Negativity can be a trap—and a hard pit to climb out of.
I speak from experience.
That said, I’m not about to suggest that we should always “be positive!”
No one is positive all the time, and no one should be.
Bad and disappointing things happen. Some days, we feel better and brighter than others. This is just the way it is. There’s no need to get down about sometimes feeling down or to try to bypass everything that isn’t happy-happy-joy-joy.
Often times, the best way through gloomy feelings is to go directly into them. I like the adage: “Feel the feelings, drop the story.” The story is the mental processing and thinking that typically accompanies (but is actually separate from) the feelings.
To live from a place of possibility—to enjoy our lives and reap positive rewards—it is important to recognize when we wander into negativity and have a few tools to help us from getting stuck in it.
Here’s a tool Eckhart Tolle shares in Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises From The Power of Now:
“Whenever you feel negativity arising within you, whether caused by an external factor, a thought, or even nothing in particular that you are aware of, look on it as a voice saying, “Attention. Here and Now. Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present.”
“Even the slightest irritation is significant and needs to be acknowledged and looked at…”
I remember this being critical when I was going through heartbreak years ago.
In the early nights on the pain, I would wake up in a panic. Those were times when I knew I needed to feel the feeling and release the story.
There were other times in that period—like I remember one day in particular, when I was walking into a restaurant during my lunchbreak—when I noticed myself ruminating into negativity.
In that moment, I practiced what Tolle describes. I came back into the present—out of my mind and into the “Here and Now.” Yes, my heart hurt, but there was also a sense of peace that came with consciously returning to the moment.
I told a friend about it later: “When I think about the future, I’m crushed; when I think about the past, I’m crushed. When I stay right here, I’m okay.” (She told me to write that down).
This is what got me through that difficult time: a combination of feeling what I needed to feel and staying as present as possible.
Whether you’re feeling big stuff these days or just your daily average angst, these tools can be helpful. In short:
1.) Notice negativity as it arises.
2.) Discern: Is this a moment to feel what’s there while releasing the story? Or would it be more helpful to coach yourself into presence?
Either way, peace is on the other side. That’s how it feels to emerge from the negativity trap.
And, though it may not always be obvious right away, it’s a sure step back to possibility—my favorite place to be.
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