Staying Positive

I was asked recently how to stay positive when everything indicates feeling the opposite. When life feels like it’s just negative and certain people in it just don’t get you.
Good question. It’s so hard sometimes to see anything positive in life when we are feeling hurt or overwhelmed: The reality is though, it won’t always stay like it is in this moment.

As survivors we are meant to do more than just survive, we’re meant to enjoy life.
We have been through enough and lost too much to fall into the river of sadness and overwhelm and get sucked under. We’re worth more than that.

We know well that all often we cannot control what is happening to us, it can be situations and events outside of our sphere of influence, usually impacting ourselves or people we love. We panic, can overreact and our peace of mind gets flung outside and ignored, while we become more stressed and anxious.
Totally understandable and typical reactions, but not overly helpful to our state of mind.
So: what is the best way to manage it, or even change our thinking around it?
One theory that resonates is that we have more power than we know or can ever access, and the trick is unlocking it and bringing it into our lives every single day. But I digress.

In my life I have had so much to bear, so many Tsunamis if you will and I’m still standing. Don’t get me wrong, often I have fallen flat into the swirling waters of despair and depression and come up gulping for air.

The thing I realised was keeping me down and trapped was not the situation, but my thoughts about the situation. I couldn’t control what was happening, nor did I like it, but I could choose to approach it by accepting it was in my life and I was meant to learn something from it. Something that just might help me in some way. In other words: I could choose to see it differently and climb out of it whenever I wanted. Or not.

But I had to choose.
Then I had to do it.
And I didn’t always know how.

Eventually after making my life much worse instead of better, I gave in to feeling powerless and handed it over to my Angels, for you it may be God, your higher self – whatever you believe in that is bigger than you.

What I learned was I needed to:

• Accept I couldn’t control the situation
• Focus on what was working in my life
• See that obstacles in my life were there for the right reason
• Be kind to myself
• Ask for a sign
• Surrender all my concerns to my Angels

So, this is how I now ‘do’ life. When it throws me a curve ball I generally resist, (I know I’m only human) but eventually when I get over myself, I do ask my Angels for help, I do recognise I can’t control what I can’t control, and I look for the reason it is there. If I can’t see it initially, I know it will come somehow.

I do find myself laughing at myself as I am often surprised at how easily and quickly, I can sink into ‘sweating the small stuff’ and that is so not who I am anymore or want to be.

It is an ongoing challenge, and I don’t always get it right, but I feel I’m winning as the more awareness I give it the more I am seeing it before it derails me and takes away my peace of mind.

One last thing, I have to love and accept me in all my flawed state. I have to rate who I am otherwise I will default into second guessing and doubting the person I know myself to be, which isn’t helpful or ok. So, now I have that figured out, it might be worth considering:

Who are you
Can you love who you are
Your Angels – or whoever your spiritual people are, sure do.