I’ll put my hand up and say that I am guilty of telling people to choose to be more positive.
I say guilty, but I’m not sorry - your choice to see things in a more positive light changes many things, not least your enjoyment of life.
I know the more you are positive the more life tends to be seen in a better light, i.e. your filters get polished and life just seems … easier, less of a slog.
You’re happier for no reason, just because you are alive.
Also, saw a study that said feeling grateful means your body almost doubles certain aspects of your immune system, means you have a higher oxygen uptake in your cells, creates better coherence of your heart rhythms.
Pretty cool huh?
What’s cooler is that you body doesn’t know the difference between spontaneous gratitude and mechanically “choosing” to be grateful.
You do it - you just are grateful by sitting down and doing one of them gratitude lists, and even though it may feel a bit fake, your body sits up and takes notice.
So you can fake it until you make it, until it becomes a reality.
But!
I do understand that life isn’t always fluffy rainbows and blessings and unicorns.
I know that sometimes life isn’t that cool and you’re trying hard to be positive and you just can’t do it.
No worries.
The pressure of not being positive is worse than not being positive is itself.
Do you see?
Nothing is a problem unless you make it a problem.
If you can’t be positive, if you can’t see the glass as half full, just settle for being present.
Just be okay with not being okay.
Accept, and in that acceptance, be okay with what is - even if that isn’t that good.
Don’t give up on living, just take a load of pressure off trying to be different.
That there is your choice, the choice to accept and be okay with feeling rubbish.
In a sense, you come to a place of being content … that’s not quite right as I write it, I can’t find the exact word but it’s “contentment-like” …
You come to a place where you can just be here.
The more you are here, the less you listen to the inner troll.
The less you go into the future.
The less you rehash the past.
And most importantly, the more patient you are, and understanding too, when you do those “whatever you do don’t do these things” things.
It’s not going to last forever.
Let it be there, just don’t wallow in any of it. Don’t wholesale dive in, gentle awareness and presence is enough - it’s always enough - until it changes.
Go well, keep the peace however that looks.