the creation inherent in positivity is part of any choice.

Sometimes we destroy. That’s not always unhealthy or wrong. But it is a choice.

Acceptance of ourselves will show us which way we’ve been facing – positivity or negativity. If that discovery is not what we desire – now, after acceptance of who, what, why, how, and where we are – we can choose mindfully to create anew.

Acceptance is never one and done

Why is acceptance an ongoing process? Because change is the only constant in the Universe.

Change can, will, and does occur – like it or not. Often, it’s random, circumstantial, and utterly out of our control.

Change can be glacial slow or instantaneous. Whatever the case might be, change is why acceptance is never one and done.

Just because I accepted myself at 20 doesn’t mean I’ll accept myself at 50. Who I am at 50 is so far removed from who I was at 20 that they don’t really bear comparing.

What’s more – some elements of acceptance come earlier or later than others. The recent epiphany borne of the conversation I had was right on the edge of my conscious awareness. And it only became clear because someone else pointed it out to me.

And that is how outside influences can help us. They can’t do anything for us – but they can show us what we might not see. Then we get to choose what to do with that data. Or not.

What does it all mean? I’m not sure yet. This new acceptance I have found for specific elements of myself hasn’t been expressed in a way that will impact anything. Yet. Until it does, the result is outside my comfort zone and a mystery.

But because I’ve accepted it – this journey outside my comfort zone isn’t scaring me. It’s exciting me. Invigorating me. And I am embracing the potential and possibility this represents via mindfulness and facing toward positivity.

I’m here, consciously aware (mindful) of myself in the present, and ready for whatever comes next.

Acceptance of ourselves isn’t hard

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

When working on accepting ourselves – warts and all – we open the way to choosing who, what, where, how, and why we are for our unique, individual life experiences Knowing that acceptance isn’t capitulation – but rather an embrace of the self – we gain the insight to use mindfulness and facing positivity to build and create our lives how we moist desire to choose. 

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

Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.

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, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.

Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

This is the four hundred and fifty-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.

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