My Life is on the Verge of Amazing!

Perspective is EVERYTHING! Happiness is a choice and you have exactly what it takes to turn things around. Every time things seem to take a turn for the worst, you have the power to decide whether you will accept or deny it. Surely it doesn’t feel like you have a choice, in the moment. That’s because you have helped  train yourself to believe that every new speck of negativity must be focused on immediately and intensely. The result is that you waste valuable energy concentrating on the comparatively small ratio of things that are going wrong, rather than the overwhelmingly long list of things that are going right.

Like a rock in your shoe, negativity can change your entire gait, as you attempt to stroll through life. Your entire mind, body, and spirit can be on top of the world, but that one tiny annoyance can slow, or even halt progress. Fortunately, just like that tiny pebble, there is a quick fix. Simply decide to remove it, NOW. Then QUICKLY return to your normal state.

This is where we get confused. We literally get stuck on the insignificant and annoying parts of life and allow them to skew our entire outlook. What most of us fail to realize or refuse to believe, is that happiness and wellness is actually our normal state of being. Unfortunately, there is an addictive quality inherent in negativity and struggle. So, when we are confronted with it, we react to it vigorously and often decide to hang out and explore it for a while.

Think about the news, especially the local variety. There is an obvious psychology that drives the tendency to over-report the negative. Death, fire, tragedy, and general unrest qualify as news. Achievement, success, and well-being don’t qualify because they simply don’t feel sensational enough to stick. If the news had a positive slant, the initial reaction would be much like hearing the news that your body temperature is at a strong 98.6. We expect to be well. Happiness is our baseline. It takes something outside our safety and comfort zone to make us react. The problem is that if we are presented with this unnatural information too often, we begin to accept it as normal. We begin to ingest what we would naturally expel. This creates dis-ease.

Take some time to observe and interact with children. They are our best example of our natural state. Their instinct is to be curious, happy, and well. Trying to get them to feel hopeless is at least as difficult as trying to get most of us “grown folk” to feel hopeful. This is why when we encounter children who seem to lack curiosity or have an unhappy affect, we are alarmed. We KNOW that this is not normal. We immediately recognize it as an unnatural state. We respond because we know something has gone wrong. You are no different from that child, except that you have allowed yourself to accept unhappiness as normal.

It’s not always as easy as ignoring negative feelings or replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. However, you can drastically reduce your general angst by making regular, honest attempts at changing your perspective. When it feels like everything is sliding quickly downhill, decide to enjoy the adventure of it all. Your life is probably on the verge of amazing.

Don’t forget, SoS Coaching is here to help. Contact us at peoplefeed@gmail.com