negativity – The Hermits' Rest

Hard Goals

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

As tired as I am, I can answer this one (I don’t answer blog prompts lately because I’ve answered most of them). That’s good, because it was another day of barely getting through work and not being able to do much more.

I finished coloring this. It took a week or so in small doses.

So, I’ve probably mentioned this before and will again. But for years I had a hard time being the person I felt I could be, and it turns out I had a lot to do with it. Thanks to some issues in my birth family and an inherently sensitive nature, I was always very hard on myself.

I never met my own expectations. Any mistake I made lingered in my mind for a long time. I’d replay “dumb” things I said over and over. And I would constantly talk to myself in ways no one would talk to someone they cared about. I was ugly, fat, stupid, and so on. I was not nice to me.

Since I AM actually pretty smart and intuitive, I figured out that I was not helping myself with the negative self talk. So I had some therapy, talked things out with a group of safe and understanding women, meditated (a lot, still do), and read.

I’m very pleased to have come across the writing of Brené Brown. I’m also pleased someone made me read a self-help book. I find most of them really simplistic or not right for me. Her first few books opened my eyes to how much I was affecting my own self worth, and by that, encouraging others to pick at me or devalue me. Figuring out that I wasn’t the only one doing this to myself was a huge revelation. I got a much better outlook and began to heal.

I got tested a lot in this healing phase. Since I came to Cameron, a couple of people (who of course are suffering from their own internal battles) tried their best to break me down, give the community a bad impression of me, and hurt others I cared about. I’ve had some very hard times here in rural Texas, where even in a good day I’m a square peg not even trying to fit into a round hole.

But, one day, right after a very mean person was mean to me, something snapped in my brain. I told my patterns I was sick and tired of them and vowed to reframe the situation every time I started to berate myself.

Get this. It worked. After a while, weird thoughts like how good I felt, or how peaceful life was began to replace sadness. My negativity patterns have gone into background mode, and I feel so much better. Sure, that stuff is still down there and today’s trying times make feeling good about anything difficult. Yet, I honestly feel good about myself, like myself, and don’t beat myself up when I screw up (much). And of course, the horse riding lessons helped me practice gaining self confidence.

I kept telling myself I was fine just as I was and that it’s perfectly okay that not everybody likes me until it became true. I’ve even learned a bit about how to perform the once-mysterious act of “letting other people’s negativity slide right off my back.”

Maybe that’s why these bluebirds of happiness keep following me.

I try to cut others some slack, and accept those around me who confuse me just as they are. I just hope they find peace and joy on their path.

Who IS THIS version of Suna? She’s different. Not perfect, not better than anyone else, but at a good place in her spiritual journey.

So, blog prompt readers, loving myself and treating myself kindly were my hardest goals.

Now I’ll move on towards being less judgmental (making good progress), and being so afraid to speak up about what I see as wrong. There’s always room for improvement!

How Can You Cope in Today’s Troubled Times?

There are some practices and “mind tricks“ I use to stay on a level key while the world of people, politics, and ethics changes to something almost unrecognizable. Note that I am not describing how to remain calm (I no longer know what that means or if anyone is “sane“ anymore). But rather I want to share what I do to keep myself productive, centered, and able to find joy/good/happiness.

I wrote this all out by hand. I needed to write.

Spend as much time outdoors as possible, doing chores, getting exercise, relaxing—it all counts.

You might see spring flowers in September!

Meditate. I count some of my bird observation is this – deep focus on breathing sound, etc. turning off the internal chatter (when I dictated the text, this came out as “cheddar”) that adds to anxiety.

Stay in the moment. Be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to people and things around you. This lets you see moments of peace and beauty amid broader chaos.

Limit exposure to negativity. Stop listening to provocative sources of information remove controversial people from your life as much as possible – if you must be around someone (coworker, family, or service provider) set boundaries and only interact on neutral topics so you can just walk away physically or mentally.

Assume good intentions. Remind yourself that people who upset you mostly aren’t doing so to bother you —often they think they are doing good —so treat them kindly, assuming they are well intentioned from their perspective, and let them share their thoughts, but let unintentionally hurtful things flow over you —you can be kind and not let the harmful stuff inside you.

Treat people kindly. Doing something nice for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do makes you feel better and invites good to come back to you.

Be grateful. Take the kindness of others in and be grateful for it. Expressed your gratitude, because a lot of people really seem to crave the positive affirmation, and it doesn’t hurt to help them out.

Give yourself permission to relax and retreat. Read a book watch a funny or engaging television show or video. Do this in moderation. Hiding in Facebook or on TikTok can be a problem.

Remind yourself of connections. However you are connected to other people, groups and cultures, treasure your own connections to your groups and enjoy them—just not to the exclusion of others. We are ALL family. (OK I’m preaching here.)

—All X people are evil/my enemy. No, the ideas they are being fed are the issue, not the people. Be angry at the source, which most likely is corporate interests (says Suna and Robert Reich).

—I can’t do anything about X. No, by keeping yourself strong and focused on positive and constructive ideas and practices you are doing something.

—Person X drives me batty. Guess what? You choose your reaction to person X. Change it.

Laugh. Find people places or media that make you laugh or laugh at yourself kindly.

Enjoy animals. Domesticated or wild, they share our earth and are good enough to share their calm or funniness. Horses and dogs help me.

Recognize your limitations. We can’t do everything or fix every problem. Choose your battles and let go of minor issue. Discern what is within your capacity to change and do those things.

Hint: you can’t change other people‘s personalities and entrenched beliefs. You can change your reaction. This is a big lesson.

Love yourself. Remind yourself that you are lovable just as you are. Your mistakes and flaws do not define you or make you less deserving of love. It’s great to be loved and to accept love coming your way, but you aren’t defined by whether or not someone loves you. Everyone else is lovable too, just maybe not by you, sometimes

Your spiritual guides (God, spirit, goddess Buddha) love you just the way you are, too. If yours places conditions on its love consider another alternative.

Don’t hate people. If you want something to abhor there are plenty of other options. I abhor war, gun, violence, intolerance, corporate, greed, dysfunctional government, unethical propaganda, and institutions set up to divide people rather than unite them. I don’t hate people. Something made them the way they are, even egomaniacs and psychopaths. Hatred does not make anything better.

Forgive. Let go of resentment towards bullies mean people, hurtful individuals, etc. Letting resentment fester does not lead to peace. People screw up. Forgive them like you’d like to be when you screw up. You can’t fix some folks, but you can forgive them and move on.

Take care who you trust. Confirmation bias is real. Don’t just trust people who agree with you automatically. Instead, trust people with no vested interest in manipulating you or your emotions or in encouraging divisive thinking. This is hard, I know.

Surround yourself with things that make you happy (spark Joy ha ha ha). This will be different for each of us. I have lots of objects that help me: crystals, figurines of birds and horses, live flowers when possible, a cheerful coffee mug, a journal covered with stickers, colored pins, books art made by me or my family, and so much more. Other people might need minimal distractions to feel happy some need clean surroundings things that smell, good etc. You do you and don’t let others’ opinions of your surroundings bother you. They can do their own stuff. (Now, shared spaces require compromise, of course. There can be no fun scents in a house that contains my spouse.)

Move around. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or sad or afraid you can want to just stay in bed or your chair and curl up. But try to remind yourself that moving around/exercise is one of the best ways to lift your spirits. Even marching around your house or dancing to music helps. I like to take walks so I can observe beauty around me and experience the world with all my senses. Riding my horse is also very helpful, because I need to focus on what I’m doing rather than other issues.

Do some crafts. Making things helps you focus on something you enjoy, and creating items for others is an act of kindness thate brings positivity into your life.

July and August of my temperature blanket project.

Read inspirational or beautiful material. I love my nature books, and my magazines about horses, art, home improvement, and spirituality. Just be sure to find uplifting and interesting content. I have to limit my political and historical reading.

And finally, remember what the scripture below tells us.

Tee hee. I, too, can cherry pick Bible verses that support my point.

So…what other ideas do you have to share with others as we try to get through this time together?

A Little Success Lifts the Faltering Spirit

The past few months have been pretty heavy. There hasn’t been much to counterbalance the sad, scary, and stressful. I miss Goldie, I’m disappointed that Drew and I aren’t meshing well, I miss the routine of a job (after ONE day of “retirement”), and I worry that more bad things will happen to people I love. As I read today, we’re in the middle of “the troubles” we’ve been warned about for so long.

With that background, you can imagine I would be in the market for some potentially positive counterbalance! Sure, hanging out in nature helps. But I was pretty sure by this afternoon that I could use more.

Spotted Horse to the Rescue!

It had been a while since I’d had an Apache horsemanship lesson, thanks to Tarrin’s glamorous famous horse trainer adventures and my endless nature exploration. Today there was a lesson scheduled, which was good news.

Maybe good news for you, Suna. It means I have to work.

One of the many disappointments last week was that I had to cancel going to a friend’s arena to participate in the first horse show of the year, a “virtual show,” where you can be anywhere and just film yourself doing the show tests. The weather yesterday did NOT cooperate.

That meant more time for Apache to bury his head in burs and make his forelock look silly.

I figured that part of my show was not in the cards. But I heard that Tarrin had the show obstacles set up at her house, and asked if I could do the two parts of the show during my lesson. She said yes, so I groomed the heck out of Apache (who had decided it was a fun idea to roll his white body on fresh green grass) and packed up a shirt with a collar and a belt. Off we went to see how we could do in a more laid-back setting.

Heading off to the arena. He’s loaded down with equipment.

Lee came along, too, with the fancy camera. He was also drafted into filming. What a trooper.

This is my favorite of his pictures. I’m talking to Apache while holding an awkward object and he is giving side eye.

Imagine my surprise when Tarrin said we’d do all three parts of the show this afternoon. She had the dressage arena set up, too. Unfortunately, I’d barely studied the dressage test, thinking I wasn’t doing it. Oops.

Lee was filming during dressage, so enjoy this photo of one of the horses in training.

But guess what? It all went just fine. Even I could tell that Apache and I have both improved, though he was trotting like the RV going down a dirt road: bouncy. We did okay on dressage!

On the next part, I was very pleased with his stops and starts and his patience at the four obstacles involving picking up objects.

I was pleased with myself for managing to ride over a bridge, step him over a tractor tire, and do a slalom all while holding an awkward object. He even backed up appropriately and side passed over a poke! Major improvement there .

Sure, our gate opening leaves a lot to be desired, and he stopped during transitions on the barrel maneuver, but we can work on that! I was so proud of us.

Will we get a ribbon? I am not even worried about that. I’m just so pleased that we are improving that I don’t need to compare myself to anyone who’s on a different part of their journey with their horse. See, I learned another life lesson, one that makes shows much more fun.

Having a bit of hard-earned success with my horse is just what I needed to buoy my spirits. I’m feeling more hopeful that I’ll find ways to get by, keep up with horse lessons, and have positive counterbalances to the near-overwhelming doom and gloom.

Another Kind of Vacation

Driving home from the state park was a depressing reminder of how divided our country is today. Sometimes being a sensitive person makes me too vulnerable to attack ads, negativity, and the spread of misinformation. And when people I care about are sharing the worst misinformation, it’s too much.*

So I was thinking that I can’t control what’s on television and other media, but there are things in my sphere that I can control. So I’m taking a vacation from my Facebook feed. I’ll miss some good news and other personal developments that happen, but I’ll get less agitated.

Maybe honey locust leaves are like gummies for birds. He seemed really mellow. Maybe I need gummies. No! Drugs/herbs are not the solution, ha ha.

I have other ways to keep in touch! I’m sharing the blog posts on my ranch Facebook page, and dog and horse updates on their pages. And people can comment on the blog or email me. Just ask.

They need more than 197 followers. Of course, I haven’t been posting there since I got so busy.

But, I’m not an influencer. I may be an asocial media influencer at that. It will not be a big deal to go away for a while. I just finally hit the point where the benefits of connection no longer outweigh the negativity and hostility from people who mean well.

Fiona agrees that she’s pretty dull, especially when no one posts on her page. I’m guilty.

Other news? Goldie’s biopsy report finally came in. Indeed she had or has osteosarcoma. The best news is that it’s not a highly aggressive or in a one. I guess it’s the least bad kind of a bad thing.

She started licking and messing with her leg where her old hotspot and IV were. So we covered it last night. The vet I talked to today said it needs to able to breathe, so it’s off now and I replaced it with a sock. It’s one that was really tight on me, but is probably too big. We will keep trying.

We have another shirt on her, too. She can lick her incision. Ugh.

I’m okay! I just don’t want to be hammered with partisan politics, name calling, and intimidation for a while. Self care rules, y’all.

Cindy and Cathy take care of each other and rarely argue. Well, as far as I can tell.

Oh yeah: take care of yourselves, Florida friends!

*some great friends I disagree with are sharing factual information that makes me think. I appreciate those perspectives.

Not So Negative Traveler

What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

I’ll tell you what I do with negative feelings! I squash them down and distract myself with plants! Who can feel bad when they’ve just seen their first mayapple?

The most beautiful plant! The flowers hide under a giant leaf umbrella!

One common criticism of Past Suna was that she was sooo negative. That stung, but it led me to get to work on figuring out how to reframe how I interpreted the world around me. That, in turn, has led me to express myself less negatively. It was a lot of effort at first, but I think I’m a lot less negative, in general.

Sure, it rained this morning, which made getting ready to travel difficult, but it was beautiful afterwards, and we needed the rain.

I’ve noticed that lately, when things happen that once would have made me upset, I notice that whatever it was happened, feel angry, annoyed, or sad, but then let it go. How did I finally learn to stop dwelling on things and wallowing excessively? I DO NOT KNOW. My best guess is that all the effort I’ve put into mindfulness, seeing the good in situations, and turning away negative thoughts became second nature after a lot of repetition. Dang, I wish I could have gotten there sooner, but that’s my path!

Here’s an example. Today we were looking forward to picking up Hermee the Jeep and towing him to the Cooper Lake South Sulphur Unit State Park (quite a mouthful) behind Seneca the motorhome. Do you see a Jeep in this picture?

Yep, the towing equipment wouldn’t be done until 4 pm, way too late for us to drive 4 hours and arrive in daylight. It turned out the scheduled technician had a death in the family. Well, I was irritated for one minute, then just made sure we have enough food, and looked forward to the weekend anyway. That guy’s family is more important than having two vehicles. We will get Hermee on our way back.

It’s harder to be negative, too, when you’re looking at life from a wider perspective. Hanging around with nature so much, and working to understand horses and dogs has helped drive home the perspective I need. I remember the world does not revolve around me, I’m part of a bigger universe, and pouting or weeping won’t stop the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It’s so much better (at least for me) to just sit back and watch the show, tending to matters that are within my ability to control (my own actions).

The fewer expectations I have of those around me, the more at peace I become. And this lets me truly enjoy the goodness and kindness that pours in from the family and friends who care. And they’re the ones that count and bring joy, even in hard times.

Um, anyway, yeah, we have driven to the park we accidentally drove to a few months ago. It’s more wintry in north Texas than at home, but I think I’ll have lots of fun walking around this weekend. The weather should be pleasant.

With no Jeep to get me to trailheads, I’ll get some good walking in. And if it rains, I have loads of knitting and writing to do. It’s all good. It’s weirdly stress free other than concerns for some family health issues. I can’t fix it by worrying, though, so I’ll keep sending out good intentions and doing whatever concrete things I can to be helpful.

And, here are some plants and vultures.

How do you deal with negative feelings? Is it easier or harder as you age?

Is Someone Bothering You? Look in the Mirror to Learn Why

A quick note.

First, center yourself by meditating on the whorling shape of this red-stemmed stork’s-bill.

Okay, now read on.

Today someone who knows very well how to get under my defenses said something that I took as a passive aggressive swipe at me, the kind that on the surface seems innocuous enough, but stings. I mentioned it to my spouse, who said maybe they didn’t mean it that way. Maybe I was looking for a swipe.

I thought about it.

Then I remembered the time my neighbor cut me off for saying something mean to another neighbor that I hadn’t intended to be mean at all. I remembered the letter that our general contractor’s wife wrote to me about a set of issues she perceived in me (I’ve blotted them out of my mind). I remember the letter my ex-boyfriend wrote to tell me to stop writing him and bragging about buying a car and a house, etc. None of those things I intended the way they were interpreted. But their biases toward me were negative, so they interpreted my actions negatively.

Looking in the mirror of how people misunderstood me because they wanted to made me realize I might be doing the same. I’d learned this lesson before and have been tryingjj to interpret the person I’ve always known to be passive aggressive to me as if their intentions were good. I just fell into a decades-old pattern. I will now reset and do my best to go back to assuming good intentions, like I’ve always strived to.

Sometimes you just need a reminder to see that you’re falling off the path you want to follow. There are a couple of people in my life I’m going to work harder not to have a negative bias toward. That’s a resolution for the coming year that I can get behind.

How about you?

On that note, I’ll plod off into the sunset on my small but magnificent steed.

Trimming, Literally and Figuratively

With the radio news making me nauseated today (good thing I avoided Lee’s nightly dose of depression known as ABC Nightly News), and thinking somber thoughts about the local police officer who died in the line of duty (plus a friend’s husband out doing the thankless and scary task of guarding the border down south, I just want to go hide in a soothing bubble.

That was an awfully complex sentence there, Suna.

As I had the thought above, I was reminded that Tarrin said today she felt like she was in a snow globe that was being shaken. Maybe a bubble isn’t all that safe after all. I think she and I both need a hug.

Everyone has their limits of what they can take and for how long. Most of my friends have some pretty firm limits and strong boundaries, and I appreciate that. I feel safer around folks like that! I looked around at my friends at lunch today and thought, yep, I’m safe around these people. That’s good, finding your tribe and drawing strength from them (and giving back, one hopes).

It did occur to me that I’ve been letting some more negative influences in my life get under my skin. I’m also reading and listening to sources that feed into my insecurities and reinforce things I don’t need to reinforce. What’s that thing…confirmation bias. Yes, I’m having my fears and worries reinforced, and I don’t need that.

That’s when I decided to do some trimming. I switched around my social media feed to help me see less stuff that isn’t helpful or makes me upset. I trimmed my friend list. I added some positive topics to my feeds. Believe me, I’ll still be aware of whose rights are being taken away and who’s being attacked by whom, but not quite so repetitively.

Next, I jumped into some self care, which led to the literal trimming. I got many layers of mud off Drew, in preparation to try to ride him. Admittedly, I spent most of the time picking mud balls out of his mane and chatting with him. I then took him off to do his ground work, only to quickly discover it is still too muddy. The poor guy slipped and yelped like a little kid. I felt bad for him, so we just went for a walk around the driveway. That went well until Penney barreled around the corner and surprised us both. Drew yelled and jumped away, but I successfully stayed calm and all was well.

I decided we both needed self care at this point, so I sat in my chair outside the tack room and let Drew graze on the tall grass that was mowed last week but shot back up.

The weed eater in action

I appreciated the great job Drew did in trimming around my steps and the saddle rack. He seemed to appreciate me, too, checking in a couple of times to nuzzle me. Now that’s something healing that goes a long way to bringing back equilibrium.

Thanks to Drew, a nice swim in the very full pool, and time with my family and dogs, I may not be in a bubble, but I’m in a protective cocoon of love. My wish for anyone who reads this is for you to find what nurtures and soothes you and trim away the excess as much as you can.

*yes, I’m aware an Althea is a rose of Sharon. Trying to be witty.

Dealing with People Like Me

Advice for me, too

For the first time in a few years, I didn’t blog for a while. I’m not back because people were clamoring for me to write (in fact, no one said anything at all about it, which is perfectly fine). I’m back because I figured out some stuff about my mental challenges that I thought might be helpful for others. What prompted it was a lot of introspection I did after seeing some of these motivational posts in social media.

My mental issues tell me that no one wants to see the unmuted version of me. It’s been backed up all my life by folks telling me I’m too sensitive, too judgmental, too negative, too…blah blah blah. And thanks to having this extra-unpleasant “rejection sensitivity dysphoria” (RSD) deal, when I hear something that sounds to my extra-sensitive ears like a criticism or put-down, my limbic system kicks in and goes into defensive mode. That guarantees I’m going to overreact and piss someone off. Nope, no one really does want to see the unmuted version of me! Consequently, I do try to make myself smaller, to avoid subjecting other people to my unregulated self.

Break!

And this week, after being told how negative I was, I fell into a deep well of self-criticism. And when I asked for help and support, I felt criticized for not asking for it appropriately, and was informed that when people tried to help me, it made it worse. You can see how a downward spiral might ensue, even when I knew in my head that I was being criticized for basically being who I am, which I can’t change as much as I’d like to. Being told not to react to things that trigger me the way I do is like telling a tree not to have bark. Well, yuck to all that, right? (Note that I know the person I was talking to was not intending to be mean. This is just an example.)

So, I was wondering how I could have the reactions in my head that my mental challenge makes me have but mitigate it somehow. One thing I thought of was for people who are forced to talk to me when I have an RSD episode to not add criticism about my reaction on top of my reaction. For example, if I react to something by hearing in my mind that I’ve been told I’m the most negative person in the world, an unhelpful response would be, “No, I just said you were ONE OF the most negative people I know.” Yep, my mind heard an exaggerated view all right, but pointing out that I heard it wrong just makes me feel worse.

I wonder what would happen if the response was empathy rather than added criticism? What if my reaction was acknowledged, but not critiqued? I was thinking something like, “I know what I just said was hard for you to hear. Just remember I care about you, warts and all. Let’s look at what I was trying to tell you, not how it came across.” I feel like that would give me a chance to get past that initial reaction and be more realistic. Who knows?

Break

I have to acknowledge, though, that just like I have no control over reactions that aren’t conscious, other people can’t, either. That’s how people end up where they each build on each other’s issues until there’s some bad result. Talking to each other and trying to understand each other’s struggles is a good way to start, though.

I’ll keep working at it, but no, I don’t think I’ll be subjecting my unmuted self to many of the people in my life. It’s just too much for them, and I honestly don’t blame them one bit. Some people are hard to deal with, and I am one of those. That’s something I have to deal with!

(By the way, in my mind, I’m a cheerful person who laughs and jokes around a lot and has a lot of fun – I wish I could expose THAT version of me!)

It’s not necessary to try to make people you are fond of like you back!

In my heart, I know that the work I’ve done here at the ranch has been good for me. I’ve felt much better about myself as I’ve been finding the beauty in my surroundings, treasuring kindnesses I experience, and working to be as kind and caring as someone like me can be. And of course, hanging around with animals who help me so much has made life much better.

A dog this happy has to cheer you up (one of Tarrin’s many sweet canines)

The main reason I write this blog is to have a record of the good things that come through my life, like the nature, the travel, the uplifting people, and the things I learn. It may just be me talking to myself and trying to convince myself that there’s good in this messy world, but it helps. So, I’ll still be here blogging about horses, dogs, birds, and flowers.

Here I am, looking happy because I’m able to ride Drew and he likes his new saddle and pad.

You get to react to what I write however you choose to. I’m fine with that. I’m prickly, so I’m going to rub folks the wrong way, make poor word choices, and look at things from my RSD perspective sometimes. Oh well, it’s me. Who among us isn’t prickly in some way?

Nontoxic Equanimity

Having written posts on toxic negativity and positivity in the past, I was really happy to hear the last part of an NPR presentation on toxic positivity this morning. I wanted to hear it, so I searched and couldn’t find it. I was bummed, because I liked the fact that the therapist being interviewed talked about how not all positivity is bad and that some negativity may well be justified.

angry suna — This was my sweaty face of negativity when I found out someone spoofed my Instagram account yesterday.

Finally, my brain kicked in and I found the article on the website of my local station, KUT. They have great original programming, too! If you get a chance, read the transcript or listen to the interview.

So, in her discussion with the KUT reporter, Junice Rockman makes the point that a lot of us are looking for the good things in life right now, since there’s so much ickiness going on in 2020 (obviously she didn’t say ickiness). And that’s fine. As the interview pointed out:

“…there is nothing wrong with positivity, as long as it is not used to:

deny
disconnect
disregard
disassociate, or
dismiss someone else’s ideas.”

That rang true to me. Some of the things I’ve heard and memes I’ve read seem to insist that you’re not good enough if you can’t always be positive. Your just not trying hard enough, don’t love yourself enough, or are just trying to be Debbie Downer.

The heart of the matter is that it’s unrealistic to expect people to be either happy all the time, or eternally sad failures. To me that’s just common sense. Rockman says this kind of all-or-nothing thinking doesn’t work.

It’s like a pendulum. It has to be all one thing or not. It’s helpful for us to move away from that all-or-nothing thinking. It doesn’t have to be either-or. It can be both.
Junice Rockman, KUT, 7/29/2020

By the way, to make me positive, just show me a picture of my son and his little family. Aww. Photo shamelessly appropriated and used without permission.

And that’s it. We can be positive about one thing and negative about another, and they can coexist! These days a lot of us are having a hard time. We have lost jobs, are lonely, are sick, or upset by the news. That is absolutely okay, and it can’t hurt to also find what’s still pretty good. Really, isn’t life always this way?

Even in good times we have challenges. My goal is to have a healthy viewpoint and put my feelings into perspective. That means when I climb out of despair, I don’t run straight up Pollyanna Mountain! When I talk to people in my life, I’m going to mention things that bother me as well as things that bring joy.

And if someone judges me for veering off to one side or another, they may need to check for their own toxicity and cut me some slack. I’ll return the favor. My brain is too full to be all judgy right now. I love everybody who’s doing the best they can.

Now, onto the challenges of the day!

The Dreaded Negativity Spiral

In her newsletter today, Nataly Kogan of Happier Now, shared this tidbit that spoke to me:

Here’s the question I ask myself that helps me to immediately pause my negative thought spiral when I get caught in one:

Is this way of thinking helpful?

The answer is always no. Every single time. It’s amazing how simple yet powerful this question is.

Once I realize that indulging my negative thoughts isn’t helpful, I can make a choice to shift. It’s not always easy, but it’s absolutely possible.
Happier, with Nataly Kogan, July 28, 2020

At this very moment, I’m not in a negativity spiral; in fact I’m feeling as normal as a person getting ready for a reorg and dealing with sick people all around me can feel. But, from what I hear and from my own experience, the negativity can jump out and make its presence known quite suddenly and quickly. I think even the most resilient among us is finding it challenging to keep looking to the bright side these days.

The shift from negativity that Kogan refers to is what intrigues me. It seems like there may be lots of ways to accomplish this, and I’d be interested in knowing how some of you do it.

A couple of my strategies are:

Get going with the supportive self talk. Remind yourself that you are doing your best and your best is good enough, in fact, great!
If it’s someone’s actions or words that send you toward negativity, see if you can come up with a possible motivation or intent that is positive; remembering things don’t always come across the way people intend them to.
If you’re overcome with a mood out of nowhere, quickly engage in your favorite mood-changing activities: take a walk, do deep breathing, sing, visit your favorite funny meme or video site. The sooner you do it, the less chance that a mood can grip you for long.

Being good to ourselves really helps us be more resilient and optimistic (okay, some of us are aiming for neutral, I know). Nataly Kogan also gave out these ideas today, so I’ll share them, too:

While I’m at it, I’m going to reach out to a couple of people I know are not feeling well, which always helps me feel more positive, myself.

Onward in good cheer!