M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 51

Small Positives Add Up

All the little, small positives you encounter are huge.

Positivity comes in all shapes and sizes.

Often, we look at these “big picture” notions and ideas of the world. Lots of people spend a tremendous amount of time focused on these things. Hyperfocused. And that makes it easy to get drawn into them.

It’s great to be in the know. I totally advise it. But there is a difference between informed and inundated. Yes, you should know all about the hypocrisy of the GOP and the Trump impeachment trial in the Senate. The minute, super-sharp details of all the nuances of it, however, don’t serve you. It’s good to know – but not at the expense of your sanity.

We live in a fear-based society. It is sold to us like babies fed with a bottle. Injecting reason into the fear-base is challenging – but worthwhile.

Why bother? Because you are worthy and deserving of living a full, interesting, and good life. You are not simply here to merely survive, but rather to thrive. You are capable of just about anything you set your sights on.

The fear-based society loves to deny this. Those “in power” work to disempower everyone else so they can hold onto their (largely made-up) power. When you and I are empowered – we learn that we don’t need them to the degree they want us to think that we do.

One of the best ways to empower yourself and take control is by working with positivity. Much of our fear-based society is based in negativity. With reason, positivity changes the direction of the discussion.

Positive things in your life are much more abundant than you might realize.

You, alone, are responsible for what and how you feel

You are here. Alive. Living in this time and this place.

Granted, for numerous reasons your life might be tough right now. Almost everyone is still impacted by COVID-19, the ongoing false narratives in politics, money woes, job struggles, schooling issues with kids, and so and so forth. You might well be struggling – and that’s perfectly valid. Nobody lives happily and contentedly all the time.

But you have a choice. That’s because, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom on Planet Earth, you and I are empowered to apply a greater depth of creativity and complexity into our thoughts. We’re not just here to survive, seek shelter and procreate to propagate the species – we are capable of a hell of a lot more.

Ultimately, you are responsible for what and how you feel. You get to choose and decide if you want to feel negative or positive.

For some, this is an automatic red flag. How dare I suggest your feelings are invalid! But I’m not. They ARE perfectly valid. But you ARE empowered to be responsible for them.

You can, will, and should feel negative, bad, frustrated, angry, and so on. Congratulations, you’re a human being. But how long you hold onto those feelings is your call.

This is how people develop grudges, insecurities, and it feeds depression and anxiety. All of which makes you feel disempowered. Which means you don’t believe you can take that control over what and how you feel.

But you can. Because you are the only one who’s in your mind, heart, and soul. It’s all only you, no matter how much that’s influenced by outside sources.

One way to shift what and how you are feeling is via seeking, finding, and/or creating positive things.

The small positives of every day

This statement will look to many like a lie. But it’s not:

There is ALWAYS something positive to be found. Always.

No matter how lousy a day, week, month, year, or life you’ve had – something positive is out there to be found and experienced.

A lot of people think this needs to be some HUGE find. Large sums of money, perfect soul mates, success, achievement, and so on. But that’s not what it takes to see positivity.

Positivity is little things that you encounter that make you feel good. And they tend to be in the everyday experiences you have.

For example, these are some of the little things I encounter that make ME feel good which I count among little positives:

SunlightPurring catsLaughing childrenTaking a good deep breathCooing babiesThe theme music to any Star Wars movieFresh-brewed coffeeThe click of my keyboard as I typeDrivingCaramel melting on my tongueMoonlightMy wife’s eye-rolling after I make a punThe books on my bookshelfSitting down to read

I could spend all day coming up with small positives, but I think this makes the point. Every single one of the items on the above list are potentially everyday occurrences. All of them generate positivity with little to no effort. Some are simply there, while others can be created.

The best way to experience this is via mindfulness.

Mindfulness empowers you

Mindfulness is simple. It’s a matter of being aware and conscious, here and now, of yourself. That consciousness reports to you your inner being – your mindset/headspace/psyche – or as I wrote earlier your mind, heart, and soul.

You gain awareness of your conscious, present self through the input of your six senses, and your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Mindfulness, however, is an ongoing practice. Because you, your environment, and your situation are constantly changing, so is your awareness. Hence, when you are aware that you’re unhappy, in a bad place (literally or figuratively), or otherwise NEED to make a change, mindfulness gives you control to make it.

Consciousness of your mindset/headspace/psyche gives you control over it. And since nobody but you can control you – that’s empowering as all get-out.

With mindfulness, recognizing and using the small positives to make your life better gets a lot more practical and doable. But it does take practice, effort, and work.

All the little positives you encounter are huge. When you recognize and acknowledge this, you’re empowered to use those little positives to build bigger positives and an overall better life experience. You are worthy and deserving – so go for it!

Finding, creating, and using small positives isn’t hard

It begins with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Knowing that you are responsible, ultimately, for what and how you feel – you can use small positives to take feelings of negativity and change them. When you are responsible and accountable for your thoughts and feelings, and release negativity and seek and/or create positivity, that ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire. 

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of pure positivity. That positivity can generate even greater positive energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and sixty-seventh entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope 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 of 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 Small Positives Add Up appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Reason and Reasonable Are Not the Same

Knowing the difference between reason and reasonable can smooth-over any path you choose.

We live in a fear-based society. Everywhere you turn fear is used to prevent growth, create artificial limitations, stifle creativity, and disempower the masses while keeping a select few “in power.”

If you don’t believe me, just look at the GOP here in the United States. The vast majority of their party line is how the “other” – be it liberal, immigrant, black person, woman, LGBTQ person, or what-have-you – will take what is yours and screw you over. “They” have it in for you – and you should be afraid.

The Democrats also employ fear in their party line. But mostly it’s based on the clear-and-present danger represented by the willingness of the other side to subvert, disregard, and overthrown the democratic process for their own enlargement. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still get abused by them, too.

And fear permeates from the big-picture matters like politics to personal matters. There are expectations for how to live well in our culture that, if disregarded, you should be afraid of. Instead of encouragement for the effort to expand it’s often met with concern and discouragement.

Fear is virtually everywhere you turn. But its opposite is reason. Particularly when the fear is intangible and based on lack, scarcity, or some other artifice rather than imminent danger or death.

Sometimes, to practice reason over fear, you have to be unreasonable. Or rather, you need to do something that may appear unreasonable to some while being perfectly reasonable to and for you.

Being unreasonable in the face of the expected

Despite changes in the fabric of our society over the years that have accepted women in the workplace, single-parent families, LGBTQA+ families, and the like – expectations of normalcy still exist.

Far too many people hold onto the idea that a family is a husband, wife, and a kid or two. You work a normal 9-5 job to make enough money to buy the house and the cars and live for the weekend. All else is unreasonable to those people.

This has been weaponized, particularly since the Reagan years in the United States, and a focus on “family values” that – frequently – lacks any basis in reality. Anything that doesn’t match this ideal is suspect and seen as unreasonable.

But anyone who has invented something useful, written an amazing novel, painted a masterpiece, or otherwise impacted the world did so from a place where they rejected “reasonable”. They fought to be who they were, create what they were creating, and pursued the reality they believed in.

Henry Ford saw an impossible V8 engine, and despite more than a year of failure had his engineers hold to it until it became reality. Nikola Tesla pushed alternating current as the power source of the world over direct current – and that’s how our homes are powered. Both these men of note in their time were seen as unreasonable. Today, we see them as visionaries instead.

Being unreasonable in the face of the expected is often necessary to consciously create reality and to change your life for the better. That can -and will – lead to stepping outside of your comfort zone. Which means you will need to face your fears.

That’s a matter of practicing reason.

Using reason to overcome fear

When humankind was primitive, living as hunter-gatherers, fear kept us alive. Fear made us avoid the predators that would use us as a source of food.

Today, this sort of fear is reflected in soldiers at war, being held at gunpoint in a robbery or carjacking, hanging off a cliff trying not to fall to your death and the like. Fear for your survival – and its ability to keep you alive – is tangible, relevant, and useful to you.

Fear of the intangible tends to be made-up. It’s not life-threatening, nor necessarily life-changing. Frequently, the fear we are presented with is more about fear of suffering.

We love our comfort zones. Human beings strive to be comfortable overall. That’s not a bad thing, except for when you get comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Being in a relationship that makes you miserable, holding a job you hate, living somewhere you despise, and the like.

But change, for many, is terrifying. The devil you know is safe. Or so you think. Reason and reasonable can be in conflict.

What if you choose to step out of your comfort zone? What if you determine you have desires you wish to pursue to consciously create the reality you believe you are worthy and deserving of? You will probably have fears to overcome to do this.

The best way to overcome fear is by practicing reason. Reason is using logic and mindfulness to analyze the situation and see if the fear itself is the threat – or the suffering that will come to pass as a result of what you fear is.

Examples of reason overcoming fear

Let’s say you are interested in asking that person out. But you’re terrified of rejection if they say no. The fear of rejection and the suffering it may cause stays your hand.

But reason says that if you don’t ask them out, you’ll never know – and miss out. And if they say no, you may be disappointed – but you have an answer.

Perhaps you believe you deserve a promotion at your job. But you’re afraid that you will be rejected, or shamed, or told you’re no good, or worst-case scenario – fired for asking. You might build it up to the point of a panic attack (which I’ve seen happen).

But reason says that if you don’t ask for the promotion you will stay where you are. You won’t advance, and you might not come to the attention of those in power who can advance your career. Reason also tells you that if they say no, nothing changes. Except you might find it’s time to seek a new and better job. Yes, it might be frustrating and disappointing – but you know where you stand.

And even IF you get fired – then it was only a matter of time before that happened anyhow. Reason says that you asking for a promotion and getting fired for asking, got you there sooner rather than later – because clearly, it would have happened anyhow.

The point is that the fear of suffering is generally worse than the suffering. Reason can and will show this for what it is.

Think back on your life. I have no doubt you have an experience where you expected suffering – and when it didn’t go your way, it was not even close to what you feared. Or it did go your way – and you triumphed.

Reason and reasonable can differ but coexist

Reason is the best way to overcome fear. Being reasonable, however, can keep you small and prevent growth, change, and the manifestation of life as you would desire for it to be.

Stepping out of your comfort zone is often unreasonable. But that’s what it takes to take charge of your life and make it how you desire for it to be. The fear you experience as you do this can be overcome by reason.

Keep in mind, change is inevitable. It’s the one constant in the whole Universe. You will experience change, sometimes slower than a snail’s pace, other times so fast you get whiplash. Whatever the case may be, you can choose to take charge and control or direct change. But it will probably require being unreasonable in the face of cultural expectations – while using reason to face and overcome the fear.

That is how reason and reasonable coexist, despite being different animals. Mindfulness – being consciously aware of the self in the now, makes you more aware of the nature of your fears. Mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions is the door to your inner being and your mindset/headspace/psyche.

That knowledge shows you your fear while letting you make choices and decisions to take control. When you are in control, you are empowered to create your life and live how you desire to. Thus empowered, you can choose the paths you wish to explore.

Knowing the difference between reason and reasonable can smooth-out any path you choose. Reason lets you overcome the fear from the obstacles like being reasonable might create along the way.

You are worthy and deserving of being all that you can be and having a life that you are excited to experience.

What do you fear, and how can you use reason to overcome it?

This is the four-hundred and seventy-seventh exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking 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 along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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

The post Reason and Reasonable Are Not the Same appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Positivity Empowers Everyone

But beware of toxic positivity.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I strive to be optimistic and positive.

Because I am human – and I have good days and bad days – I don’t always get it right. There are days it’s hard to get out of bed and face what’s coming. They’re not frequent, but they happen. Further, things can and do occur during a given day where you might get thrown off your game.

Just over seven years ago, I get onto Facebook on a Monday morning – and I was bombarded by negativity. General lamentations about another Monday, work, school, dealing with people, and all kinds of negative posts. It was disheartening and unfortunate.

That was why I decided, every Monday, to write about positivity. Over the past 7 years of writing about this topic, my take and approach to it have shifted some. But more than that, I’ve seen how empowering positivity can be.

Negativity tends to disempower. Why? Because it causes you to feel things like hopelessness, sadness, depression, distress, and other down feelings that make you feel like you have no strength. All your power is non-existent or otherwise useless.

Positivity is positive. Positive is a state of power that speaks of good. Hence, positivity empowers. And it empowers everyone.

BUT – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get abused in the process.

Toxic positivity

Toxic positivity is the notion that positivity can be used to negate, erase, and otherwise disregard negativity. It’s borne of the idea that if you think ONLY positive, good thoughts – you can steer clear of the bad, negative thoughts – and all will be well.

That’s simply not true.

Why? Because you need the bad just as much as you need the good.

The Universe is full to bursting of polar opposites. Black/white, up/down, fat/thin, short/tall, on/off, positive/negative, good/bad, and the like. What’s more, these opposites do not have the thinness of a coin’s width between them. There’s a broad cylinder of colors and grays between these opposites.

Hence, the notion that seeing positivity only and disregarding any negativity is unhealthy. To know good, you have to know bad. And nobody lives all positivity all the time. NOBODY.

Human beings have good, bad, and indifferent days. Shit happens that will be awful in the midst of an otherwise positive experience. You can’t make the negativity go away by ignoring and disregarding it. In fact, doing so tends to make it worse.

Any feeling you experience is yours to control. You have the power to take responsibility for how you feel. When you do that it empowers you. When you don’t it disempowers you. In time, you will have to deal with it – or else it will probably overwhelm, blindside, or otherwise interfere with your life.

The notion that a positive attitude/mindset/focus should be absolute and with no acknowledgment of negativity is toxic. It is unrealistic to believe bad things don’t happen or that you can pretend them away. You can’t. That’s not how life works.

Consciousness creates reality. Confront your consciousness and you empower creation. Ignore it and it will place obstacles, roadblocks, and problems in your path.

Only you can empower you

While there are lots of sources of information and inspiration – nobody but you can empower you.

That’s because you’re the only one inside your head. Your mind, body, and soul are all controlled by only you.

It’s easy to believe that other people can make you do things, influence you, and otherwise think and act on your behalf. But they can’t. Even if you give them that kind of power – they’re only capable because you have made them so.

Empowerment is recognition of your own power. It’s realizing your ability to consciously create reality, manifest the life you desire, and to be, do, and have life as you desire to develop it. But when it comes to empowerment, you are the car and you have the only set of keys.

Empowerment begins with mindfulness. Mindfulness is awareness of your conscious self, here and now. To be aware of your conscious self – your mindset/headspace/psyche inner being – you begin by being aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Yes, I write this a LOT. But I do so because repetition is how you build habits – whether tangible or intangible. You must practice this regularly to use it effectively. Because thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions are ever-changing – you can’t just do it one time and be done. It’s a constant question to be addressed to put yourself into an aware, conscious state.

Awareness and consciousness is empowerment. It’s turning the key and starting the car. From there, you determine where to drive it.

I can sit in the passenger seat and navigate for you – but you’re the one doing the driving and making the decisions. You are the only one thus empowered.

Photo by alex bracken on UnsplashNegativity disempowers

Straight to the point – negativity disempowers you. Why? Because when you are feeling down, blue, low, sad, angry, depressed, or otherwise not good – you lose drive, desire, and energy. Feeling negativity disempowers because it causes you to lose the desire to do much of anything at all.

I know that when I have a bout with depression I haven’t the will to do much of anything. Even regular tasks like showering and brushing my teeth feel like monumental struggles. Working on writing and editing or anything else empowering? No, thanks.

Negativity disempowers because it’s like the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride’s machine. It sucks the life out of you incrementally. The more negativity, you have the more it sucks from you. It gets to the point where the disempowerment is virtually literal.

You have the final say

You have the power to take responsibility for both your thoughts AND your feelings. Even when outside influences make you think and feel a certain way – you can choose to change them.

This is the other reason why toxic positivity is toxic. Ignoring or disregarding negativity in favor of positivity yields control. You can’t alter or change it if you don’t control it and simply ignore, disregard, neglect, or pretend it doesn’t exist.

Like throwing blame – it’s disempowering. Because when you are not responsible or accountable for it – you yield control of it.

Any given day, you can be empowered. When faced with negativity and feeling disempowered – you can take back control over it. Mindfulness is frequently the starting point of that process.

No matter who you are, where you come from, or what your past is like – you are worthy and deserving of finding, feeling, and/or creating positivity. The process of doing so empowers you – and when you feel empowered you tend to also empower others.

I know it doesn’t always feel like this is real. But it is. See the bad, acknowledge it, and then use your power to control, change, and alter it whatever way you can.

Positivity is empowering. And it empowers everyone.

Being empowered by positivity isn’t hard

It begins mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Knowing that you are the only one that can empower you – and that negativity is disempowering – you get to choose and decide for yourself what you think and what and how you feel. When you are responsible and accountable for your thoughts and feelings, you can work on releasing the negativity and instead focus on seeking and/or creating positivity. That ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.  

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of pure positivity. That positivity can generate even greater positive energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and sixty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope 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 of 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 Empowers Everyone appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Normalizing Mental Health Matters

Let’s get real – normalizing mental health matters is the elephant in every room.

What the hell is normal, anyhow?

The answer is far easier than we tend to make it. Normal is what’s right for you.

Yet society has concocted numerous bizarre notions of what normal should be. For example – man and woman marry and produce children; you work a 9-5 job Monday-Friday; hobbies are gender-specific.

Then, it often goes deeper and becomes a lot more insidious. Rather than accept alternative variations of normal, we judge. Why doesn’t that couple produce a child? How do you make money doing that unconventional job? Why is your golf case full of swords? Abnormalities, in the eyes of some.

But that’s not the worst of it. Certain expectations on behalf of large swaths of society about “normal” are destructive. For example – women who aren’t subservient to men are horrid; men who cry and show other emotions are weak; boys who play with dolls and girls who play with trucks are backward. All these notions of “abnormal” are unhealthy and tear the fabric of our society apart.

Because of these standards of normal, we either try to live up to or resist – mental health takes a real beating. When we refuse to address this – or don’t discourage abusers – we create unhealthy situations and turn to solutions that make us sicker, not healthier.

Normalizing mental health matters begins with better acknowledging of them. This begins with you and me.

How is your mental health?

The past year, between a global pandemic and horrific politics, we’ve been bombarded by matters that are impacting our mental health.

I know that some people may be just fine. They’re calm, collected, on an even keel. If you’re there – that’s awesome, keep it up, more power to you!

But for most people I know – there are issues with anxiety, uncertainty, depression, and other matters made even clearer in the stark reality of the disconnect necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19. Zoom fatigue is real, and the touch-sensitive are starving being unable to hug their friends and loved ones.

Because our society is obsessed with projecting “normalcy”, too many people neglect to acknowledge their mental health.

Normalizing mental health matters would change this. And that would be good for us. Sweeping mental health matters under the rugs and ignoring them in the hope they’ll just go away is harming us all. Further, by implying mental health impacts a minority rather than the majority – we damage ourselves further.

I have been battling depression most of my life. I’ve been in and out of therapy and on and off anti-depressants, as such. To further combat this, I practice mindfulness, meditate daily, and take time for breathing to stay balanced.

Many people would be ashamed to admit to what I just shared. That’s why normalizing mental health matters is so important. There is NO shame in admitting you have a problem. Accountability is the key to fixing any problem that you have – tangible or intangible.

The notion that depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues as weakness is total bullshit. Realistically, mental health issues are as common as the air we breathe.

Recognize and disempower the bullies

Sorry to get political, but this is important. We just spent the last 4 years in the United States being led by the schoolyard bully.

The so-called leader of this country used gaslighting, narcissism, and even resorted to name-calling to deride, belittle, and shout down any opposition he encountered. It got to the point where the reasonable among us dreaded what shit he’d be spewing next.

Bullies always have followers. Why? Because they project strength. Trump was all about pointing out the weaknesses of EVERYONE else. And if you crossed him or displeased him, he turned on you, too.

He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only bully among our leadership. Look at how many of those people gaslight, drive wedges between people, and bully people to have their way. You see it among politicians, religious leaders, business leaders, and many of their most ardent followers and supporters.

Bullying has been increasingly normalized. And the bullies tend to have people so scared of them that they don’t get called out as they should.

But when they do? Damn, do they fall hard. I give you Harvey Weinstein, for example. A whole movement came of his victims calling him out and encouraging others to call out the bullies and abusers in their lives.

Normalizing mental health matters disempowers the bullies. It encourages calling out the abusers and not allowing them to maintain their so-called power. When you see that the emperor is naked and not in the regal robes he envisions himself to be in – point and call it out. Normalizing mental health matters is the equivalent of this.

Our society won’t do this unless we as individuals do.

Normalizing mental health matters and mindfulness

EVERYBODY has mental health matters to contend with from time to time. Nobody is immune. And I mean NOBODY.

Do you know why bullies and gaslighters are the way they are? Because they are massively insecure, uncertain, and scared. Lashing out and creating false narratives to disempower makes them feel like they have control. Which is utter and total bullshit.

There is nobody in your head but you. More specifically, you, and you alone, think, feel, and act for you. All that you think and feel is within your control – when you practice mindfulness.

It’s become a buzzword. Mindfulness, the grand and glorious notion, is shared by Eastern philosophers and psychologists. In the quick-fix instant gratification culture we live in, mindfulness is tossed around like a baseball in a game of catch.

At its core, though, mindfulness is simple. It’s awareness of yourself. It’s consciousness of the environment you are in mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, Being aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions makes you conscious of your inner being – your mindset/headspace/psyche. All that goes into who you are.

That conscious awareness puts you in the driver’s seat.

But only you can choose to start the car and take it for a ride. If you don’t know how to drive you might need help. And it’s okay to get help when you need it.

Normalizing mental health matters belonging to you begins normalizing them in the collective consciousness.

Getting help and helping yourself

Let’s address a major false narrative going around. You are not weak for admitting when you need help. And that’s another of the aspects of normalizing mental health matters.

Help could just be talking to a friend; it could be seeing a therapist; it might involve taking anti-depression, anti-anxiety, and like drugs – or a combination of any and all of these.

While I meditate 20 minutes a day, write about my processes and journey, and work on conscious reality creation, mindfulness, and positivity – I turn to others for help, too.

Some are abstract – I read a lot. I’ve come across some amazing notions from various authors that have helped me. Others are direct – talking to friends and family and discussing issues as I face them. And I am not averse to getting therapy if I cannot find balance for my mental health on my own.

It is all too easy to be disempowered by our society. Hell, many of our so-called leaders prefer that you be powerless. But you are empowered to make choices and decisions for how your life is. For some there are literal struggles, for others they’re more figurative, and for some, it’s both. But you are the only one who knows what and who you are – and what you desire your life to be.

Normalizing mental health matters individually is the first step to normalizing them further. We need to share our challenges not for sympathy – but for mutual strength. Struggling with mental health matters is lonely as all get-out. But believe me – you are very much not alone.

Let’s get real – normalizing mental health matters is the elephant in every room. Let’s stop ignoring them and work together to normalize them for the benefit of all.

What mental health matters have you struggled with/are you struggling with?

This is the four-hundred and seventy-sixth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking 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 along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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

The post Normalizing Mental Health Matters appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You are Responsible for How You Feel

To some this is harsh. But being responsible for how you feel empowers you and doesn’t invalidate your feelings.

Feelings are complicated.

This is true for numerous reasons.

Feelings are a matter of both how and what. How you feel and what you feel can have very different meanings, and even conflict.

What are you feeling? This tends to be the name you put to the feeling you have. This can be challenging because there are lots of nuances in the description of what the feeling is. Angry and enraged are similar but have different meanings. Happy and ecstatic – same thing. What you are feeling can take on many shapes, colors, and sizes depending on your experience and other matters.

How are you feeling? This can be complicated because it sometimes defies definitions. Depression is a perfect example of this. Depression can feel like emptiness, disgust, sadness, disappointment, and an overall indescribable sensation of wrongness. But the how of the feeling of depression can be confusing, variable, and different in each circumstance.

That’s not even getting into how each of us feels the what and how of feelings uniquely.

Then, just to add another wrinkle, feelings you did not choose nor seek can impact you. Happenings outside of yourself can cause you to experience feelings. This can be big-picture matters, personal issues, and general beliefs you hold having an impact on a given situation.

For many, this is going to be harsh – but – you have all the power to control what and how you are feeling. When all is said and done, you are ultimately responsible for your feelings.

Your feelings belong to nobody but you

Who is inside your head? You. And you’re it.

Yes, you can let other people into your life, and they will get pieces and parts of your mind, heart, and soul. But at the start and end of every day, you – and you alone – are in your head.

Nobody else is capable of thinking, feeling, or doing for you but you. Nobody else has your inner being, mindset/headspace/psyche, beliefs, or habits.

That being written – you’re the only one who feels what and how you feel.

But feelings can be the product of both outside influences and inside influences. Still, they are felt only by you, no matter the cause, situation, experience, or what-have-you.

For many people, this is an outrageous statement. Some people even get angry, infuriated, and peeved when you tell them this.

My feelings were caused by ‘x’! How dare you invalidate them and tell me I am responsible for them!

Here’s the thing. This is not about invalidating how you feel. What and how you feel is on you. Suggesting being responsible for how you feel isn’t a judgment or an invalidation of your feelings. What it is, though, is a pathway to control.

Somehow, the notion of being responsible for your feelings has gotten twisted into a judgment call. People equate this notion with a statement of feelings being invalid.

What and how you feel is what and how you feel. I cannot tell you if your feelings are valid or not. I would suggest, however, that if you think I’m questioning their validity – YOU might be doing so and projecting it on me.

Or not. Again, I am not in your head.

Being responsible and accountable is not the norm

I believe that one of the reasons people dislike the entire idea of being responsible for their feelings is the accountability that comes of it.

Let’s face it – our culture, our society, almost abhors accountability. Instead, accountability and responsibility get taken for weakness. Even more so when you talk about feelings.

Caring, kindness, compassion, and like feelings get railroaded by greed, self-interest, false equivalencies of power, and the like. That’s why ideas to help more people be strong and independent like universal health care and a living minimum wage get lumped into a notion of socialism and taking away what person ‘X’ has to give to person ‘Y’. The irresponsible get treated to the good on the backs of the responsible.

That’s the narrative, based on lack and scarcity – overriding the truth of the abundance of the Universe and sharing that.

This gets taken further when blame gets thrown about. You see EVERYONE blaming this, that, or the other thing on someone else. Why be responsible when you can blame? Because the truth is that blame disempowers you. Being responsible empowers you.

How does that work? When you blame, you take the issue and throw it aside. For example, I have gained a considerable amount of weight during the pandemic. Sure, I could blame the pandemic for this. Will that take the weight off? NO. Blame doesn’t do anything about it. I disempower myself instead.

Who put the weight on? I DID. And who can take it off? Also me. SO – by being accountable for getting to this place, NOW I am open to examining it, being responsible for it – and changing it.

Blame fixes nothing. Being responsible and accountable empowers – which opens the door to control and intentional change.

Feelings are on you

Finally, let’s address the elephant in the room. Things happen that evoke emotions in you. What and how you are feeling can be the direct result of them.

Some are big-picture matters. Reading about that idiotic Congresswoman and her QAnon BS is infuriating. Seeing members of the Senate making excuses to not hold a real trial for Trump is annoying. But there is not a thing I can do about it.

Others are far closer and more immediate. Getting/losing a job. Starting/ending a relationship. Gaining/losing a friend. Winning/losing. All of these – which can also be almost totally out of your control – will cause you to feel what and how you feel.

BUT – no matter what causes you to feel what and how you feel – YOU alone feel it. AND – you have all the power to alter, change, and control it.

Again, I am NOT invalidating your feelings. No matter if this is fear because you’re black and worried about encounters with the police; or you got dumped by that person who I never felt was right for you – your feelings are valid.

But you are still the one responsible for them. And when they interfere with your life – you have all the power to alter them.

Being responsible for what and how you feel empowers you to control it. Suggesting that you be responsible is not a judgment or invalidation – but instead, a reminder of your power.

Powerful, deep emotions are not easy to let go of or change. And you are allowed to feel what and how you are feeling. BUT – when you take responsibility, you gain control. That lets you choose more completely who you are and how you live life.

You feel what you feel. Responsibility for that empowers you tremendously.

Being responsible for what and how you feel isn’t hard

It just requires mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Knowing that you, and you alone, feel what and how you feel – you gain the power to be responsible for your feelings and alter, change, and/or control them as needs be. When you are responsible and accountable for your feelings, you can rule them rather than let them rule you – and more easily choose positivity. That ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.  

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of pure positivity. That positivity can generate even greater positive energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred and sixty-fifth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope 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 of 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 You are Responsible for How You Feel appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Balancing Mindfulness Within and Without

Nobody lives in a vacuum. Balancing mindfulness within and without provides perspective on this.

The last four years – at least here in the United States – have been tumultuous.

One of the biggest takeaways from all that has transpired has been a new impression of people. We’ve seen some of the best of humanity – as well as some of the worst.

There have been amazing examples of generosity, love, caring, kindness, and compassion. But then, there have also been terrible examples of selfishness, disdain, neglect, cruelty, and animosity. Between the Trump presidency, COVID-19, and other world happenings – the extremes have been right in our faces all along.

We live in a fear-based society. That is partially due to many of our so-called leaders using fear to disempower people for their own control. But it also comes from our egos using fear to protect us from both tangible and intangible threats.

The only way to combat this, and replace fear with reason, is by employing mindfulness.

Mindfulness, at its core, is conscious awareness of the here-and-now. The present. That awareness lets you fully experience where you are at this moment.

It begins with your senses, then reaches into your inner being. Conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions are how you gain knowledge of it. That, then, gets you into your psyche/mindset/headspace, your inner being and individual perception of life, the Universe, and everything.

Mindfulness if your inner self informs you about who you are. But it also opens you to conscious awareness of the world outside yourself.

Since you don’t live in a vacuum – it’s impossible to ignore the outside world. Mindfulness provides a means to interpreting your experiences and working with them.

Let me elaborate.

You are a creature of two worlds

Your inner being is your perception of you. It’s how you think and feel about yourself.

Psychology tends to call this the ego. It’s your mindset/headspace/psyche and the midpoint between interacting with the outside world and your subconscious depths.

Mindfulness, conscious awareness, is a matter of control over what you take in through your six senses. Taste, touch, smell, hearing, seeing, and intuition inform your thoughts, feeling, actions, and intentions. That informs your inner being about the world around you.

From there, your inner being processes this and either accepts it, rejects it, or works to change it. Often, your inner being will look to your subconscious and see how what you are taking in aligns with your habits and beliefs.

This is your inner self and your inner world.

Your outer self is how you present yourself to others. This includes your physical appearance and what you share with the world at large. But more than this, it’s how you interact with your world.

This is where labels like introvert and extrovert come in. Friendly and unfriendly, Approachable and unapproachable. It’s not just what you present to the world outside – it’s how that’s perceived.

However, this can get tricky. Sometimes how you think you are perceived isn’t true.

For example – let’s say you have a coworker you’re certain dislikes you. They’re always rather terse and seldom personable. You likely can think of all kinds of reasons why they don’t like you – with zero evidence.

Then, something happens, and you learn they do like you. They are just not a warm and fuzzy person or good with social interaction. Your perception that they disliked you is utterly false.

That’s personal interaction with the outer world. What about the big picture?

Interacting with the big picture

We are bombarded with information daily. Spend a few minutes on any social media site and you’ll be inundated. This can become quickly overwhelming.

When you are not practicing mindfulness – or just distracted or singularly focused on something – that information can sink into your subconscious mind. Before you know it, you’re angry, scared, confused, or utterly uncertain about a thing you have ZERO influence or control over.

Elections, pandemics, economics, ethics, and similar broad-scale notions are the focus of news media, memes, radio shows, podcasts, blogs, and other information sources. It’s very hard not to absorb some of that into your subconscious mind along the way.

Most people – not all – want to be aware of the outside world. These matters are important when it comes to voting, how and where you spend your money, donations or angry letters to be made. Since nobody lives in a vacuum, there are unavoidable and even necessary matters.

One thing it is REALLY hard to accept, for many, is how little control you can exert over big-picture matters. Because it’s little or equal to zero.

You can vote in an election, boycott a company for lousy practices, attend protests, write your elected officials. You can share important info about things like Black Lives Matter, LGBTQA+ rights, living wages and healthcare for all, and such.

And that’s about all the power over the big picture you have.

Recognizing this is a part of inner mindfulness. Knowing yourself, here and now, and how you perceive the world, better show you what’s going on without. Big picture or personal interaction, mindfulness is a two-way street.

Balancing mindfulness within and without

It all comes down to focus and awareness.

Mindfulness of the self is conscious, present awareness, here and now. Yes, there can be an eye to the future and lessons learned from the past – but this is wholly a matter of the now. Because now is the only reality that is truly real.

As Albert Einstein said,

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

When you’re aware of your current environment – inside and outside – you can control, alter, and change it. But if you are too focused on what’s outside of yourself – you can’t be mindful of what’s within.

You need to be aware of the world without. But it’s stunningly easy to put all your focus outside of you. In fact, it’s often encouraged that you do so. This is part of why self-care and inner focus often get falsely represented as selfishness.

But selfishness is not about caring for the self. Not really. Selfishness is unkind, tends to focus on lack and scarcity, and intentionally causes harm or hurt to another. True selfishness is intentional.

Yes, sometimes your actions will cause harm and hurt – unintentionally. But without the intent to do so – it’s not really selfish. Which is difficult to accept.

Whatever paths you choose to walk for your life – mindfulness within and without need to be balanced. Greater focus of conscious awareness of yourself – here and now – will provide surprising insights into the world around you.

It’s important to recognize that it’s not a 50/50 balance. Greater mindfulness within leads to more mindfulness without. That is how you attain balance and gain control over your life.

Nobody lives in a vacuum. Balancing mindfulness within and without provides you with perspective, and shows you where you are – literally and figuratively – here and now.

Can you see how balancing mindfulness gives you more control over your paths in life?

This is the four-hundred and seventy-fifth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking 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 along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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

The post Balancing Mindfulness Within and Without appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

This Too Shall Pass

Yes, this situation has been rough – but this too shall pass.

Hard to believe that COVID-19 has been impacting our world for over a year.

For most people, the impact was felt hardest when the nation shut down briefly in late March/early April of 2020. A shut down that was too brief to positively impact matters.

Because of a lot of false narratives, focus on the economy over public health, and denial of the severity of the pandemic – here we are, still in the midst of it. For most people, they are feeling the impact of COVID-19 in one form or another.

Kids are either remote learning or in a hybrid program. But that’s having an ugly impact on their development as well as for the parents having to work with that. Many jobs have been lost – some for good. Other jobs have shifted and may or may not shift back – such as office work.

Even with the new administration in the US, while they ARE taking action and not ignoring this – it’s still having a major impact on everything. And the time for vaccinations and COVID-19 cases significantly decreasing remains an uncertain mystery.

For many of us, this has been one of the craziest, most uncertain times we have ever lived in. But one important fact needs to be minded – this too shall pass.

This time will not always be

Many people get caught up in the notion of things being a certain way – and never changing. Except this is simply impossible.

The world we live in changes. All the time. And that’s because change is the only constant in the Universe.

Before the pandemic, the world was a certain way. In the middle of the pandemic, the world is different from how it was before. Post pandemic, the world will be different again.

It may, in some ways, look like it did before. But it will never be that again. And for some people, that notion is horrifying.

What this comes down to is comfort. We love to find comfort zones in which to exist. When we can’t live in them anymore – for whatever reason – it can be upsetting.

Some people make choices to move through various comfort zones. They work on getting comfortable with being uncomfortable – in certain respects. Embracing change or actively seeking it tends to make shifting in and out of comfortable places – literal and figurative – easier.

Most people don’t recognize this for what it is. The familiar can be comfortable and calming – and often it changes slowly and subtly. But when it’s in your face and unavoidable – that can be disconcerting.

Life as it is, now, in the middle of this pandemic, will pass. Eventually, we WILL see the other side. Yes, we can lament that we should have been there months ago – but you can’t undo what has already occurred. All you can do is know where you are now – and plot and plan for what you desire to be.

Being in the now

Being in the now can be unsettling. Why? Because to many people, it denies where you where and ignores where you may be desiring to go.

While that’s true – it’s not a negative thing. Time is an illusion – and your perception of it tends to be, too. The only moment that is true and real is this one. Right now.

When you know where are – physically, emotionally, and mentally – it becomes possible to better go to somewhere new and different. If where you are now – literally or figuratively – isn’t where you’d like to be – awareness of that opens you to change it.

How? By practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness is conscious awareness of yourself. It begins on the surface by being aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. When you become aware of these – and conscious of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, and what you are doing and the intent behind it – you are mindful.

That, then, opens you to the next level – which is your mindset/headspace/psyche and state of being. Or, specifically, your inner being. The you that perceives everything tangible and intangible in your life experience.

When you have that awareness and consciousness, you can see where you really are, here and now. That insight will allow you to see and better direct where you would like to go.

This is not, however, a one-and-done practice. It needs to be a regular, ongoing act. Doing so is how you stay aware of your changing self. Nobody has one mood, one thought, or one action. We have lots and lots of them. Ergo – change is constant. Who you are now isn’t who you were pre-COVID nor who you will be post-COVID.

This too shall pass

The now as we are all experiencing it will pass.

Eventually, we’ll be on the other side of this pandemic.

Unfortunately, the world will be different on the other side. But that’s not a bad thing.

The world is constantly changing. Things, as they are now, may be similar to how they were – but they ARE different. Change is constant and ongoing. You can fight it, resist it, re-change it – or embrace it.

Recognizing that, as hard as things have been over this past year, it’s a lot for many people to unpack and cope with. This has been a difficult time for many people for different reasons. And because when we’ll be on the other side is still so unknown – it’s an ongoing upset.

Just knowing that this too shall pass will ease the suffering. You can ride it out – or make choices to steer through it. You can surf the wave, ride it on a raft, or let it wash over you. But you can’t avoid it – you’re already in the middle of it.

I know that for some people just getting out of bed every day and facing the uncertainty overwhelms. But you are not alone, and there are options for you to get help. This too shall pass – and that’s massively positive.

Even if you’ve had good experiences over this period – know that they will pass. But you can work mindfully to continue them, expand upon them, or find new good experiences on the other side.

Nobody but you is in your head. The choice of positivity or negativity belongs to you alone. This too shall pass – life goes on. And you decide it that means positivity, potential, and possibilities – or – negativity, fear, and lack.

Recognizing that this too shall pass isn’t hard

It just requires mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Knowing that the world as it is mid-pandemic is not how it will always be, we can take steps both to cope with/work with it and plot/plan for what will come after. When you know that this too shall pass, you empower yourself to work in the here-and-now to be conscious and proactive – and to do so in preparing for what the world can be like on the other side. That ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity. That positivity can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.

This is the three-hundred and sixty-fourth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope 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 of 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 This Too Shall Pass appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Do We Stumble on Our Paths?

You stumble because it’s more about the path than the end goal.

Today is another day. It is full of potential, possibilities, and other great stuff.

If that’s how you perceive your reality. For some, today is another day. But it’s full of fear, distress, uncertainty, woe, and other awful stuff.

Both these perceptions are on the personal level. I’m not even going to go into the high-level happenings (such as the inauguration).

YOU get to choose – every single day – how you expect the day to be. Only you decide if it will be a good day or a bad day from the moment you wake up and get out of bed.

To be fair, there are things we must do that we’d rather not do. Doctor’s appointments, meetings, uncomfortable but necessary conversations, and so on. Knowing they will happen can color your first perception of the day. However – it’s still your choice.

Every day, you take steps along whatever path you’re on. Whether it’s a path you have chosen consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously. Every day represents new options. How you approach that – positive, negative, or neutrally – is up to you.

But – no matter what you choose you could stumble on your path. Why? This is due mostly to obstacles. Those obstacles come from two places – outside influences and inside influences.

You have no control over the outside influences. However, you DO control your reaction to them. Inside influences, though, are wholly yours. Nobody but you can control them.

When you stumble – and you will – how you recover is your choice. No matter if it’s due to outside or inside influences.

The tripping hazards of outside influences

These tend to come in three forms:

Big picture, collective consciousness issuesOngoing issuesUnexpected happenings

The big picture is splattered all over newspapers, social media, and the rest of the internet. They are politics, economics, religious and ethnic strife, nationalism, and so forth. Society overall pays attention to these and embeds them into your subconscious mind.

Hell, unless you live under a rock, you’re aware of the insanity surrounding the inauguration of Biden caused by Trump’s lies about a stolen election. That’s a pretty unmissable tripping hazard on our paths.

Ongoing issues tend to involve family, work, social interactions, and other expectations of outside people. Unless you live utterly alone as a hermit, you interact with people all the time. Those people will intentionally and unintentionally cause obstacles for you to stumble over.

This often has little to nothing to do with you and your path – but it’s there and unavoidable.

Finally, we come to unexpected happenings. This is car accidents, long lines at the grocery store, weather, frozen pipes, and so on. Things that are random, unexpected, and tend to be infuriating because they’ve made you stumble. Largely, they’re things you didn’t need or want in any way.

These various outside influences are beyond your control. Even those that you expect – like the big picture and ongoing matters – are out of your control. That’s because nobody but you is in your head. And you have no control over anyone else and how they think, feel, or act.

When you encounter outside influences, you will have no choice but to react to them – or not. But more on that ahead.

Inside influences causing you to stumble

This is where doubt, self-sabotage, low self-esteem, and similar issues come into play. They cause you to discover (or even create) obstacles and tripping hazards on your paths in life.

You WILL find tripping hazards to stumble over – of your own making – on any given path. That’s because you have a lot of old beliefs and habits that you may not even be wholly aware of. Those will get in your way.

For example – let’s say you’re on a path to earn more money. You have an idea, a goal, and you’re practicing what you need daily. But if you were inundated as a child with negative money beliefs – they will become obstacles.

If you heard constantly that money makes good people bad; money is the root of all evil, or even money is dirty – you’ve got things to stumble over. Those beliefs may not be YOUR beliefs. But because they were impressed upon you when you were most impressionable – they remain.

This is why mindfulness to gain insight into yourself is the key to dealing with inside influences. To become truly aware of them requires work.

This is how you can overcome both inside and outside influencers you might stumble over.

Mindfulness provides insight

On the surface, mindfulness is being aware – here and now – of your conscious self. It begins with awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. That is the door to get inside your head.

Once inside, you can familiarize yourself with your inner being – your mindset/headspace/psyche and overall sense of self. When you become familiar with your inner being you gain the ability to control it.

Control of your inner being is the gateway to your beliefs and habits. They tend to be rooted in your subconscious. Thus, awareness of your conscious mind lets you find them and either work with or change your beliefs and habits as needed.

Mindfulness allows you to see where you might stumble on your path due to inside influences. What about outside influences?

Mindfulness practice gives you power over your reaction to the outside influences. Do they make you stumble and fall – or stumble and regain your footing?

How does that work? Let’s say you are out for a drive and someone makes an illegal turn and hits your car. You certainly didn’t want or need this.

Now that it’s happened, you react to it. Do you get angry, frustrated, and lose your temper? Or – do you get angry, calm yourself, and deal with the matter at hand? Either way – that’s your choice.

Yes, in the moment you’ll probably be angry. Especially if the accident was due to the other person. But you choose if that anger will increase and make you unreasonable – or – decrease so you can be reasonable. Mindfulness is the key to what that will be and how it’ll go down.

The choice is yours.

What happens when you stumble?

Literally and figuratively, you WILL stumble along your way. Since every day is a new day – and presents new opportunities, potential, challenges, possibilities, uncertainties, and so on – you’re empowered to choose your perception and approach.

Just like tripping over your feet, you may fall – or you may readjust and regain your footing. That fall might cause injury – or you might bounce right back up.

Sometimes, when you stumble on your path – it’s a wake-up call. What did I just trip over? That might cause you to reevaluate your path. I didn’t realize this was going this way – I need to change it. You may have stumbled – but it woke you up, took you off autopilot, and helped you redirect yourself to a more desirable path.

Stumbling along on your path is the natural course of ANY given path. Whether you have chosen it consciously, subconsciously, or not at all – when you stumble it might be an opportunity.

Further, it might make you pause to see what’s along your path. It’s so easy to get caught up in day-to-day routines we often miss things along our way. Life is an ongoing journey – and you walk a path in one form or another every day.

You stumble because it’s more about the path than the end goal. Stumbling taps into your conscious mind and opens your awareness. While it can be annoying in the moment – it might wake you up to something amazing you would have missed had you not stumbled.

Finally – you are worthy and deserving of the paths you choose. Stumbling on them does not lessen this or prove otherwise. You are empowered to choose and decide on life as you desire for it to be.

What do you do when you stumble along your life paths?

This is the four-hundred and seventy-fourth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking 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 along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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

The post Why Do We Stumble on Our Paths? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

We Need Acceptance Over Tolerance

Tolerance is insufficient – but acceptance is empowering.

When it comes to differences among people, the word tolerance gets thrown around a lot.

Tolerance gets applied to tangible differences, like skin color, hair color, body type, sex, and so on. But frequently, it gets applied to intangible differences. This includes sexual orientation, gender, religion, nationality, politics, and the like.

Tolerance, however, is insufficient. Why? Because it implies negativity. As in – “well, I don’t like that – but I’ll tolerate it.”

Why is the judgment included in this? Therein lies the problem with tolerance. The implication that you disapprove, disagree, dislike, or take an otherwise negative stance but “allow” for the difference.

That changes nothing and it sure as hell doesn’t let anyone grow.

The stark truth of the United States is that white supremacy, racism, and sexism never went away. But they did go into hiding. This was often in the name of “tolerance.”

But then we got Trump. Here was the President of the United States, embracing racism, white supremacy, and sexism like the past five decades never were. Emboldened, the previously “tolerant” threw that off and started to strive to recreate and expand old divisions and the like.

Why be tolerant when you are being told it’s unnecessary? Then we end up in this shitshow of politics where “fuck your feelings” replaces tolerance and widens the divides.

Hence, why tolerance is not enough. Instead, what we need is to work on acceptance.

Acceptance that different IS

Acceptance of what is different, unlike tolerance, doesn’t add a “but” to the notion. If tolerance is “I dislike that – but – I will tolerate it” acceptance is “I accept our differences and it’s okay.”

Everyone is different from everyone else in one way or another. How we all think, feel, act, and perceive the world is unique. Even if we have similar beliefs in religion, politics, skin color, sexual orientation, or whatever – there are still differences.

For example, there are still people who consider themselves Republicans – even though most of their party has lost their ever-loving minds. They do not support Trump – except they likely don’t oppose him, either. And while some would give all to keep Trump happy, others are merely being opportunistic.

Thus, even among the same, there are differences.

Different is good. It makes us unique. It also makes us desire different things – which helps the abundance of the Universe along.

Still, for some, accepting the different is a challenge. And because people tend to be discouraged from thinking for themselves, they are encouraged to dislike, disapprove, and stand against what is different.

Then, to blend in and not rock the boat, they tolerate.

Even identical twins are different. They may look the same and have like mannerisms – but since neither is in the other’s head, they perceive the world differently.

Because different IS, everywhere you turn, accepting it will bridge the chasms between us. It will allow us to make connections and heal wounds.

But first, we need to start with ourselves.

Practicing acceptance

I am a straight, white, middle-aged, humanist/agnostic male. Yet I know that doesn’t apply to everyone.

I accept how you may differ from me. Perhaps you are black, brown, or something other than white; female, transgendered, or nonbinary; gay, bi, asexual, or other; Christian, Hindu, atheist, or another religion.

Yet I don’t just tolerate how you differ from me – I accept it.

Here’s the thing to keep in mind. Since I am straight, for example, in what way does someone gay, bi or otherwise sexually-oriented different from me impact my life? Seriously, can you explain that?

The answer is – it doesn’t. I’ve been hit on by gay guys. I’m flattered but disinterested. Who you want to have sex with has ZERO impact on MY life.

By the same token, who you pray to impacts me not-at-all. My wife comes from a VERY different family dynamic and religious background than I do. I don’t tolerate her family and their beliefs – I accept them. Because there is no reason for me to dislike it, disapprove of it, or otherwise look upon it askance.

That’s the thing that’s toughest about this. It’s the dislike, disapproval, and judgment that underlies tolerance. Seeing someone’s tangible or intangible differences as wrong is where tolerance doesn’t do anyone any good at all.

Who in the hell am I to judge anyone? I am a perfectly imperfect, flawed, fallible human being. And so are you. Too often, the groups we associate ourselves with judge those who are not part of them as being lesser, inferior, or wrong.

All the Christian groups that believe anyone not following them is going to hell are a perfect example. They claim to follow a higher power – but the very human church is their true judge, jury, and executioner.

There is a place for tolerance

Tolerance has one place. It can be a stepping stone to acceptance. But it’s not about what you tolerate – it’s about you.

When you come to realize that you have passed a judgment on someone different from you, you get to choose if you will accept them – or reject them.

This is where this can become rather messy. There are differences we have but do not choose. Sex, skin color, body type to some degree, gender, sexual orientation, and similar. These differences simply ARE. As such, there is NO reason to do anything other than accept them.

What’s more – they won’t impact YOU in any way, shape, or form. Someone being black, female, or gay when you are white, male, and straight impacts YOU not in the slightest.

When it comes to choices like religion, politics, nationality, and the like – judgment tends to be inherent in them. Here – because it still holds little to any real impact on us individually – there can be tolerance for differences of perspective.

This, however, falls apart when reason gets thrown out the window. If you tell me I have no right to exist simply because I am Jewish – I will neither tolerate nor accept that. You have no right to judge my right to be. There is no logic nor reason for your belief. Thus, I reject you and your unreasonable stance.

This is how those in power – who desire to keep and expand their power – disempower the masses. Preaching hate and intolerance and implying suffering is due to that which is different is how we get divided.

When you practice reason, you can better see how these false divisions serve nobody.

You get to choose

I can’t change the opinion of anybody else. I don’t perceive the world how you or anyone else does. Thus, I can only work on myself.

You get to decide. Is it time to be accepting – rather than tolerant – of those differences that have ZERO impact on you and your life? If not – why not? How can you judge someone due to a difference they have which won’t impact your life? Just because you are straight, and he is gay, it impacts neither of you – save you won’t be dating.

When we individually move from tolerance to acceptance, we can start to change our small piece of the world. Every single small piece of the world changed impacts THE world as a whole. Practicing acceptance on your own matters. And when we have more acceptance of our differences, that generates more positivity. And that makes the world better for all of us.

Acceptance rather than tolerance isn’t hard

It requires mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.

Knowing that tolerance is insufficient and still judgmental, we can choose to instead practice acceptance of that which makes us different. When you accept the things that people cannot choose – but are different from you – it bridges the divides that have been created artificially. That ultimately empowers you.

When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.

You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity. That positivity can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.

This is the three-hundred and sixty-third entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope 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 of my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

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My Way is Mine – Your Way is Yours – Is There Common Ground?

Just because my way is mine doesn’t mean we can’t find some common ground (within reason).

We are closing in on having 8 billion people on this planet. Let me write that out – that’s 8,000,000,000 people.

Let’s say you know, personally, 100 people total. Maybe not well, but for the sake of argument, it’s a good round number. That means that you know 0.00000000125 of the total number of people on this planet. That’s a SUPER small number of people.

Each of those people has their own way of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and experiencing life. That’s one hundred unique points of view and ways to be. Now – multiply that by eighty million (80,000,000) times. That is how many unique, singular perspectives there are in the world.

Within that vast number of people, there is a collective consciousness. That’s when a group of individuals shares certain beliefs, perspectives, perceptions, ideologies, and the like. Almost all of them are founded on artificial divisions and perceptions.

Some are literal. Skin color, sex, height, weight, and so on. But most are figurative – religion, nationality, career, politics, etc.

For the most part, the collective consciousness is a benign aspect of the fabric of reality. Unfortunately, it can be radicalized, weaponized, and used to sway people to disregard reason and logic in favor of fear and opinion. Then you get rioters following the ideals of a demagogue that are – factually – against their own best interests.

There is nothing you and I can do on that scale of the world. All our control exists wholly and entirely with ourselves. My way is mine and your way is yours. But we can – as individuals – find and/or create common ground.

Being responsible and accountable for ourselves

We live in a society that loves blame. There is a love affair with taking ZERO responsibility for anything and everything.

Need I point to Trump as the most obvious example of this? Right at the top, there’s someone utterly unable to be accountable for jack shit. And this form of trickle-down tends to be the only one that works (unlike economics, for example).

Because of this and too many other examples – we tend to avoid accountability like a plague. This is an ironic phrase presently – since many are NOT taking necessary precautions to avoid a plague. But I digress.

The point is that placing blame for this, that, or the other thing is all-too-common and accepted. Go ahead, blame your parents for the actions they did (or maybe didn’t do) forty years ago. That’ll fix it all right up.

Except, of course, it won’t. Blame passes the buck. The avoidance of responsibility and accountability leaves you with zero control.

My way is mine and your way is yours. That doesn’t mean we are – or should be – working against one another. That’s because we are NOT in competition.

Let me reiterate. WE ARE NOT IN COMPETITION. Recognizing this truth helps you see how being responsible and accountable for your life experience gives you control of it.

What I seek on my path in life is similar to others – but not the same. What you seek in your path in life is similar to others – but not the same. The end is NOT a scarce, lacking thing – whether tangible or intangible. This is an abundant Universe and there is more than enough for everyone.

When you are accountable for yourself you gain insight about not just yourself – but your place in this crazy world.

My way is mine, your way yours, common ground

There has been a lot of talk about finding common ground in politics recently. It’s a rather interesting message – particularly as it comes from a place of utter bullshit.

Sorry, can’t help it – this is going to get political. When you’ve spent 4 years calling one side un-American; lots of schoolyard names like “libtards” and “snowflakes”; and demonizing the other side – requesting equity and unity is utterly hypocritical. You’ve spat, pissed, and shit all over the common ground – now you get to lie in that mess you made.

When we step back away from the big picture crap like above, you and I have a much better chance of finding common ground. As individuals, my way is mine and your way is yours – but the two can meet in the middle.

That is, so long as neither of our ways denies the other person’s, harms the other person’s or is otherwise destructive.

We can disagree on politics, for example. But unless you see the faults on your side (and trust me – I see the faults with the party I tend to align with) there won’t be a middle ground. If you throw your lot in with haters, science deniers, and generally selfish people there’s no common ground to be found.

Common ground comes from first being accountable for who YOU are. I know who I am, for example. Also, I know my faults, weaknesses, and blind spots. When you are not accountable for these aspects of yourself you’ve already closed off any potential for finding common ground.

This is deeply unfortunate – and utterly disempowering. This is why so many of our so-called leaders LOVE disempowering people as much as they can.

Empowered people are in control

One of the best ways to control the lives of other people is to tell them they are incapable of doing it themselves. Convince them that your way, your plan, is the only salvation available. Otherwise, they’ll suffer. And NOBODY wants to suffer.

To quote Paulo Coelho from The Alchemist,

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”

Often, our so-called leaders want you wholly focused on your fear of suffering. That way, you’ll be disempowered and willing to cede control of your life to them.

And because blame is so rampant – it’s easy after you do something stupid – that they encouraged – and to blame them and take no responsibility. Which disempowers you even further.

The only person in your head is YOU. Thus, you are empowered to take control of your life experience.

This is easiest done via mindfulness. Knowing, in the now, your conscious thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions reports to your inner being – your mindset/headspace/psyche – what you are experiencing. If you learn you’re not in control – you gain the ability to take control.

Empowered people control their own lives. When you do that you take the wheel and drive the bus.

My way is mine and your way is yours

The point of all this is that we live in an abundant Universe. Ergo, there is more than enough room, resources, potential, opportunities, and whatnot for both our paths. For ALL our paths, in truth.

Even if there is little common ground to be found between us – we can respect one another and take paths with no aim to deny, harm, or otherwise hurt each other. I have no interest in denying you what you desire in your life – and you should have a similar feeling.

Almost 8 billion people are coexisting in one way or another on this planet. That’s a lot of unique, singular perceptions of life, the Universe, and everything. But this is an abundant Universe – and there is more than enough of everything for everyone.

Don’t fall for the blame or the messages of lack and scarcity that are frequently employed to disempower and hold control in the hands of the few.

Just because my way is mine and your way is yours doesn’t mean we can’t find some common ground (within reason).

Do you see how my way and your way can (and do) both exist together and apart?

This is the four-hundred and seventy-third exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking 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 along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.

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