M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 61

All You Have To Do

All you have to do is make a choice. Decide to be aware. Work to find or create positivity.

You have a choice. You can choose to be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions – mindful – or not.

Being mindful brings you to the now and allows you to choose whether your thoughts and feelings rule you or if you will rule them.

Mindfulness is not just the awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions…but then choosing what to do with them.

When you are aware of what you are thinking, what and how you are feeling, and the intent of your actions, you have taken a huge step. You have become conscious, mindful, of your own headspace in the here-and-now. You are using your conscious mind to take control back from your subconscious and give yourself the ability to change the way you feel and what is dominating your mindset.

Awareness is important. But the next step is doing something with that.

Just because you are aware of your mindset, that doesn’t mean you have chosen to do anything with it.

All you have to do is choose.

For many, choice is scary.

Mindfulness and action

Yes, action is a part of mindfulness. When it comes to being aware of your thoughts and feelings and actions, now you get to decide what to do with that. Will you choose to make any changes with that?

If you are content, even happy, why would you? Likely, you would not. But if you are unhappy, discontent, dissatisfied with who you are, what you are doing, and where you are going – now you likely want to make a change.

But will you? All you have to do is make a choice.

Yes, it is THAT simple. Yet, and I know this all-too-well myself, it is also that hard.

What if I choose wrong? Will I suffer because I make a bad decision? What if I make it all worse by making a bad choice? How is this all I have to do?

Not choosing is ALSO a choice. And while it may feel like a safe choice, the truth is that it’s not. You will continue to be unhappy or discontent or otherwise feeling negative if you don’t choose anything at all.

Being conscious of your mindset pulls you from a subconscious headspace out of your control and into one you can. But will you?

Nobody can choose for you. You and you alone get to decide if you will make a choice. Decide to be aware. Work to find or create positivity. That really is all you have to do.

Almost nothing you decide to do is permanent

With a few extreme exceptions, nothing you choose cannot be undone. And by extreme exceptions, I mean suicide, choosing to remove a limb, and the like. Everything else you decide to choose can, if chosen wrong, but open to a new choice.

Even when you choose something that finds or creates positivity there are no guarantees that it will. That’s because apart from your own mindset and mindfulness practice, you have no control and very limited to no influence over outside matters.

Other people, the weather, the overall environment, the clock, and similar entities are outside of your control. They may impact on the positivity you seek or are creating – and you can’t account for that before it happens.

Does that mean you shouldn’t work on doing anything with it? No.

Trying and failing tends to be better than NOT trying and still failing.

All you have to do choose how you will intentionally act on your mindful thoughts and feelings to find and/or create positivity. That choice can help you make your life to be all that you desire for it to be.

What will you choose to do?

Finding and/or creating positivity isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that all you have to do is work with your mindful knowledge of what you are thinking, as well as what and how you are feeling, you can choose best for yourself. When you stop letting your subconscious dictate your mindset with that awareness, and then using mindfulness to act for change, that ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve any number of aspects of your life for the better, generating even more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred-seventeenth 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 below and receive a free eBook.

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The post All You Have To Do appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Will Have New Ideas All the Time

You will have new ideas all the time. The question is – what will you do with them?

In the eight years since I began to practice mindfulness and conscious reality creation, the practice has been altered. While the premise is largely the same as it’s always been – that you can choose for yourself the life you most desire to live – the how of it has been changed.

This is because, in the 8 years that have passed, I have been learning. New ideas, lessons from practices, successes, failures, experiences, and whatnot.

Further, the world has changed in many ways. Some have had a personal impact on me while others have had a more peripheral impact.

Whatever the case may be, one of the biggest plusses to working with mindfulness and conscious reality creation is that you constantly are learning. There is always something new to be discovered, and that just makes it more exciting.

Admittedly, this can also alter my path. Something new I learn may turn me on to a new and better way to do something I am already doing. It’s possible that new ideas change my goals or some other aspect of the journey.

It is also possible that a new idea turns out to be not good, and can be a distraction or diversion.

New ideas are a constant, just like change is constant. When they come – and they will – what you do with them is a part of the greater whole of your path in life.

Resources are everywhere

I have found new ideas in some of the most unexpected places.

Of course, there are lots of common places where ideas come from. These include books you read and listen to, people you converse with, teachers, students, TV, the internet, and all the usual, obvious sources.

But there are lots of unexpected places ideas can manifest from. Advertisements, random words you see on a sign, overheard conversations between strangers, a headline on the internet, and so on.

It’s important to recognize that not every idea you gain will be a good one. I have lots of ideas that are totally, unabashedly bad ideas. Many I would never even remotely consider doing.

For some people I know that’s disconcerting. Does having bad ideas and bad thoughts make you a bad person? No, it’s perfectly human. Now if you ACT on those bad ideas, that’s a whole other issue.

Even so, you are going to act on ideas and it won’t go well. Sometimes, this will be minor and inconvenient. Other times, though, this will be potentially life-changing.

Relationships, for example. While a bad relationship can be devastating in numerous ways, generally you can recover (though you may be changed after). Choosing to go skydiving, however, may be seriously life-changing if you break every bone in your body and can never walk again.

I am not saying don’t experience life and don’t take risks. Just recognize that the new ideas you are acting on will have consequences and/or effects.

Don’t fear new ideas

One of the reasons the world is in the state it is today is fear of new ideas. Or, more realistically, long-time ideas that are getting better notice and attention.

What’s more, too many of our so-called leaders exploit this fear. They use it to hold onto their “power” and present themselves as the solution. Generally, of course, they are not. They are only in it for themselves and their own power while disempowering everyone else. It’s very insidious.

If people didn’t have new ideas and act on them you wouldn’t be reading this. You’d be unable to check the weather on the other side of the world from your phone. Tons of things you take for granted wouldn’t exist if someone’s new idea hadn’t found purchase and been manifested into reality.

They may have been a brilliant mind – or even just someone like you who was inspired. That’s not what matters. What matters is that new ideas can be massively empowering and can be used to change the world.

But it starts with you.

How you perceive the world through your senses and your mind is wholly unique to you. The one thing over which you have control is yourself. So you can change your thoughts, feelings, and actions to consciously create reality.

Of course, this is done through mindfulness.

Awareness of your psyche empowers new ideas

Mindfulness is awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and overall headspace. It is you inside your own head, employing conscious awareness rather than allowing your subconscious mind and thoughts and feelings which may not be your own to do the driving.

When you are aware of your own headspace you are empowered to find, see, create, and otherwise employ new ideas. This is, when all is said and done, your psyche. It’s what makes you into you, the bundle of ideas, emotions, and unfathomable potential wrapped inside a meat-popsicle body.

Being aware helps you to take on or reject new ideas.

Many new ideas are terrible. When you are conscious of your mindset you might recognize this before employing said new idea. On the other hand, many new ideas are incredible. Now you will be more able to make use of them.

Which brings me to the last and often most ignored source of new ideas. You.

So many times you look to outside influences, resources, and the like that you don’t realize that those are tools, not answers. The answers and the new ideas are in you.

Sometimes the idea that you get is an improvement of something that already exists. Nothing wrong with that, there are lots of things that are good but can be made better. It happens all the time. Who knows what you might invent?

You will have or find new ideas all the time. The question is – what will you do with them? The best part is that the choices and decisions are yours, and you are worthy and deserving of making the best ones for you.

What new ideas are you working with?

This is the four-hundred and twenty-sixth entry to my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly articles are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the 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. I further 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 submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *WebsiteSubmit

The post You Will Have New Ideas All the Time appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Did You Know You Can Choose Something Positive Right Now?

How are you feeling today? At this moment, you can choose something negative or choose something positive. It’s up to you.

Before you stress out because it’s Monday, and for most people the day you go back to work after the weekend, please take the following into consideration:

Reality is what YOU believe it is. If you think today is going to suck, you’re probably right. Recognize this and choose something positive.

Other people are outside of your control. There is nothing you can do about anyone else in the world and how they act. So if people get on your nerves that’s because you allowed them too. Choose something positive.

Politics has ALWAYS been ugly. It’s like a giant festival of disagreeableness. You get to vote, and you can protest and call/email/harass the politicians. But allowing yourself to become angry, hopeless, and negative in the process doesn’t serve you. Choose something positive.

Time is relative. That’s why an hour can feel like a minute and a minute can feel like an hour. The now, this moment, is the only time that is truly real. In this moment you can be aware and make a choice for how you will think, feel, and act. Choose something positive.

Like attracts like. Consciousness creates reality. Whether or not you believe in the Law of Attraction, it still tends to be a truism that what you put into the world you get back. So you can be unhappy, negative and entering the day and week with loathing – or you can choose something positive.

You matter. Whether you have a dream job or you are working for the worst boss ever, you matter. What you desire, who you are, and all that you seek to do matters. You deserve to have a satisfying life experience. You have the ability to choose something positive.

Attitude is a choice

If you go into the day feeling negative, that is a choice you have made. Sorry if that’s in-your-face, but it’s the truth. This IS a choice.

You may well have bills to pay that you can’t see how you will pay them; deadlines that are looming and threatening to go unmet; other people counting on you; various and sundry other stressors; and that’s totally legit. It can be frustrating, scary, upsetting, and the cause of any number of negative feelings.

I am in no way saying that’s not valid, nor that you can completely block/avoid/escape from negativity. But you DO get to choose if you will take on a negative attitude and increase the negativity – or – find/create/choose something positive to counter and rebalance the scale.

It doesn’t matter who you are – you will have both negativity and positivity in your life. Like other matters such as black/white, hot/cold, short/tall, and so forth – these are the extremes. There is a grey or multicolored space between positive/negative in which you probably exist most of the time.

But on the linear, relative scale between positive and negative, you get to choose if you skew one way or the other. Choose something negative to focus on or chose to focus on something positive.

I also completely recognize and acknowledge that this is something largely easier said than done. However – the means to do so are wholly and completely within your control. The overall attitude you choose to take belongs to you. That choice is a matter of practical mindfulness practice.

Practicing mindfulness is a choice

Mindfulness is both super-simple and super-complicated. The idea is easy while the practice takes effort. Mindfulness is awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and action – or in other words, awareness of your conscious mind.

Those matters that tend to drive you and me, such as bills, deadlines, and whatnot, tend to burrow into your subconscious. Once there, they can play havoc with your thoughts and take your emotions on unwanted skydiving trips and rollercoaster rides.

The best and frankly only way to combat subconscious thoughts and feelings is with conscious thoughts and feelings. To engage those you need to be mindful. Mindfulness is awareness. Awareness of your mindset it the one true control you have in this life.

Nobody but you is in your head. However, your subconscious is FULL of other people’s ideas, emotions, suggestions, demands, and whatnot. While they don’t control you and your mindset, they can, especially unchecked, drive your thoughts and feelings to places you would otherwise not go.

So practicing mindfulness is the way to take charge and move beyond this. Doing so is a matter of both getting ahold of your conscious thought, and then referencing it regularly and frequently to make choices.

The best way to become mindful and choose something positive is to ask mindful questions that pull you into the now.

What am I thinking?
What am I feeling?
How am I feeling?
Where is my mind?
What am I doing?

These simple questions make you conscious of the now. That mindfulness will allow you to choose if you will take a positive or negative attitude towards the day/week/whatever.

You deserve to not feel lousy. Take today like a bull by the horns and go for it!

Deciding to choose something positive isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that your attitude and mindset are a choice, you get to decide if you will use mindfulness to seek/find positives or negatives. When you work on being conscious of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you get to choose your attitude. Choosing to find/create something positive ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve any number of aspects of your life for the better, generating even more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred-sixteenth 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 below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *MessageSubmit

The post Did You Know You Can Choose Something Positive Right Now? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Are NOT an Imposition

You are NOT an imposition on anyone else. If you feel like you don’t matter or nobody wants you around – you’re wrong.

Let me make this completely clear. Unless you intentionally wreck things, act like an ass, hurt people, or otherwise do unconscionable things – you are not an imposition. Further, you matter and people will want you in their lives.

I know a lot of people who question this for various reasons. Some are in reaction to trauma. Others are a result of brain chemistry matters. Whatever the case may be, you should know that you’re loved and you are not alone.

The words “mental illness” still evoke a notion of institutions, straightjackets, electro-shock therapy, and other extremes. But the reality of mental illness is that it is prevalent and far more like a common cold.

Lots of people suffer from one form of mental illness or another. Depression and anxiety, I am guessing, are the most common. These two issues, together or separately, can put a lot of lies inside your head and make you feel lost, unworthy, unwanted, and otherwise an imposition on friends and loved ones.

The truth is that you are not an imposition. You have worth and value, and the paths you choose for your life are valid.

I have been struggling with depression most of my life. There are good days and bad days, but overall I have it largely under control. My experiences have taught me a few things along the way. Since these are issues I know full-well others have or are dealing with, I want to explore them.

There are certain lies depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses tend to tell you. These are not true.

Nobody wants you around

This is, flat-out, a lie. Depression and anxiety will tell you that people don’t want to deal with you. You feel as if you are an imposition on people because you are sad/sour/distressed/down or what-have-you. But that’s simply untrue.

Your friends and family know you. They are aware of your fight with mental illness and they desire to be present for you to help however they can. Even when there is nothing that anyone can think of to do, that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing and able to be there for you. They want you around.

Likely, the squirrels in your brain or brain weasels have been chittering away and telling you that you are unwanted. You drag everyone else down and nobody wants you around. Might as well build a pillow-fort and avoid the world.

Unless you intend to be harmful to others, actively act in a manner that even you would not accept from other people, this is bullshit. Your friends and family want you in their lives because they are your friends and family.

For the record – because this is important – family may not be blood. Blood family can often be a cause of depression and anxiety. They may even be toxic for you to be around. Family are the people you have chosen to get close to. More than friends. They, in particular, totally want you around. Period.

You are imposing on people

Bullshit. There you are, Eeyore, down-in-the-dumps, mumbling, sad, generally feeling low. You have been struggling really hard of late and you have nothing of value to offer. Being around others just imposes on them.

So very not true. They still ask you to hang out and be a part of their lives.

You are not an imposition on anyone. Your friends and family care about you, even when you don’t understand why or how that could be.

Nobody is perfect. Or more realistically, everybody is perfectly imperfect. Everyone has bad days, everybody struggles with their own headspace sometimes, and the people who call you friend never feel that you are imposing on them. Period.

Unless you are intentionally interfering in someone’s life or blocking them from their path; unless you take and take with intent and have no plans to give back in any way – you are not an imposition on anyone.

You are unworthy and undeserving

This is probably the biggest lie mental illness tells you. You deserve to fail because you are unworthy of anything good for yourself because you have this issue. Maybe you should check into Arkham Asylum and get friendly with the Joker or Two-Face or such.

Not true. Unless you have been diagnosed as a sociopath or psychopath (and don’t take the meds that can control/regulate such) you are still a worthwhile person. Just because you combat mental illness it does not lessen your worth nor value in this world.

I know that can feel like a lie, but the lie is that you are unworthy and undeserving. EVERYONE on this planet has worth and value. Everybody deserves to have good things in their lives, to be content, and to experience unique things.

You, your goals and paths in life, are worthwhile. You deserve peace, success, and any and all good you can find and/or create along the way. Why? Because you are you.

Yes, it really is that simple and true.

How do you treat mental illness?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for me might not work for you.

Apart from therapy and psychopharmacology, there are things you can do to quiet the brain weasels and take care of yourself.

Talk to your friends/family. You are not an imposition. Your friends and family care about you and will do what they can to help you. Whether just to hear you out or offer advice, you can talk to them.
Write out your thoughts/feelings and get them out there. Pull them from your head, put them on the page or screen. Maybe, if you put them on the page, you can then take and burn them or otherwise trash them to let them go.
Be mindful. A lot of mental illness tends to take root in your subconscious. When you work on mindfulness and being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions you become more conscious. Being conscious helps you to see how depression, anxiety and the like are lying to you.
As little as 5 minutes of being still and calm, present in the here-and-now, focused on your breath can do wonders. Meditation is not totally clearing your mind, it is focusing on simply being present in the now.
Be active. Go for a walk. Stretch. Move. This can be as simple as getting up every hour and stretching to going to the gym and working out. A little activity ups the heart-rate and increases blood flow. This can provide mental and emotional sharpness and clarity.
Take a minute or two to pause and do some deep breathing. Take a deep breath in, let it out slowly. Repeat. It never ceases to amaze me how this simple act can improve my headspace.

You are not alone

I know where you are coming from. Really, you are not alone in this.

You are not an imposition on everyone else. If you feel like you don’t matter or nobody wants you around – you’re wrong, you DO matter, and people care about you.

Mental illness is not a rare, nasty, disgusting disease. It doesn’t make you a bad, unworthy person to be avoided. The more people share their experiences with mental illness the more you and I can remove the stigma attached to it. Don’t be afraid – you can work through this.

Can you see that you really are NOT an imposition?

This is the four-hundred and twenty-fifth entry to my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly articles are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the 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. I further 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 submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *WebsiteSubmit

The post You Are NOT an Imposition appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Don’t Try so Hard

Don’t try so hard – when you just do the results can be amazing.

For a lot of people I know, myself included, sometimes you give 100% or more to thoughts and feelings you have. These are ideas and notions you work to expand or build.

There may be times when you don’t see results. So you make a few changes, shift your approach, and try again. Then, if things are still not going as you would hope, you continue to try with more alterations.

Attempts to do things can be really good, because in order to make changes you need to take actions. However, when you try so hard that you become frustrated, you can’t help yourself.

I have done this a few times. There was something I desired to do, or to achieve, and I gave it my all. When it didn’t work out I gave it my all and then some. I would try so hard to get it to work or to go, that when it didn’t I became frustrated and agitated.

Often I have gotten better results by doing without trying so hard. This has applied to things both big and small in my life.

When you constantly push and put too much effort into trying to make something happen, one way to change that energy is to just do, and let it happen as it may.

Surrender to the universe

This is the part that tends to trip people up, myself included. The idea of surrender is tough because it either feels like bullshit, seems over-reliant on faith and the unseen, and/or otherwise comes across as hooky-spooky hippy-dippy silliness.

The trouble is that surrender is not a lack of effort, nor is it giving up in the sense of waving a white flag. Surrender to the universe is manifestation of mindfulness. You had a thought, gave it the necessary feeling to back it up and make it as real to you and your mindset as possible, then took the necessary intentional actions.

Now you might have to wait. The agent has your book, the college has your application, you sent out the message on the dating website, the interview has been completed and you await a decision.

I hate waiting. It tends to try my patience, and it can be frustrating because it’s all-too-easy to get negative in the wait. You can easily begin to see evidence of pending failure and you wonder how much more you could have tried.

You try so hard to push at possibility that it actually makes it much more difficult and opens you up to more negativity.

This isn’t easy. I try so hard to accomplish this, that, or the other thing, work to consciously create the reality I most desire…and if at first don’t succeed I try, try again.

The problem is when you try, try, try, try, and try again ad nauseam. Things tend to more likely happen when you surrender to the universe. This is not a lack of trying, it’s about doing and accepting and moving on.

Results vary when you don’t try so hard

I spent the last two days at a huge fencing practice. Many fencers of every skill level in my medieval reenactment group attended from different parts of the country. I love this game, and I have developed over time some skill.

But there is still room for improvement. Of late I have developed a subconscious angulation of my blades (when fighting sword and dagger) that opens a line an opponent can use to “kill” me. This was identified by a friend.

I worked Saturday to very consciously fix it. The results were mixed, some good fights and some not-so-good. It was still a fun day.

Following a night of very little sleep, Sunday I went back. I just did it, exerted less mental effort and I did not try so hard to focus on correcting the issue. My fights were cleaner, I had a handle on the angulation issue, and I felt really good about the practice.

In The Secret this is the notion of ask, believe, and receive. In my own practice of conscious reality I think this equates to think, feel, and do. Then you surrender the rest to the Universe and keep moving forward.

The positivity that comes of not trying too hard can have a major impact on what you do and how you do it. You are worthy and deserving of finding and/or creating awesomeness – don’t try so hard to be awesome, just BE and have a good day.

You need not try so hard to find positivity, but it does require action

Knowing that you don’t need to keep on pushing over and over again, but just use thought, feeling, and intentional action and then surrender to the Universe, you can ease your mind and better center yourself. When you are calmer and more centered you will likely find you accomplish your goals with more ease and positivity, which ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve any number of aspects of your life for the better, generating even more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred-fifteenth 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 below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *CommentSubmit

The post Don’t Try so Hard appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Will You Live Today?

There is a difference between living today and existing – and it matters.

When you look at the outside world – all the stuff going on beyond your direct control – things are nuts. The Presidential election in the US has begun its primaries, and that tends to bring out the worst in people. The UK has left the EU and the consequences of that action are yet to be seen. A nasty virus that could become the next pandemic is doing untold damage in China.

This is some messed-up stuff going on. Unless you are living under a rock or otherwise choosing to disconnect you can’t avoid it. It’s there, it’s depressing, frustrating, upsetting, and generally mind-boggling.

For many, it causes a feeling of hopelessness. What’s the point? Those uncaring asses are going to destroy the planet for profit, rob the elderly of their retirement monies, and steal who-knows-what from the children of today.

Yes, these are matters you cannot just ignore. However, you still need to live your own life.

To be or not to be

It is entirely possible to go about your day with whatever pattern that entails. Get up, go to work, go home, chill in front of the TV, then go to bed. Rinse and repeat tomorrow. In the face of choosing to just go with it versus coping with the awfulness, it can feel like the automatic is better.

But the truth is that it is not. You get only a short span of time in that meat-popsicle you call your body on this planet we call Earth. After that time your energy transmutes to another form and who knows if you retain any of your present consciousness or not?

Every single day is different. Even when you have a daily pattern you follow it will be different from yesterday. The temperature will change, traffic will shift, people will be kind or unkind to you, and so on.

You can face this with resignation in light of worldwide awfulness – or you can decide to live today.

This is where mindfulness comes into play, of course. Mindfulness is awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. That awareness brings you to the now. This moment. Today.

Some people will tell you that in the face of the world’s craziness this is a selfish notion. How dare you live when so many are struggling? The truth is you can do no good by not living your own life for the sake of others.

It is not selfish to be aware and to experience good things in your life. Neither is it selfish to put your own headspace first and BE despite the world situation. Why? Because when you choose to live today you make yourself a beacon of light and hope.

Self-awareness is not selfish

A great deal of what you are seeing of the world, and the terrible things that people are doing, is designed to disempower you. It’s meant to direct your thoughts and feelings towards those things. You are more likely to watch a news program when they have salacious and hyped-up stories than if they were to just give you facts.

Fox News notoriously spins every topic towards conservatives and all that aggrieves them, frequently counterfactually. NPR spins their topic towards liberal and progressive thinking with actual fact to back it – but the angle of approach remains.

When your focus is on these things you are contributing to the collective consciousness. The message is perpetuated and spread because, believe it or don’t, the Law of Attraction is a thing. Like attracts like. Consciousness creates reality.

These things going on cannot be ignored lest they continue to be propagated and perpetuated. But when you ignore yourself and your own awareness you disempower yourself. You give away your ability to do anything effective.

When you believe your awareness is a selfish act you are, in truth, denying yourself. What good does denying yourself do for anyone or anything else? None.

This is why when you live today and don’t just exist, you can have an impact on the greater collective consciousness issues.

How do you live today?

Short answer: Mindfulness.

Long answer: When you make the effort to be, to exist in the here-and-now, you can be more aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. This pulls you out of the collective consciousness and the robotic automation it leads you to.

It’s not just about walking a path of your own choosing, but more about experiencing what life has to offer. When you are aware, you can be reasonable, logical, and at the same time emotional. This is achieved with practical mindfulness that helps you to really be.

Every day is unique. There are opportunities and possibilities that are different from day-to-day. Some are super-minor and easily taken for granted, such as what you choose to wear and decide to eat. Others can be far bigger, like learning something new that can change your whole damned life.

Big or small, when you live today you get more out of the day. You don’t just exist and go with the flow or let the pattern of your routine carry you along. Living today is experiencing today and gaining insight into possibility and potential you might otherwise miss.

Mindfulness is not an overarching quick-fix idea. It’s a practice that, with each attempt becomes increasingly habitual. When you are more in the now and present you empower yourself to do something productive and constructive to help change collective consciousness.

Some people find this idea scary. Others may find it exciting. Of course, there are probably also people who think its all bullshit and not worth the time or effort.

But that leads to the final, important point of this notion:

You may only have today

Not to get gruesome or macabre, but there may not be a tomorrow. You just don’t know if today is your last day in that body on this planet, do you?

A bus could barrel through your living room and crush you. Your heart could simply stop. That delicious snack may contain an unknown allergen that kills you. Anything can happen.

I am by no means advocating for saying “to hell with it all” and driving south to a warmer clime and drinking yourself silly. Nor am I saying give up to the inevitable. What I am saying is that today is the only day like today that is and ever will be. Do you choose to live today, or not?

There is a difference between living and existing – and it matters. Why? Because you matter. You are worthy and deserving of incredible experiences – the good and the bad. In the time you live in that body on this planet you can have incredible experiences. Or you can just exist.

No matter what those outside pictures of the world are, you are meant to live, not just exist. Be a light in the dark and an individual within the collective consciousness. The experience may suck, but it may also be incredible and awesome.

The choice, and the decision, are yours.

Will you live today?

This is the four-hundred and twenty-fourth entry to my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly articles are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the 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. I further 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 submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

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The post Will You Live Today? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Always Positive is Impossible

Always positive is impossible – but how long you remain in a state that is not positive is a choice you get to make.

Many people dislike any push for positivity. Why? Because they feel it’s artificial. You are ignoring major issues both with yourself and the world at large. Positivity all the time, they will argue, is impossible.

On the one hand, they are correct. Always positive is impossible. As a human being, you will have experiences that are bad. You will have negative feelings, bad things happening to you, and other things that will occur well outside of your control that are going to be negative.

On the other hand, they are incorrect. Feeling positive and being positive do not ignore major issues – nor are they artificial. This is because the overarching concept behind positivity is the choice over negativity.

Abundance vs lack and scarcity

The world is full of people fighting perceived lack and scarcity where none truly exists. For example, immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTQ peoples are not taking jobs, opportunities, space, or what-have-you from a limited supply. Any and all limitations in these things are artificial.

This is a world of abundance. Besides the vast size of the cosmos itself, look at money and the ultra-rich. There are single individuals, like Jeff Bezos, who make more money in one day than what would be a comfortable salary to cover more than 3500 other people – for a whole year.

The money is there and clearly abundant.

Positivity is a product of abundance. Negativity, thus, is a product of lack and scarcity. Since positivity is more than a thought or emotion – but an attitude – the choice for whether to seek out positivity or not is wholly yours.

If you look at the world as full of wanting, insufficiency, and there not being enough – that’s probably what you are experiencing. If you look at the world as abundant, sufficient, and there being more than enough – then that is more likely what you will experience. Like attracts like and consciousness creates reality.

Again, things happen that will make you feel bad and otherwise not positive. This is unavoidable. But you get to choose your overall attitude. When you experience things that make your attitude negative it’s your choice how long to hold onto that. The decision is yours to stay negative or shift to positivity.

Attitude can be adjusted

When those things occur that make you feel bad, that cause you negativity, you are going to feel them as part of the overall human experience. This is utterly and totally normal.

But for how long?

That’s the part that is yours to decide. That choice belongs to you. How? By practicing mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the awareness, in the here-and-now, of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Ergo, if you are feeling bad and don’t know why, you should check-in with yourself. Ask questions to get a sense of where your headspace is. If the why of your thoughts and feelings is mysterious to you, chances are you have been working from your subconscious mind.

What that means is that you stopped engaging your conscious mind, ceased to work in the now, and your subconscious started to do the driving. That’s how you wind up feeling a certain way but can’t explain why.

When you are being mindful you are being aware of what you are thinking, what and how you are feeling, plus actions, inactions, and intentions therein. This gives you influence and control over the one thing that you have true influence and control over. Your mindset. Your headspace.

If you are working with a negative attitude you can change it. No, it’s not going to be an instantaneous change because attitudes tend to need time to be shifted. You don’t get where you are mentally in a day, usually, so getting out of it or to another mindful place will take some time and effort.

While always positive is impossible, attitude can be changed at will. When you decide to take action and mindfully make a change you gain more control of your life overall.

Always positive is impossible, it can be changed through mindful action

Knowing that always positive is impossible, you can choose to maintain a negative attitude when something untoward happens outside your control – or you can decide to change it. When you practice using mindfulness to be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you can control and change your attitude. From there you can choose to seek out, find and/or create positivity, which ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve any number of aspects of your life for the better, generating even more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred-fourteenth 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 below and receive a free eBook.

The post Always Positive is Impossible appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Will you be Proactive or Reactive?

Will you be Proactive or Reactive?

The choice is yours to make.

Life is constantly in motion. You may pause from time to time, and you need to rest and recharge daily. Yet, even so, life is in motion, whether you are moving or still.

Every morning when you wake up, you start making choices. The vast majority of these are fairly benign and almost automatic. Get out of bed or hit snooze? Shower or go give the cat attention? Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast? Tiny, nearly thoughtless automated choices every day.

It is extremely easy to just let it all happen. Go with the flow of the ever-moving stream of life. There is something to be said for the simplicity inherent in this idea. Why not just live and let live? Why not just react to the natural flow of life?

The simple answer is because you will not be satisfied. Things happen in the natural course of life outside of yourself that do not resonate with who you are. Constantly reacting tends to turn into a struggle and becomes forced choices.

A choice that is forced is not a choice as well-thought-out as any other. What am I talking about here? To get to work on time you proactively leave your house at 8:30, allowing for traffic so you get to work on time. When you don’t decide to go at 8:30, but instead rush out the door at 8:45 you are reacting to your situation rather than working to control it.

This is a mostly passive example. As choices and decisions get larger, the stakes do, too.

Constantly reacting is exhausting

There are several things to take into consideration here. These are important because they tend to be situations you have to react to, no matter how much planning and plotting you do.

You cannot control other people
Weather and environmental factors are unpredictable
Outside stimuli will unexpectedly impact your emotions
Time is wonky

It’s easy to forget that the only thing over which you have any real control is yourself. Specifically, your mindset. What is going on inside your head, thoughts – feelings – actions, are the only things you truly can influence, control, and change.

You can plan and plot for yourself, but the outside factors of life are going to impact that. When you don’t fully take that into account – and that tends to happen to most of us – you wind up reacting constantly.

You have to put out fires, calm the disgruntled, fix things broken by other people, rush to be on time and meet deadlines, drop what you were doing for something possibly more urgent, and on and on. Did reading this list feel exhausting?

That’s the problem with being constantly reactive. Ever wonder why politicians and the government tends to be ridiculous and short-sighted? Constant reacting. It’s how efficiency goes out the window and good ideas get tossed aside for the supposedly tried-and-true.

Being proactive takes effort

Probably the biggest challenge to being proactive is outside factors.

Because of how little you can truly control and all the things you cannot, is it even possible to be proactive?

Yes. The first step is recognizing that you have no control over these factors and planning for that.

More often than not people get set in their intentions. I am going to do ‘x’ today and accomplish ‘y’. You focus on this and take a proactive approach to it.

But if you have neglected to allow for those factors you cannot control you will wind up being more reactive than proactive. This will be frustrating, and you will exhaust yourself.

For example, I had a project that my boss wanted me to do at one of my past jobs that was particularly challenging. It made me take some steps outside of my comfort zone. I got it all done, checked it over again and again, and then left it on his desk.

I anticipated that when the boss looked it over there would be probable corrections, and then the next steps of making necessary copies and getting it where it needed to go. Instead, the boss returned it to me – leaving it on my desk – with the word NO scrawled atop it.

Catching the boss for an explanation proved difficult. Now I was in reactive mode. Could I fix it? What would happen to my job?

Turns out he didn’t look past the cover, forgot that he’d assigned this to me, and thought I was proposing something new rather than completing an assigned project. Now it was too late.

Despite my own proactive work, in the end, reactivity and outside factors overwhelmed the effort.

You get to choose

I could have let this totally derail me. I am pleased to report that it didn’t.

Unfortunately, it was the beginning of the end of that particular job, but frankly, the writing had been on the wall about that for months. So when I lost that job, rather than react and get all “woe is me” about it, I took other actions.

It is always a choice. Be reactive to what happens or proactive with it? Get angry/flustered/hopeless or be encouraged/stimulated and hopeful? You get to decide and choose the direction to take.

You can be reactive or proactive in this life. To be fair, you can also be in the middle between the extremes. You can just go with what happens initially and give it a little time before you choose which way to lean.

The important thing here is to choose. Don’t just let it happen, decide if you will allow yourself to just be reactive or proactive. Put out the fire as it erupts or wear the fireproof suit?

Nobody else is inside your head. Mindfulness and conscious reality creation belong to only you. Will you be Proactive or Reactive? The choice is yours to make.

What actions will you take with the choices before you?

This is the four-hundred and twenty-third entry to my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly articles are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the 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. I further 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 submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *MessageSubmit

The post Will you be Proactive or Reactive? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Perception is Entirely On You

Perception is Entirely On You

Nobody else can see the world through your eyes or from the inside of your head except for you.

There is nobody inside your head but you. The only person who can think, feel, and do for you is you.

It is nearly impossible to be completely cut-off from the world. So many things are constantly happening, and the connectivity between everyone via smartphones, the internet and such is a mixed blessing and curse. You can see how you are in comparison to person ‘x’ and couple ‘y’, and make judgments on your life and choices from there.

This, however, is not conducive to good mental health. First, you are not in competition with anyone. Second, your life is neither better nor worse than anyone else’s. And third, nobody can tell you what to do or how to be and what you should have in your life…except for you.

Your perception of life, the Universe, and everything is entirely on you. That’s in part because nobody else is inside your head and can think your thoughts, feel your feelings, or do things intentionally or not – except for you. Also, nobody can make you do, be, have, feel, think, or act unless you allow them to.

That’s not to say that things happen that cause you to think and feel in certain ways. That’s part of the human experience. But what you do with it and the perception you take on from it is entirely yours to choose.

You decide how you will perceive your life

Life is unpredictable. No matter what you plan, the expectations you have, and the things you desire, unexpected shit will happen. Relationships come and go, jobs are won and lost, friends ebb and flow, and environments tend to extreme unpredictability. Today’s perfect marriage may be perfect tomorrow or turn into the ugliest divorce you could ever have had a nightmare about.

When life changes in a way you were not expecting nor wanting, how you perceive it now is entirely up to you. Do you see it as over, wrecked, destroyed, and forlorn? Or do you see it instead as a fresh start, repaired, reborn, and hopeful? Your perspective matters.

I am not denying that there are awful things happening over which you may have little or no control. There are some terrible things happening in the world at large and to people you may know and care about. While you cannot (and should not) ignore these things, you also need to keep your own life in perspective.

It feels selfish, right? How can you perform self-care and worry about your own life perspective in the face of so much awfulness? It comes down to this – what can you do about that stuff? Fretting over it and worrying about it is frequently all you can do.

Vote in the elections, write and call the politicians and other leaders, organize and/or attend protests, and do what you can to keep up the necessary resistance. But do not neglect your own life in the process.

Your perception of the world at large is directly impacted by your perception of yourself and your life. If you see your life as in the shitter and coming apart, chances are all the other outside stuff looks just as bad or worse.

Perception is part of mindfulness

How you perceive yourself is mindfulness. When you are not being conscious and aware of that, odds are that your subconscious is in control.

So all the outside crap you see happening in the world today might dominate your perception. Even if it doesn’t, if you are finding and feeling negativity everywhere it takes very little for that to overwhelm your perceptions.

Those in power mostly choose to lead through fear, creating artificial lack and scarcity, and denying people basic human rights and general decency. They have no empathy and cause some very real hurt. If they can keep you focused on what THEY are doing they disempower you.

Crowds turn. Collective consciousness shifts. Change can, does, and will happen for the better. Progress cannot be stopped. Being mindful of your perception of the world, and more specifically your headspace within it can be a point of light in the darkness.

If you can read this now, you are likely not suffering. You’re probably not imprisoned, and as bad as your life might be it could be a hell of a lot worse. Take that into perspective, and see that you have a lot more power you can use to see the good in your life and apply some positivity from that to make it better.

When you empower yourself you inevitably empower those around you.

No, it’s not easy, and there are no quick-fixes – but that doesn’t make it untrue. I believe that it’s totally worthwhile, and so are you. Nobody else can see the world through your eyes or from the inside of your head except for you. How and what do you choose?

Controlling how you perceive your life isn’t hard, but it does require action

Knowing that you can choose how you perceive your life, you can choose to see it as positive or negative. When you choose to look for, find, and create positives and work to grow, change, and improve your life that ultimately empowers you. When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that tends to spread to people around you.

As such, you can build more positive feelings and discover more reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve any number of aspects of your life for the better, generating even more positivity and gratitude.

An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity that can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.

This is the three-hundred-thirteenth 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 below and receive a free eBook.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *PhoneSubmit

The post Perception is Entirely On You appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Be Mindful of Other People’s Joy

Choose to Be Mindful of Other People’s Joy

Your paths will inevitably cross other people’s paths.

What makes you happy and brings you joy is not the same for everyone else.

For over 28 years now I have been participating in an interactive medieval reenactment society. Through this organization, I have made amazing friends, met people from around the world, and developed some really cool and fun hobbies.

Over the last few years, there have been some really positive changes to the organization. Efforts to increase inclusivity and better police harassment and bullying have been occurring, for example.

However, people have also been arguing more vehemently when their paths cross in very different ways. For example, some demand more historical accuracy and less anachronism. Others demand more paths of recognition in the awards system. Some just play the game and want to have fun doing it.

Rather than just go with the variations in theme, people get into heated debates, blast at one another, and fight – usually online – about who’s way is right and who’s is wrong.

The most important takeaway I get from this is to be mindful of other people’s joy. Most importantly, don’t stomp on it if it differs from your own.

I do not dress in a completely historically accurate manner for numerous reasons. Neither do I practice an entirely medieval rapier combat (fencing) technique. I relish my friends and the time I get to spend with them, and that is my joy.

Overall, there is room for everyone and their unique paths in life.

This is an abundant Universe

When you look at there being only a finite amount of room for any given thing you create limitations. This often leads to artificial lack and scarcity. Before you know it people are competing over this, that, and the other thing. Competing unnecessarily, I might add.

Unless this is a fencing bout, tennis match, spelling bee, soccer game or the like, you are not in competition. There is more than enough good, joy, and positivity to go around. The Universe is abundant, especially in these regards.

What brings me joy may not do the same for you. I accept that some of my other friends participating in the medieval fencing aspect of the game prefer more historical styles and recreation. You can practice Capo Ferro, Spanish rapier, and even katana or two-handed sword combat side-by-side. As I explain to every new student the more experienced fencers can teach the same thing 5 or 6 different ways.

What brings me joy may not bring you joy. And that’s ok. Yet people have a tendency to forget that, not be mindful of it, and then get into ridiculous arguments, debates, and fights over who’s joy is most valid.

The answer is yours. And mine. His. And hers. All are valid, and there is room for each.

Lack and scarcity are artificial

Even natural resources that you may be told are finite aren’t. Sure, someday there will not be enough coal, oil, or natural gas to power our current equipment that needs it. So what? Alternatives will be found or already are being developed.

Solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources are still in their infancy. Eventually, there may be cold fusion and other nearly inexhaustible power supply options. Science fiction has suggested antimatter, dark matter, controlled singularities, as well as other notions that could totally be possible someday.

My point here is that lack and scarcity are artificial. One resource may run out but it can and will be replaced by another.

Love, joy, contentment, and all of these intangibles are not finite matters. You cannot run out of them, and any lack of them is artificial.

Hence why you should be mindful of other people’s joy rather than critical of it. Let people be happy, have nice things, even when they differ from your joy and desires.

The exception to this is when someone’s joy comes from harming, hurting, and wrecking the lives of other people. If the suffering of other people is what makes you most happy (and I am not talking about the occasional schadenfreude of watching someone get what they deserve) that’s not a good thing. Nobody should be treated as lesser, made to feel inferior, or otherwise harmed for another’s good.

Joy can come from little things

All of the big things in life are made up of smaller things. This is why, for example, working to change a long-ingrained habit needs to start small.

Many people look at joy as being this large, all-encompassing notion. But it’s not. Joy can come in small doses, from little experiences, and it is ultimately empowering.

Listening to one of my cats purr, feeling the sun on my face, holding hands with my wife, writing, and reading all bring me joy. They make me feel good, and when I feel good I am better empowered to work with my mindfulness.

Being mindful is a matter of being aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. That awareness tends to be easier to tune into when you are feeling positive.

Mindfulness is primarily about yourself. But it does not nor cannot ignore the world around you. Nor should it. If you are unaware of the environment you are in and it’s unhealthy you won’t take action to change it.

This is why it’s important to be mindful of other people’s joy. When your paths in life inevitably cross there is more than enough room for all. There are not a finite, limited number of paths in life. They are many and varied and abundant.

The joy of another doesn’t lessen your own. Whether that joy is a big thing or a little thing it’s a matter of abundance and is going to differ from person to person.

Be mindful of criticism

Everyone has opinions. That’s part of human nature. When you think you explore ideas, some tangible and some intangible. Those ideas and what is joyful for each of us is unique, variable, and valid.

There are a number of ultra-rich assholes being disgustingly greedy, selfish, and destructive. Not all of the ultra-rich, but we tend to lump them together. This also can be applied to religious groups where a number are doing awful things; industries where more appear to be doing harm than good; and so on. It becomes really easy to be hyper-critical.

Turning that on people and their joy is ludicrous. Again, so long as another person’s joy is doing no intentional harm to anyone else let them have it. Maybe you do not approve for whatever reason, perhaps it’s not how you would approach a similar situation. But that doesn’t make it inferior or less than your joy.

Be mindful of other people’s joy. Your paths will inevitably cross other people’s paths, and there is plenty of abundance available for us all. You and I are different, but neither of us is greater nor lesser than the other. We are both worthy and deserving of the joy in our lives.

What brings you joy?

This is the four-hundred and twenty-second entry to my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly articles are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along the 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. I further 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 submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *CommentSubmit

The post Be Mindful of Other People’s Joy appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.