M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 35

How Do We Embrace Pain and Suffering for What They Can Teach Us?

We can choose to learn from pain and suffering.

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

Everyone experiences pain. Everyone experiences suffering. Not just a few people – EVERYONE.

Pain and suffering are a part of the life experience for everyone everywhere.

Why? Because both are channels for growth. Pain and suffering almost always suck at the time of their occurrence. But afterward, they can teach us amazing and incredibly useful things about life, the Universe, and everything.

Pain and suffering are two very different animals. Both can impact us mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Each can be incredibly unpleasant – to the point of disabling us in one way or another.

We get to choose how pain and suffering will ultimately impact us.

At the time that whatever happens to cause us pain and/or suffering happens – it simply is.  After that visceral immediacy, however, we get to choose how to proceed.

What can pain and suffering teach us? How do we embrace this? Before I get into this let’s better define pain and suffering.

What is pain?

Pain is the word that describes a hurt you receive. It can be physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual.

Physical pain includes muscle aches, broken bones, cuts, abrasions, arthritis, and any other injury to the physical body – temporary or chronic.Mental pain includes self-doubt, self-esteem issues, questions of self-worth, and failing to measure up to expectations both internal and external.Emotional pain includes heartbreak, lost love, fear, and anytime we experience strong negative emotions as a result of random happenstance and more.Spiritual pain includes loss of faith, loss of hope, and questioning the purpose of life, the universe, and everything.

We can experience any combination of these together. All are equally unpleasant, uncomfortable, and can range from dull and nagging to sharp and excruciating. Then, just to add insult to injury, they can fluctuate all over the place.

Pain can be a matter of thought, feeling, or both. But it can also be a reminder that we’re endangering ourselves and should step back.

Ever feel a muscle in your body stretch in a painful way – and realize from that you should pull back? That’s pain warning you to be more cautious.

Pain is utterly unavoidable. Shit will happen in your life that will cause pain on one or more of the four abovementioned levels. It’s part of life.

And it can be a learning experience that can change us for the better. But that’s a choice.

Before I get into what pain can teach us – let’s look closer at suffering.

What is suffering?

Suffering is the result of pain.

Mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, or all of the above – suffering is how pain remains within us.

To be fair – chronic pain is horrific. Constant discomfort, dull or sharp, sucks. Too many people live in chronic pain – and it causes them no end of suffering.

Most people I know in this situation, however, do what they can to overcome that pain. Many don’t show it at all. But there are going to be days they can’t resist it – and they succumb to that pain and suffer.

That’s not the kind of suffering I’m going to get into here. The suffering I am going to examine is chosen.

Yes, chosen. When we get dumped, fired, lose somebody we love, fail at a task, or otherwise experience a painful thing – by-and-large not physically – how long we hold onto it is how long we choose to suffer.

Pain happens in its various forms – and hurts when it does. But after that initial hurt, we get to choose how long to suffer from it.

Some people suffer from a painful experience for their entire life. A loss, a terrible happening, an injustice, or some other painful experience dictates who, what, where, how, and why they are – as a victim.

You might think that’s unfair of me to categorize loss in that way. Perhaps. But since it’s something everyone everywhere experiences – including me – this is what I know.

How long we hold onto the suffering we experience is frequently a choice. This is where we can realize what pain and suffering can teach us.

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on UnsplashWhat did pain and suffering teach me?

Over 20 years ago I was hit by a car crossing the street. This caused me numerous injuries – and pain and suffering mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

When it happened, however, I developed an amazing clarity about life, the Universe, and everything. This was when I learned the 3 ways we can choose to live:

Let life live you. Just go with the flow and let whatever happens, happen, at its pace (sometimes positive, sometimes negative, seldom intentional).Curl up in a ball and await death. Be a victim. Expect the worst. Let the universe fuck with you and lose hope (mostly negatively directed, semi-intentional).Grab life like a bull by the horns and go for a ride. Make choices and decisions to live on your own terms (mostly positively directed, intentional).

It’s perfectly natural to experience each of these during our lives. Everyone will, everyone does. But we also get to choose what to strive towards and work on.

When I was broken with an unknown recovery time ahead of me – and a lot of pain – I learned this truth. I saw that I could use the experience to grow.

Thus, I worked to consciously create my reality. I pushed every therapy, envisioned nothing but total recovery, and recognized that suffering was a choice for me to make.

My recovery was near total. Today, apart from titanium in my shoulder and some impressive scars – I am healed and whole.

Pain and suffering taught me how consciousness creates reality, and that I could choose my path in life. Embracing my pain and suffering taught me multiple invaluable life lessons – and more.

Your education need not be so dramatic or traumatic

We all get to make choices and decisions for our life experiences.

You will have pain in your life. It might be mental, emotional, physical, spiritual – some or all of these. But it’s unavoidable and an experience that you will have.

When it happens, it will be unpleasant, and it will suck at the time. Soon after that initial experience and reaction, however, you get to choose what’s next.

Yes, you get to choose if you will suffer and for how long.

And you might suffer for a time. That’s natural. But then, you can see what that pain and suffering might teach you. Embracing this and taking the proffered lessons might make it easier to deal with the next similar situation – and any other painful experiences that occur in the future.

This is, frankly, a matter of positivity. Why? Because we get to decide to choose to learn from pain and grow or let it rule us and suffer. Pain and suffering can teach us – when we’re open to their lessons and embrace them for what they might be. This often means finding the silver lining to the stormy clouds in our lives.

Pain and suffering cannot be avoided (which toxic positivity might suggest. Which is why that’s not genuine positivity). But they can be incredible teachers of life, the Universe, and everything. They can be paths to amazing growth, change, discovery, and greater understanding.

Embracing pain and suffering for what they can teach us isn’t hard

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

When we recognize and acknowledge that pain and suffering are unavoidable, we can see how they can be used as life lessons. Knowing that we get to choose to suffer or choose to grow when we experience pain – we can be more accepting of pain and suffering and recognize them for the teachers they can be. 

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 forty-seventh 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 How Do We Embrace Pain and Suffering for What They Can Teach Us? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Do You Choose to Navigate the River of Life?

Everyone gets to choose to swim, flow, float, or sink in the river of life.

Photo by MJ Blehart

More than a decade ago, I decided that I was not going to just let life live me. I had a desire to choose the direction of my life – and what I would do with it.

When I started blogging regularly at the beginning of 2012, my Pathwalking philosophy was born.

Over time it’s evolved. A lot. And though many of the original tenets exist – but have been refined – the philosophy has evolved.

Why? Because evolution is a natural part of life. I evolve. You evolve. The world around us evolves. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Darwinism or not – evolution is a scientific fact.

Evolution is at its core change. And change is the one and only constant in the entire Universe.

In the 10+ years since I began to practice Pathwalking, there have been numerous false starts. I’ve taken a bunch of wrong turns, faced obstacles, detours, and a path that’s frequently been confusing.

Though who I was when I began this process isn’t who I am now – I not only still believe in Pathwalking – but am working out how to spread it in new ways to more people.

Why? Because while this is in no way the One True Way to live life – it is a way that everyone can employ.

That’s because Pathwalking is, at its heart, super easy. It’s simply making active choices and decisions. Choices and decisions are all about how we navigate the river of life

What is the river of life?

Like a river, life ebbs and flows. Sometimes the current is almost nonexistent, sometimes fast, other times there are rocks along the way. It can be slow and meandering or swiftly rushing to a waterfall. And like the water that makes up a river – life flows.

Lots and lots of writers, artists, and philosophers have made references to the river of life. Why? Because the idea of how a river functions is almost a perfect mirror of how life functions.

I recently read Om Swami’s The Big Questions of Life. It moved me – not so much because it offered me something new that I’d never previously considered.  But because it resonated with me and reminded me of things I sometimes lose sight of.

One quote that really struck me was this,

“The river of life flows independently of one’s preferences. Whether you flow, float, swim or sink, it’s your personal choice.”

This matches my belief in the 3 ways to live.

Let life live you (flow, float)Curl up in a ball and await death (sink)Take life like a bull by the horns for a ride (swim)

And this is why we all get to choose how to navigate the river of life – or not.

Do you flow, float, sink, or swim?

Everyone is cast into the river of life. We all take part in living in one way or another.

To be fair – nobody lives one single way. When I go swimming, I don’t always swim. Sometimes I choose to flow or float.

This is true of life itself. Sometimes we swim, while other times we just go with the flow and/or float along.

And that’s not a bad thing. Because some people, when they swim, do nothing but fight the current and resist the flow.

There are certainly times that’s apropos. Shit happens that we can and should fight and resist. But for the most part that’s because it impedes progress or causes undue hurt and harm to many people (i.e. laws that take away rights or restrict bodily autonomy).

But life is personal. How I choose to live is about me.

That sounds selfish. But it’s not. It’s the reality of choosing my life experience for myself. Pathwalking is about choosing and deciding when to swim versus when to float or flow.

What about sinking? For the most part, sinking in the river is a bad idea. Sinking leads to drowning.

But sometimes we sink into the river to escape a swarm of mosquitos or hornets. We choose to go under and hold our breath expecting to rise back to the surface to swim, float, or flow again.

The lesson here is that it’s all about choice. When we choose and decide we empower ourselves.

Thus empowered, we gain the control we can have over our overall life experiences.

Photo by the authorThe river of life isn’t a singular path

Lots of rivers flow into one another. And many flow into the sea.

The fact is, no river is wholly singular. Just like no paths we choose are going to be without obstacles, detours, and challenges along the way – this is true of rivers.

While choosing to walk a given path is an apt metaphor for deciding how to live life – swimming is more accurate. Because unlike the road and its solidity, water is a middle state between forms.

Yes, the terrain will change. A road might begin as pavement, become gravel, and end in dirt. But it’s always solid.

Water, however, can utterly transmute its state. Freeze it, and it becomes solid. Heat it, and you can turn it to vapor. Life, likewise, can shift and change due to influences not so different from temperature and equally outside our direct control.

Here’s the other wonderful thing about the river of life as a path. Rather than a creation like a road – rivers are naturally occurring. As Om Swami says in The Big Questions of Life,

“The moment we start seeing life as something we flow with as opposed to something we have to make, our perspective changes naturally. Unnecessary struggle takes a back seat and you become increasingly aware of where you need to surrender versus when you ought to take charge.”

We can choose how we live our lives all the time.

I continue to share my Pathwalking philosophy. But the reality of any paths we choose is that they – like the river of life – flow like water. And we can float, flow, swim, or sink – depending on what we choose and decide.

But there is one last, important thing to remember here.

You can only choose how to navigate your personal river

No matter how much we might desire to – we cannot make anyone else choose to navigate their river of life.

Consciousness creates reality. That’s true. But that applies to only you. I cannot consciously create your reality just as you can’t consciously create mine.

One of the biggest issues in our society today is how people try again and again to control the flow of others’ lives.

It doesn’t work. And that’s because the only life you can make choices and decisions for is yours.

But when we realize this truth – we become empowered. And thus empowered, we get to choose how to navigate the river of life that we are experiencing.

When we let go of trying to direct the paths of others – and focus on our own – it’s not selfish. This is a matter of self-care. Because the only one in my head – who knows what I desire for life – is me. And that’s true for you, too.

It all comes down to choices and decisions – and if you are active in making them or passive.

We’re all in a river of life. We’re all capable of choosing to float, flow, swim, or sink at will at any time.

And that is a beautiful, amazing reality.

How do you choose to navigate your river of life?

This is the five-hundred and fifty-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 How Do You Choose to Navigate the River of Life? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Positivity Is a Choice to Empower Taking Control of Our Lives

Positivity is less about how we feel than about how we choose to approach our lives.

Photo by Ryan Moreno on Unsplash

How easy is it to feel bad? To find negativity in the world? To see darkness, sadness, and hopelessness?

Too easy. Surf the internet. Watch cable news. Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to start down that path.

Because it is so extremely easy to find the bad and the negative in our world today – they often become dominant. And if they’re not dominating the narratives, they certainly feel as though they are.

Negativity is one side not of a coin, but a flexible cylinder. And on the other side is positivity.

The notion of positivity has gotten used and abused and given a bad rap. Why? Primarily due to toxic positivity.

Toxic positivity is this idea that if you only seek out the positive and blatantly disregard or ignore negativity – all will be well. It suggests that with positivity alone we can live a better, fuller life.

Toxic positivity is utter bullshit. That’s because we cannot disregard, ignore, or pretend that negativity doesn’t exist.

So what’s the point of working on positivity? The point is that seeking positivity in a world dominated by negative messages is a choice. What’s more, it’s a choice to assume control over the only thing we can.

Ourselves.

What we control is limited but important

Do you know what we have control of in this life? Our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

We can control how we think, what and how we feel, what we do with that, and any intentions we have. Apart from that, we can control (to some degree) how we look.

That’s about it. Nearly everything else is not ours to control.

That’s not such a bad thing when you get down to it. Why? Because recognizing that we can take control of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions is one thing. Acknowledging that control is another. But only then can we act to take control.

Often, we don’t. Why? Because we tend to let our subconscious do the driving. And thus, we move through life via rote and routine. We cede control of our lives to our subconscious and old habits, beliefs, and values that may or may not align with who, what, where, how, or why we are – or desire to be.

How do we take control? Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is conscious awareness here and now. It’s a product of the present. Frequently, that conscious awareness is directed without. In this instance, mindful conscious awareness needs to be directed within.

Mindfulness then shows us our mindset/headspace/psyche self, here and now, in the present. That will then inform us just who, what, where, how, and why we are. Then, if that’s unsatisfactory – we can take steps to change it.

This is where positivity comes into play. Why? Because consciousness creates reality.

If we are in a bad headspace, feeling depressed, hopeless, or negative in general – we disempower ourselves.

Positivity, on the other hand, empowers.

Choosing positivity is choosing control

When we choose to seek out, find, and/or create positivity – we’re choosing to take control.

Control of what? Everything that we can control.

Why are we unable to have control with negativity? This is tricky to explain without creating a specific situation.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you are surfing the internet and you read about a senseless foreign war, or a law passed that violates basic human rights. This upsets you and makes you feel bad. Before you know it, you start to come across similar things that increase your negative feelings. You start to find it hard to feel good about anything, sadness dominates, and hopelessness starts to sink icy fingers into your soul.

Just reading the above, do you feel a sense of sadness? Despair? From that feeling can you build any desire to do much of anything but give up?

When we are not mindful this tends to be how we inadvertently react to the world around us. For many people, it becomes easier to live via rote and routine – and let their subconscious mind do the driving so that they need not think about these bad, negative things.

I believe this is why so many people become sheeple. It’s less about being controlled – since, truly, nobody can control anyone else – but more about choosing not to make choices and deciding not to make decisions.

Hence, negativity leads to ceding control of our lives. It often looks like we give that control away to some god or government – but in truth, we mostly just give it away to our infrequently explored subconscious minds.

This is why putting energy into finding and/or creating positivity is less about the good or positive and more about choice, decision, and taking what control we can.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on UnsplashWorking past the pain and fear

Why are we bombarded and inundated by so much easy-to-access negativity? Because negativity sells. What’s more, it’s disempowering – which then allows governments, opportunistic individuals, and marketers to take advantage of our need to combat negativity.

When we’re not actively making choices and decisions – and instead letting our subconscious do the driving – we become fairly easy marks. We elect the awful politician, buy the pointless product, and/or pay for the unnecessary service – because we subconsciously think it will reduce potential pain and fear.

To be honest – it might. But not for long, because we have not chosen to assume the control we are genuinely, as human beings, entitled to.

When we make choices and decisions for our lives, we become empowered. When we’re empowered, we will turn more within than without for answers – which “they” can’t profit from. Do you know what happens when we are empowered? We take control.

This is not perfect. Nor is it ever a one-and-done matter. But ongoing choices and decisions for our lives and our life experiences are the paths to control of how our lives are. This is how we can choose what, how, where, why, and who we are while occupying these bodies during our limited life experiences.

It’s not easy. But positivity is a product of choice we can employ to make more of what we have.

Life is not meant to be merely survived. All of us – every single one of us – are here to thrive and experience tremendous potential and possibilities.

And that is an enormous positive – don’t you think?

Choosing and deciding to find and/or create positivity isn’t hard

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

When we practice mindfulness and decide to make use of positivity as a choice to better ourselves, we can take control of our life experiences. Knowing that we have that kind of control – and can make choices and decisions to use it to create a life we desire to live – we can choose and decide anything and everything for ourselves more readily. 

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 forty-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 Positivity Is a Choice to Empower Taking Control of Our Lives appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Does Getting Over Feeling Hurt Take So Long?

Even unintentional hurt that we are made feel tends to linger.

Photo by Yeyo Salas on Unsplash

Someone that I care a great deal about hurt me.

Let me be clear about several facts in this matter. First – I know it was not their intent to cause me hurt. They were in their own odd headspace, and it made them less receptive to the impact their actions had.

Second – Given our history, this should not have come as the surprise that it did. Yet it caught me off guard, and though I half expected it to happen – the hurt I felt was greater and more unpleasant than anticipated.

Third – and most importantly – I am responsible for how I feel. Look, I know they did not intentionally – or with malice of forethought – hurt me. Hell, I half expect they don’t even realize how hurt I feel. But that’s not the point of this. The point is that this is how I feel, and I must be responsible for it.

This can be a really bitter pill to swallow. And there are numerous reasons why. Probably the most important is validity.

My feelings in this are completely and totally valid. That I feel hurt is valid. They did something that hit me emotionally hard and caused me to feel hurt. This is a completely valid feeling.

But how long I hold onto it and let it nag at me and dig its claws into me, is entirely up to me.

This is why I ask the question – why does getting over feeling hurt take so long?

Let’s start with the most important fact of this matter.

Taking control of how we feel is a choice

All kinds of things happen in our lives that make us feel one way or another. Many are sudden and unplanned.

Elation comes from a promotion at work, validation of feelings when your crush reciprocates, winning a contest, finishing a project, and so on.

Likewise, upset comes from losing a job, a relationship ending, the death of a loved one, car accidents, and so on.

Not all feelings are the product of outside influences and happenings. But enough are that we need to consider how they affect us. The impact is just as variable as they themselves are.

In short – shit happens that will cause you to feel strongly. You get excited, enraged, enthralled, apathetic, happy, and hurt by things both great and small. Shit happens and there is an immediate, visceral, almost instinctual reaction.

Sometimes that emotion lasts and lingers – good or bad. Whatever the case may be, for how long we allow it to be there is up to us.

We have control of our feelings.

Doesn’t often feel that way, does it? But via mindfulness, once we are consciously aware – here and now, in the present – of the feelings we are feeling – we can change them.

This is seldom instantaneous. And some feelings are more difficult to release or change than others.

Hurt is one of these.

Hurt and similar negative feelings seem heavy

This hurt that I feel, caused by actions on the part of someone I care a great deal about, is like an incredibly heavy weight. It’s like I have an anvil or heavy cannonball that’s ever-present with all I do and am doing.

This, I believe, is part of why getting over feeling hurt takes so long. Hurt is not a singular emotion – it’s a blend. Hurt involves a combination of sadness, anger, uncertainty, fear, and other similar emotions.

Allow me to break this hurt down into its constituent parts.

Sadness because someone didn’t care to validate my feelings.Anger because it feels like they were selfish.Uncertainty because I question if it was something I did to cause it.Fear – because what if this happens again and I suffer even more?Other similar emotions that come and go and I can’t hold onto them long enough to name. I know how they feel, but not necessarily what they are.

Not everyone feels hurt in the same way that I do. There is no One True Way. But to my knowledge, hurt is always an amalgam of multiple feelings. That’s why it lingers as it does.

How do we get over this feeling? Time – which is utterly variable from person to person. But less variable and more importantly – mindfulness. Active mindfulness.

Photo by Andrew Neel on UnsplashMindfulness gives us insight to take action

Mindfulness is not a buzzword ideal. It’s practical, conscious awareness. Mindfulness is a product of the now, the present, and can give us insight into who, what, where, how, and why we are – right now.

However – it’s not a one-and-done proposition. Just because I was mindful and consciously aware of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions yesterday doesn’t mean I am also consciously aware of them now. Why? Because of change.

The one and only constant in the Universe is change. Like it or not, change happens.

Hence why how we think, feel, act, and intend is never the same from one day to the next. Similar, quite possibly. But the same? Never precisely so.

Taking all that into account, however, it is with mindfulness that we can look at a feeling like hurt and gain insight into the what and how of it. What is the hurt? How did it come about? What feelings is it producing? How are we acting as a result of that?

By practicing active mindfulness, we give ourselves conscious awareness in the here-and-now. That allows us to examine the what and how of our feelings – even hurt.

But just because we have mindfulness of the hurt – that doesn’t make it go away.

Recognize and acknowledge it’s okay to feel hurt

There are any number of messages we receive that tell us feeling hurt makes us weak. That we should get over it already and let it go.

Feeling hurt is utterly natural and does not make anyone at all weak. I repeat – FEELING HURT IS UTTERLY NATURAL AND DOES NOT MAKE ANYONE AT ALL WEAK.

Yes, we need to let go of our hurt feelings. The longer that they hang on and linger, the more harm they can do to us.

Letting go, releasing them, and getting over feeling hurt is a challenge. Just because it seems clear, something might crop up to make it fresh again. Or the brain weasels start chittering away, causing more discomfort.

Whatever the case may be – it is okay to feel hurt. But it’s also equally okay to take action to get over it. Allow whatever time you need. But know that you are not alone in this struggle by any stretch of the imagination.

Why does getting over feeling hurt take so long? Because hurt is a complex blend of thoughts and feelings that we often do not recognize and acknowledge fully before trying to work with them. Mindfulness makes us consciously aware – and practical mindfulness helps us in the process of getting over feeling hurt. But it will take time – and we need to allow it to.

Don’t ask why – recognize and acknowledge and then act to get over the hurt. But know the feeling is perfectly valid – and you are not weak when feeling it. Recognition and acknowledgment empower us to take control and consciously work on getting over it.

When you feel hurt, what do you do to get over that?

This is the five-hundred and fifty-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 Why Does Getting Over Feeling Hurt Take So Long? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What Are You Doing Today and How Does it Make You Feel?

Today is one-of-a-kind. What will you choose to do with that?

Photo by Marga Santoso on Unsplash

I have just completed an annual vacation that was interrupted by the pandemic for two years.

Every summer since 1996, I have spent 1-2 weeks at a massive medieval reenactment event called the Pennsic War. It tends to draw 10,000+ people to it for numerous medieval classes, combats, glamping, and socializing from all over the world.

Due to COVID-19, the event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. This year, however, it returned. Attendance was lower than normal – around 7500 people total.

On the one hand, it was nice to return to this annual gathering and see so many friends. On the other hand, it was odd. Half my usual campmates didn’t attend, and the even had a feeling to it that was nearly – but not quite – the usual.

Despite the oddities that came with attending this year, I’m glad I went. I had a good 9-day adventure with my chosen family. And each day was one-of-a-kind in its own way.

Today, I return to elements of the rote and routine. Back to work, back to writing, back to fulfilling certain duties and obligations.

But it needn’t be a bummer, or a let-down from the time I had away. Every single day we live is one-of-a-kind, and full of potential, possibilities, choices, and decisions we can make – or not.

What are you doing today?

How often do we pause and ask ourselves mindful questions? Not as often as would benefit our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing as we could.

Much of this is due to living in a fear-based society where simple mindfulness – and empowerment that comes from it – tend to get readily disregarded. We are expected to be part of the machine – and anything otherwise is treated as suspect.

Practicing practical mindfulness is easy. It’s just a matter of conscious awareness, here and now. Genuine mindfulness is a product of the present, the now.

The present, the now, is the only time that is really, truly, real.

How do we be more consciously aware? By pausing to ask ourselves simple mindful questions, such as,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What am I doing?What is the intent behind my actions?

When asked in the moment, these questions make us mindfully aware. That awareness informs us about ourselves – and what choices we have already made and can make going forward.

What we are doing today might have rote and routine within it. And there is nothing wrong with that. But what is not necessary is living in a bad, negative, unpleasant space.

How does it make you feel?

When you approach your day dejected, unhappy, discontent, and expecting awfulness – chances are, that’s exactly what you’ll get.

And there are numerous distractions all around us to present exactly this. Life’s a bitch, and then you die. Is that really how it is?

No. Not unless we accept it and make no choices and decisions counter to that in any way.

When we spend too much time online, watching TV news networks, and worrying about matters that are far, far outside of our control – we disempower ourselves.

I am not saying that we should ignore the world and all that happens out there. That’s thoroughly unhealthy and leads to ignorance and willful ignorance that can do much harm.

But on the other hand, giving that too much energy and attention is disempowering. Why? Because what we can individually do with big-picture issues is massively limited.

Instead, to take control of our life experiences, we should work to be more consciously aware – mindful – here and now. Because then we are open to making choices and decisions that will impact us positively or negatively.

I don’t know about you – but I like to feel good, not bad. Content, not discontent. Positive, not negative. And this is not in a naïve, rose-colored way – but in a realistic awareness of choices and decisions for how my individual life can be.

Which brings me to an important point.

Photo by Anne Nygård on UnsplashChoosing neither positive nor negative still impacts us all

What about neutrality?

When you are Switzerland – and avoiding conflict with your neighbors and the world at large – neutrality can be a perfectly reasonable choice.

Until it’s not.

When you are surrounded by suffering – and not choosing to recognize that and its impact on others – you contribute to it.

For example – when you stay neutral and don’t vote to protect the rights of individuals to choose for themselves, you will harm yourself in the process. The complicit and “neutral” cause hurt and harm because they think being neutral will keep them out of it. But it never does.

That’s not to say that there aren’t times to just go with the flow and be neutral. But choosing that as your default is as good as making no choices or decisions for your own empowerment.

We have so very much more power than we tend to recognize. But to employ it, we need to choose it. Make decisions that are positive or negative. Deciding not to decide and choosing not to choose can be empowering – but not in the same way.

The more each of us is consciously aware and mindful, the more we’re empowered. Then we can choose to make today special. Or not.

Today doesn’t need to be limited. Nor does today need to be like very other day. There will never be another day precisely like today. So how we choose to live it can make it something amazing. And that’s true of every today that we live.

I don’t about you – but to me, that’s pretty damned amazing.

What are you choosing to do today and how will that make you feel?

Choosing what we are doing today isn’t hard

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

When we recognize the power of our conscious awareness – and practice being mindful – we can make today better than we might otherwise think it could be. Knowing that we are empowered to make our own choices and decisions regularly, we can see how much more control of our life experience is available to us. 

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 generally leans positively.

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, I believe 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 forty-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 Are You Doing Today and How Does it Make You Feel? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Can Pathwalking Be for Everyone Even if it’s Not One-Size Fits All?

Pathwalking is for everyone because it is an open practice with almost infinite options.

Photo by tamara garcevic on Unsplash

When I accepted the challenge to myself to write weekly, Pathwalking was born at the start of 2012.

Over the years since then, it’s evolved into a much larger, richer, and deeper life philosophy.

I like to think of Pathwalking as taking the best parts of other Universal life ideas and making them accessible to more people. I strive to do this with plain language, simplicity, and approachability.

What are these Universal life ideas? They are many, but they include The Law of Attraction and conscious reality creation, mindfulness, seeking and finding a direction of positivity, impermanence, and self-care.

You don’t need to come from anywhere special, practice a religion or similar tenet, or be anything or anyone specific. Pathwalking is available to you no matter race, creed, sex, color, gender, sexual preference, nationality, or any other devisor or artifice. Pathwalking is available to and for all.

I share this journey and my ideas for it because I firmly believe that when more of us are actively making choices and decisions for our lives, we spread empowerment to our friends and family and maybe even further.

Why does that matter? Because to change our fear-based society for the better, and shift towards a reason-based society, we need to begin individually. And one of the best ways to do so is to choose who, what, how, where, and why we ourselves, are.

Making active choices and decisions versus passive

I’ve written before that I believe there are 3 main ways for each of us to live life. We all tend to shift between them along the way – because change is the only constant in the Universe and life is fluid.

Still, they tend to look like this:

Let life live you. What is, is. Just let it happen as it will. Take it however it comes. This is passive.Curl up in a ball and await death. Accept the belief that life is awful, you have no control, and don’t bother to experience anything that life offers you because it will ultimately crash. This is mostly passive but can be active choices of disempowerment.Grab life like a bull by the horns and go for a ride. Take what control you can and experience life as fully as possible. This is active.

Let me be honest – shit happens. Like it or not, things occur that we have ZERO control over. I didn’t expect – that November afternoon when I left my apartment to go to the Post Office to mail out my bills – that I’d wind up hospitalized and spending the next year recovering from serious injuries. But it happened and I could do nothing about it.

Except that I got to choose from the above choices. Let healing happen however it would, however long it would take? Lament my injuries and accept nothing would ever be the same again? Or fight, push hard with every therapy, and get back on my feet (literally) as soon as possible?

I’m pleased to report I chose the latter.

When we make active choices, we take life into our own hands. That opens the way to Pathwalking.

So how exactly does Pathwalking work?

The practice of Pathwalking

When we make active choices for our life experiences, they can have multiple effects.

One is that we can recognize and acknowledge where, how, when, why, and who we are in the present. Another is that we can see from this if there is anything we are displeased or discontent with and desire to change.

If we are intent on making/taking a new direction for our life, we’re going to place ourselves on a path.

Pathwalking is the recognition of this truth. It’s the active action of doing things mindfully to get from where we are NOW to where we desire to be.

But it is important to take three things into consideration.

First – we can only start from the now. Right here. Today. The present. Attempting to make any change in our life from the past is going to hit all sorts of obstacles. Why? Because the past is not the present – and it would be like being the age you are now and attempting to start a new path from where you were 20 years ago. It won’t work from a past starting point.

Second – paths are full of obstacles, detours, and the unexpected. Also, sometimes they shift and change while traversing them. This is perfectly normal because life is seldom predictable. As we say in melee fencing combat (all combat, really) – no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Third – mindfulness on the path is more important than the goal we’re striving towards. All sorts of things present themselves along any path we literally traverse. Like this truth, when we choose a metaphoric path, there will be things we encounter while traveling on it. Remaining mindful and consciously aware while on the path lets us recognize how amazing life is and can be.

Photo by Patrick Schneider on UnsplashMindfulness is the key to it all

To be an active participants in our life experiences, we need to be mindful.

Mindfulness is not some buzzword notion to make our lives super amazing. It is the very realistic conscious awareness of life, the Universe, and everything in the only time that’s real – now.

The present is the only time that’s truly real. The past has come and gone and is often colored by our individual experiences, biases, prejudices, and the like. Meanwhile, the future is unwritten – and the unpredictable can and will happen to alter it – no matter how we desire to make it.

Most importantly, mindfulness is about ourselves. It’s conscious awareness of our inner mindset/headspace/psyche through our six senses and our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. This also makes us more capable of seeing where our habits, beliefs, and values lie within our subconscious, as well as how our ego both projects us to the world without and mirrors us back to ourselves.

But what about the rest of the world? Shouldn’t we also be aware of what’s going on out there? Yes. But not to the detriment of our inner awareness. This is what tends to happen because we see self-knowledge, self-care, and any other way we might put ourselves first as selfish.

It is not selfish to care for ourselves first. But there are lots and lots of false narratives that make us believe that it is. And while it’s true that taking care of ourselves might make others feel that we are being selfish – we can’t impact the feelings of anyone else.

Remember – actual selfishness involves malice of forethought and acting in a way we know will cause hurt and/or harm to another. But we cannot think or feel for anyone else. Self-care might still seem selfish to them.

Pathwalking is an active practice

When we take the time to choose who, what, where, how, and why we desire to be – Pathwalking is literally a path we can take to get there.

When we are mindful and consciously aware, working to use consciousness to create our reality, embrace impermanence, and seek to find and/or create positivity, we are living actively.

We all know, directly or indirectly, people we consider to be “sheeple”. They are living passive lives, under the boot of this person or that person, and frequently swayed by others. They tend to only take an active approach of necessity.

Every single person on Earth can choose to live a passive or an active life. But there is no shame in having lived – or currently living – passively. There are plenty of reasons why this is. Sometimes situations and circumstances leave us too exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually to do more than live by rote and routine. But we are still living – we might just need time to recover from trauma and merely exist for a bit.

But to live passively all the time invites stagnation, discontent, bitterness, and other negativity. Nobody in the human race is merely here to exist and just survive. All of us are here to grow, change, have unique experiences, and ultimately thrive.

Active living – making choices and decisions for our life experiences – is the only way I’ve seen to best do this. Pathwalking is an active practice that anyone can employ to choose and decide new ways to actively live life as fully as possible.

Finally – we are all worthy and deserving of this. Everybody alive can choose and decide to be thus empowered. And that is why I continue to grow, evolve, and share this philosophy and practice with the world.

Do you choose to mostly live actively or passively?

This is the five-hundred and fifty-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 Can Pathwalking Be for Everyone Even if it’s Not One-Size Fits All? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Can’t We Always Have Positivity in Life?

Because change is inevitable – and positivity coexists with negativity.

We live in a world of opposites and extremes. But the important thing about this is that we exist within the opposites and extremes.

Very few people exist at any given extreme. Near, perhaps – but seldom at. This is why comparing extremes and opposites via a coin misunderstands the breadth and depth of this reality. It’s not a coin, it’s a cylinder with vast space between the given extremes.

Take black and white, for example. There are how many colors and shades of grey between these extremes? More than I can express easily, that’s for sure.

This is true of all extremes and opposites. What exists between them is incredible variations that sometimes can’t be parsed easily.

Directions like north, south, east, and west exist on a 360-degree compass. You can be off true to any extreme by a degree, half a degree, maybe even a millionth of a degree. But you are still not at the given extreme.

What’s more, the cylinders between any extremes are not solid, but flexible. And they can shift because the extremes themselves can shift.

For example, the pinnacle hero of a given story might suddenly and unexpectedly turn into the villain of the peace – and the focal villain might turn heroic. This might be a fictional example – but it happens in the real world, too.

Extremes and opposites change. What exists between them changes. The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. We live in a Universe of impermanence – where change is the only constant. And that is why there is nothing we can or will always have – tangible or intangible.

Impermanence is the way of nature

Billions of years ago, the Big Bang set the Universe in motion. Since then, it has been expanding, shifting, and changing.

Down here on Planet Earth, the world has shifted and changed time and time again. For example, nearly 300 million years ago all the continents were a singular entity known as Pangea. Now there are 7 continents instead of 1.

The land of these continents has changed. All you need to do is look at the strata of the Grand Canyon and you can see millions of years of history and change.

Human beings have changed. It’s a lot harder to see because homo sapien sapiens – modern human beings – first appeared only 300,000 years ago. That’s not a lot of relative time – hence our evolution has seemed much slower and less pronounced.

But it all comes down to change. Change is the one and only constant. Every single human life changes. We are born small and helpless, grow to be larger and stronger, in time become powerful and empowered, and then shrink to smaller and more helpless before we die.

And sometimes death comes sooner and in our prime – or even before it.

Impermanence is a given. All living things die. Mountains rise and fall. Rivers flow and dry out. Oceans turn to deserts and deserts turn to oceans. That’s the workings of the Universe.

For many people, this is too harsh, too scary, and too malleable to face. So they don’t. And when change occurs it often takes them by surprise.

Positivity is a direction, not a destination

Those who sell positivity as the One True Way to exist have created toxic positivity instead. Because of impermanence, we not only can’t always have positivity in our lives – but we must have negativity, too. Also, we don’t live on either end of the cylinder of opposites and extremes – but somewhere between them.

The reality of seeking out, finding, and/or creating positivity is not about reaching it as a destination. Instead, it’s about it being a direction. Just like a compass point.

When we travel upon the Earth, we’re moving in one direction along the compass or another. We might be going north, south, east, or west – or somewhere within degrees between them. Likewise, we can choose to look towards positivity, negativity – or between them.

Positivity is not the end-all-be-all destination for life, the Universe, and everything. It can’t be. Why? Because life is impermanent. Hence, we can choose it as a direction to face and head towards – but nothing more than that.

How do we recognize and work with this? Mindfulness.

Photo by Nick Fewings on UnsplashMindfulness is the way to choose direction

I’ve written many times that I believe there are three ways to live this life. There is no One True Way, mind you – but I think there’s a positive, negative, and neutral option. Your mileage may vary.

Let life live you. What happens, happens. You seldom take the wheel and just go with the ebb and flow. Existence with a sense of no control but little desire to try and find or take it. Neutral.Curl up in a ball and await death. Life sucks. This is a broken, imperfect, painful world. Effort isn’t worth it, so why bother? This is a state of victimhood. I also think this is why and how religious zealots caring only for an afterlife and ignoring life itself exist, too. Negative.Take the wheel and drive life. We are empowered to make choices and decisions for our lives. To do so, we must consciously place ourselves in the driver’s seat. Positive.

How do we take the wheel? Mindfulness. Practicing conscious awareness of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions in the present. Here and now. Recognizing and acknowledging what we are thinking, what and how we’re feeling, and our actions and intentions in the now opens the way to taking the wheel and choosing how we direct them and ourselves.

Let me be clear – everyone is going to flip between the three above ways to live life. That’s because, frankly, shit happens. We get fired, dumped, injured, etc. People leave us and die. Things happen that make it feel like there’s no point and we might as well not bother.

But after those initial, visceral reactions – we get to choose. Or not. Stay neutral, drive toward positivity, or be driven to negativity.

Remember thou art mortal

All those obscenely rich, arrogant billionaires will eventually die. And they can’t take it with them. Some will try in one way or another to do so. Also, some will destroy all they can to make sure nobody else can have what they did out of pettiness, greed, spite, or whatever.

Politicians and their horrid, selfish, cruel actions will die. History is rife with monsters who are gone.

You and I will die in time, too. For many people, this is a terrifying notion. And what lies beyond this life – if anything – is a mystery that we can’t know until we make our way there eventually, too.

Rather than allow this to freak us out – we should embrace it. Why? Because then we become more apt to choose to take the wheel of life and be empowered. I think we become more willing to seek to find and/or create positivity and all the good that comes from it.

Also, remembering our imminent mortality makes us kinder, gentler, and more compassionate. Why? Because we empathize better knowing nothing is forever.

Additionally – mindfulness lets us better roll with the punches and change.

Why can’t we always have positivity in life? Because nothing in life is always. And that’s a good thing – because that means bad things can and will change to good. We’re never stuck forever. Change can thus be an ally rather than an enemy.

Recognizing why we can’t always have positivity in life isn’t hard

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

When we recognize and acknowledge the vast space between opposites and extremes, we see that there’s more to everything than we often realize. Knowing that change is the only constant in the Universe – and that everything is impermanent – we can employ mindfulness to make choices and decisions for what directional extremes we desire to face. 

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

Choosing for ourselves generally leans positively.

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, I believe 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 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 forty-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 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 Can’t We Always Have Positivity in Life? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Is The Struggle An Important Part of Any Chosen Path?

Because without the struggle we lack the impetus for growth and change.

Photo by Flo P on Unsplash

One of the hardest aspects of working to improve our lives is stepping out of our existing comfort zones.

Why is it called a comfort zone? Because it’s comfortable.

Though that’s not wholly accurate. More than being comfortable, our comfort zone is about familiarity. It’s what we know, are used to, and consider deep down to be the norm. Such that it is.

This is why we often develop a comfort zone where we’re not truly comfortable. Familiar? Yes. Comfortable? No.

For example – the cubicle at the office you’ve nested within to develop a sense of belonging and hominess. Which is great and familiar – but the job itself? Not where you desire to spend so many hours of your life.

Because escaping our comfort zones is so challenging, we spent a lot of the time – when we’re doing self-work – struggling. This is due to the conflict that ensues when we actively work to step out of any given comfort zone.

So why bother? Because when we don’t act to leave a comfort zone we stagnate. When we stagnate, we cease to grow, evolve, and actively change. But because passive change happens and is unavoidable – it can and will catch us by surprise and create upset.

Struggling is part of growth and change. But how we view it will impact how it affects us.

The struggle is real

Despite my desire to shed weight and get into better shape overall – it’s a real struggle. Increasing my exercise while working on my diet to improve my physical health is not easy.

I have been in this same position nearly all my life. And I have ridden the yo-yo up and down regarding my weight, body shape, and overall fitness.

In my comfort zone, I love food. Eating until I’m full is my common practice – despite all the recommendations and things I’ve read telling me to not eat to full.

It’s a real struggle to leave behind this comfort zone – despite my desire to leave it. But I know that to protect my health and increase my longevity I need to work with – rather than against – this struggle.

I know this is not just a struggle I have. Lots of friends and family have dealt with the same. Our approaches have varied – but the struggle is familiar.

Growth and change of any kind involve struggle. But sometimes it’s slight while other times it feels like trying to dig a hole in a sand dune in the Sahara Desert on a windy day with a dull teaspoon. I imagine that’s a serious struggle. But that’s how it feels sometimes, doesn’t it?

Why bother? Because change is inevitable. It’s the one and only constant in the whole Universe. When we stagnate and allow ourselves to stay in our comfort zone – change will eventually force us out of it in some way or other.

When that happens – if we have resisted all struggles for growth and to control change – this sucks mightily. Because avoiding, ignoring, and resisting the inevitability of change disempowers us.

Photo by GR Stocks on UnsplashWe have so much more power than we realize

There is a pervasive false narrative about power in our world. The avenues to power – as we’re shown them by media, stories, and the collective consciousness of our fear-based society – look to be limited.

Power appears to only belong to the obscenely wealthy, celebrities, successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) politicians, business moguls, and those who have worked obscenely hard with nothing but eyes on the prize.

Thus, we’re led to believe that if we don’t fall into one of these 5 categories, we have no power. Or that we’re not entitled to nor deserving of power.

This is utterly untrue.

Every single person has the power to be empowered. We all have choices available to us that will allow us to decide who, what, where, how, and why to be. No matter where we begin or come from, we’re empowered to choose our life experiences for ourselves.

But there is an important caveat to this. We can ONLY choose for ourselves. Which is the other issue with the false narrative about power in our society today. It implies that the powerful gain control over the masses in one form or another.

Let me be clear: Bullshit. Nobody has power or control over anyone else. There is nobody who can choose and decide for you what, how, where, and why your life should be. Even if you cede that to them – you’re still choosing.

The powerful as we perceive them are no better than we are. And we, in turn, are no better than anyone else. When we choose our own life path it is for only us. We cannot direct, choose, or control that of any other.

This is not selfish unless you do something cruel, unkind, hurtful, or harmful with intent and malice of forethought.

Choose the path and the struggle

There is nobody inside your head, heart, and soul but you.

Nobody else knows you to your core. There’s nobody else who understands your dreams, your desires, your wants, and your needs.

That’s a good thing. Because do you have the time to work with or on somebody else’s head, heart, or soul but your own? I know that I don’t.

So that means that we get to choose what paths to take and what struggles to endure along them.

When we decide to act to change our life experiences, we need to embrace that we have decided to take on the struggle that’s inevitably going to go along with them.

Without a struggle, we would not recognize the comfort zone we’re working on moving out of. This matters because choosing direction and life paths is choosing to leave comfort zones behind.

The struggle is different for each of us. But none of us are alone in it. No, we’re not in the same boat – but we’re on similar seas. When we are mindful of this and the choices we choose – rather than allowing life to just live us and pass us by – the struggle is just another part of it all.

Finally – we are all worthy and deserving of choosing and walking the paths of our lives. We don’t need to meet the false narratives of who can hold power to be empowered. That in and of itself is pretty damned empowering, frankly.

The struggle is real. And you are worthy and deserving of the choices that provide you the paths for your life experience.

In what ways do you experience the struggle with your chosen paths?

This is the five-hundred and fifty-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 Is The Struggle An Important Part of Any Chosen Path? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is It Really Worth the Effort?

You alone know if it’s really worth the effort – or not.

Photo by Juan Goyache on Unsplash

What is “It”? That depends, I suppose. Various things that we can experience will qualify as “it.” Might be something big and scary or small and mundane.

“It” might be getting up early to go for a walk. Or it might be applying for that dream job you’ve always wanted. Maybe “it” is finally cleaning out the walk-in closet in your bedroom. Perhaps “it” is taking the time to sit and write that novel you’ve always dreamed of writing.

But is it really worth it? I don’t know. But that’s because the worth and value each of us might place upon “it” will vary. This depends on what “it” is and what it means to me or you or anyone else.

How many times have you just gone with the flow and done something? Then, questioned if it had been worth whatever time or effort you put into it? Or worse – found that it truly wasn’t worth it?

Part of self-awareness for everyone is recognizing and acknowledging how much more power we have over our life experiences than we tend to take. Doing so is relatively easy – but it’s also easy to forget.

The key? Mindfulness.

In this context, mindfulness is not some end-all-be-all hooky-spooky idea for self-help and such. No, when I write about mindfulness I’m writing about actual, at the moment, in the present, conscious awareness.

What’s the difference? Genuine, real mindfulness is simple.

Mindfulness informs our lives here and now

There are three parts to true, genuine mindfulness.

The first is mindfulness via sensory input. How we experience the world around us and take it in via touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, and sixth sense intuition/perception/insight. 

The second is via conscious awareness – in the present moment – of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Conscious awareness of these puts us directly in touch with our conscious mind and our mindset/headspace/psyche selves.

The third is via combining the other two to analyze – in the here and now – the interconnections between our present, conscious mind, our subconscious mind, and our ego. This allows us to really recognize and acknowledge precisely who, what, where, how, and why we are.

When we know ourselves via mindfulness – we become capable of choosing. Choosing what? Everything.

The one thing over which you and I have any control whatsoever is ourselves. And that’s specifically our conscious minds.

The subconscious mind just is. Because it takes in everything we learn, encounter, and experience, it’s like a sponge. Over time, it can hold things we’d like it not to anymore – in addition to our habits, beliefs, and values. We can control it – but we don’t unless we make the conscious effort to do so.

Likewise, our ego just is. The ego is the bridge between our conscious and subconscious mind. But in that role, it’s how we both project ourselves to the world at large and view the mirror of all we believe ourselves to be back at us. And like the subconscious mind, we can control it – but we don’t unless we make the conscious effort to do so.

Taking control of our conscious mind is how we can recognize the worth of any effort.

Worth the effort is always variable

This adds a level of frustration to this concept. The answer to the question of is it really worth the effort might not be one-and-done.

For example – let’s say you have a difficult relationship with a family member. In your thirties, trying to work with them and around your difficulties – though challenging – still felt rewarding afterward. But when you reached your forties – it became increasingly less so. Perhaps working around and with your difficulties between you has gotten so toxic that even thinking about the effort upsets you.

In this instance, it certainly appears that while the answer to is it really worth the effort used to be yes, it’s become no. The answer has changed.

This is the challenge with change being the one and only constant in the whole Universe. Today’s yes is tomorrow’s no, while today’s no is tomorrow’s yes. And that can be utterly infuriating.

Then, there’s the other major challenge.

Photo by Suzy Brooks on UnsplashYou alone can choose the worth or lack

This often seems untrue. We live in a society where we’re often faced with the notion that “you’ve to do what you’ve got to do”, having certain responsibilities and obligations, expectations, and other judgments to live with and up to.

The reality, however, is that only you can choose and decide for you. While you can solicit advice and opinions on the worth of effort for any given thing, the ultimate decision and valuation of its worth or lack is yours.

This can be infuriating. Particularly when you make a choice you are certain is right for your mental, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual health – and others judge you’re wrong. For example, you decide to stop putting in effort for the above-mentioned family member. Other members of your family might judge you for that choice. But since they can’t get into your head, heart, or soul with you – they don’t know what’s right for you. Nor can they.

Is it really worth the effort? The answer belongs to you alone. And you are worthy and deserving of choosing whatever it might be for yourself. Even if you know that what you are choosing might cause another to feel hurt – so long as it’s not malicious, you’re worthy and deserving and justified in whatever you’re choosing to do or not to do.

This can feel super heavy. But while more weight comes from choosing right and wrong and making decisions for ourselves – I am certain it’s still better than just going with whatever the world tosses our way and doing what we can to live life to the fullest and in any way we believe is best for us.

Choosing if it’s really worth the effort isn’t hard

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

When we work to be more consciously aware and mindful, we open ourselves to taking control of the one thing we can truly exert control of in this life. Knowing that we are the only one who is inside our heart, mind, and soul, we recognize and acknowledge that we alone can determine if anything is worth the effort or not. And from there, make choices and decisions for ourselves. 

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

Choosing for ourselves generally leans positively.

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, I believe 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 forty-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.

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The post Is It Really Worth the Effort? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Are We What, How, Where, Who, and Why We Are?

Why we are – and all else – depends on circumstances both in and out of our control.

Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash

Please pause a moment. Look around you and then make note of where you are.

How did you get there? What made you decide to be where you are, right now? Is this where somewhere you actually want to be – or not?

For various reasons, you are where you are. Maybe you’re somewhere you have chosen – or not. And even if you are somewhere that you chose – it might not be where you desire to be right now.

How did you get there? If we’re being literal, you probably walked, took public transport, drove, maybe rode a bike, or some such.

Metaphorically, perhaps you took that job, bought that house, got on that bus, or some other circumstance in our outside of your control put you where you are.

This is something I think most of us just take for granted. When did you last question such?

Similarly, all other elements of ourselves and who, what, where, how, and why we are occurred through various combinations of choices made and not made, extenuating circumstances, and/or random happenstance.

No matter how it happened – it is changeable. That might feel like it will require the force of moving a mountain to accomplish – or a similar almost unimaginable feat. But nothing about us and our lives is written in stone. All is malleable and changeable.

But to change – we need to know the answers to the questions here and now.

The past is not the present

Lots of people identify with their past selves.

We talk about who we were with, what we used to do, how we used to be, things left behind and/or lost, and the like – all the time. This often becomes our identity.

Sure, in college I was a DJ, a theatre major, a resident of Ithaca, NY, and a 20-something. That’s who I was – about 30 years ago.

Is that who, what, where, how, or why I am today? No. Not at all.

To be sure, there were lessons learned from all that I was, then. But now? That’s not me and all that I am – nor has it been in a long, long time.

Yet many people identify themselves as who et al that they were. Perhaps not going back 30 years – but even going back a month or two, that’s not you anymore. It hasn’t been you in a month.

The past has come and gone. You cannot undo it, redo it, or change it. Living from it makes no sense because it’s past. Behind.

Here and now, the present, however, is where, who, what, how, and why you are. To get to truly know yourself in all the ways that you can – you need to be here, now.

This brings us to mindfulness, of course.

Mindfulness of who, what, where, how, and why we are

Mindfulness in this expression is conscious awareness. It is pausing to be present, in the here and now, and aware of yourself and all these questions.

The best way to start this process is by working to be aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions in the present.

This brings up some other questions. But they are, frankly, easier to answer. These questions include,

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

Together, these questions put you in the present, here and now, when you ask them of yourself.

When you are present and in the now, and consciously aware, you’re open to also investigating and exploring your subconscious and ego.

Your subconscious mind is where your beliefs, values, and habits live. Many of these are the answers to all those monosyllabic questions in some form or other.

Then there is your ego. This tends to be a bridge between your conscious and subconscious, and how you project yourself to the world at large and reflect back to your inner self.

Conscious awareness shows both these to you. From there, you can start to find the answers. And if they are not as you would desire for them to be – work out how to change them.

Photo by Brandi Alexandra on UnsplashChoices, circumstances, and random happenstance

Identifying the questions of who, what, where, how, and why we are is important to self-awareness, mindfulness, and what we choose and decide for our life paths. Pathwalking, whenever we begin, starts from here and now. It cannot begin from what was – only from what is.

Thus, mindfulness tells you what is. That’s why it’s so important to these questions.

But many of us want to know just how we got here – wherever here may be. All these questions came into being due to situations and experiences both in and out of our control.

We all make choices every single day. Most are so small that we give them little regard or deep thought. Instead, we tend to focus on big choices like who to date/marry, where to live, what car to buy, and the like. But each choice leads to an element that all the questions ask about.

Not choosing can have the exact same impact.

Choice is where all our control exists. And that’s pretty much it.

The other factors are not in our control. Extenuating circumstances happen. Likewise, so does random happenstance. The Universe tosses shit at us from various directions – and what happens next impacts who, what, how, where, and why we are.

At least, at the moment of the occurrence of circumstances and random happenstances. When whatever happens, happens, it simply is. Maybe it’s an exploding pipe in your kitchen, a collision with another car on the highway, an unexpected medical problem, or what-have-you.

These are bad experiences – but similarly, good can occur just as unexpectedly.

Your crush kisses you, you win the lottery, you get an unexpected promotion at work, and the like.

Generally, bad or good, we didn’t see it coming until it arrived.

Who, what, where, how, and why we are is ours to choose – or change

Now what? There will be a visceral, immediate, reaction either positive or negative. After that – can’t say. But if now is the moment after that – what, how, who, where, and why you are is something you’re mindful of – or not.

Conscious awareness of ourselves – self-awareness, mindfulness of ourselves – is how we can be all that we desire to be. And if we dislike what we find – we are capable of changing it.

This is not always easy. In fact, it might appear to be almost impossible based on your present state of being. But change is the only constant in the entire Universe. Thus, we can take that to heart if we are not all that we desire to be – whichever of the questions that applies to.

Why we are – and all else – depends on circumstances both in and out of our control. Recognizing that here and now, we can see what’s ours to choose – and decide just what to do with that.

Lastly – we are all worthy and deserving of this. It is one of the best parts of being human – the whole world, especially when we’re in harmony with it – is ours for the making. So long as we are kind, compassionate, and not intentionally hurting or harming others, we are worthy and deserving of it all.

All of us are worthy and deserving. And in this abundant Universe, there is more than enough to go around – and leave nobody wanting or without. When you employ mindful self-awareness it reveals this to be an ultimate truth of life, the Universe, and everything.

Are you walking a path of your choosing and striving to decide who, what, where, how, and why you are?

This is the five-hundred and fifty-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 Why Are We What, How, Where, Who, and Why We Are? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.