I like my negativity

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 4:43 am

From my own experience negativity used to be something really bad, painful and dark but negativity can actually be a helpful thing as well. I've had a great opportunity to see this as I've embarked on this 21 day journey of tic marking and focusing on accomplishments. Every single negative thought is like a blessing because it gives you the opportunity to overcome the anxiety and to allow growth. It can also be a great source of determination and motivation and if you can feel that then I guarantee a brighter future. I know it can be very difficult at times with how the negativity can severely limit your life and make you feel hopeless and I'm sorry if you are going through this and we all know how painful it can be but how much easier do you think your recovery could be if you didn't have the fight or flight response everytime your negativity came up or everytime you had to face it? After all those scary symptoms are coming from the fight or flight response.

Mike

karenLeigh · Post by **karenLeigh** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:31 am

Hey NinjaFrodo,
That was so good. it made alot of since to me. I know I take things for granted alot! I believe we all go thru bad times and when we get thru those hard times...it makes us stronger. It shows us that we are more capable than we "think" we are. It can strengthen our self worth. What we value in our self becomes stronger. I think our self-esteem is greatly impacted by such "events" too. I'm going thru alot of struggles right now and what you have said has helped me so much....Thank you!

Take-care

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:27 am

I'm very happy that this has helped you. You know the majority of us born in the western world weren't really brought up to see the benefits in negative situations and well negativity in general so of course we would take things for granted. Thats completely normal

.

I do like how you stated about the hard times making us stronger but it is so much deeper than that. It can allow us to understand others and to connect with them and I do not believe anybody on this earth has not suffered and this is something we have in common with every human on earth.

If this helps think of it as a family. The child is a representation of all humans in the world, the mother represents positive thinking and the father represents negative thinking. The mother nutures and cares for the child and she gives us a sense of peace and connectedness and love and the father gives us lessons in which we can grow and pushes us towards our goals and critisizes us so we can overcome our challenges and grow.

Without the mother we would feel overwhelmed with being pushed and not really feel like we are appreciated, live would become about survival and we wouldn't ever feel like we do good enough and everything would become about the self and we would lose our sense of connection and dependance. The heart would become very cold.

Without the father we wouldn't learn life's lessons on how to defend ourselves or how to achieve our goals and we would lose our sense of independance and our understanding of other people's struggles

So really life needs both in order to work. Appreciate what negativity gives you. If it helps you out then write down all the benefits that you could and already have gotten out of it.

Mike

pecos · Post by **pecos** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:31 am

I learned these things as a child, as most of us do. Everything has a twin. What goes up will come down. What turns to ice will turn to water. Negatives do help us grow, and I would like to add a thought: We need something to occupy that part of us that might otherwise be empty. If we don't have a comforting thing to fill that space, sometimes the thing that is not comforting fills the space ... and the discomfort spurs us, urges us, causes us to go the extra distance to find what is comforting ... and often the journey becomes the teacher, and what we needed to be comfortable is something we had all along.
Thanks Mike. You always have such interesting posts.

deedee00 · Post by **deedee00** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:06 pm

Mike and Pecos, you two have some brilliant minds! You two are such great teachers! Thanks so much. I've learned a lot from you two.

karenLeigh · Post by **karenLeigh** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:03 pm

Wow! I think you guys are way over my head. I think I get a little of what your saying Mike. About everyone has suffered with something in there life and how that can help us to understand and connect with one another. I remember Lucinda talking about our personalty traits and how they are all good ones but it's when we turn them inward on ourselves that it can be bad or i guess negative. But if we turn them outward like to the world around us. They can be wonderful things to have. I don't know if that goes with what you were saying or not....Are you studying something else to go along with the A&D program?

Pecos..what you said was very interesting. About needing to occupy that part of us that might otherwise be empty. I know Lucinda talks about...how to much time on our hands can not be a good thing. She talks about getting involved with things like voluntering, charity work, etc.... I guess to take our mind off of us. I guess we all have that feeling of emptiness from time to time. It's how we choose to fill it,that's important!
I love conversations that challenge my mind. It helps me to grow.

NinjaFrodo · Post by **NinjaFrodo** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 4:21 pm

Pecos
That was beautiful. That came straight from your heart I can tell. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for the compliment. You have great posts too

deedee00
I'm glad you get positive things from our posts. I'm very greatful that life has given me and that I can share it with so many people

KarenLeigh
Maybe it isn't so important that you fully understand this now. I'm glad you got something out of it

. I'm sorry but the only thing i remember about Lucinda talking about turning stuff inward being bad was when she was talking about anger. Is this what you mean?

I'm doing a few diffrent things along with the Combatting Stress and Depression Program program. I'm doing tao shiatsu training, a few diffrent meditations, the tic marking thing (which originally came from the program), I talk to a friend about deep issues and then i just come up with things along the way and do those things along the way. The best suggestion I could ever give you is to you follow your heart.

Mike