March 04, 2016

Free Yourself From Negativity

8 minutes

Negativity is not only a sneaky habit that can slowly penetrate our lives and wreak havoc on our happiness, but we tend to let it stay a little longer than it should. I know I've had times in my life when I was negative about the people I worked with, and the people I had to interact with every day. Negativity had taken a hold of me, and it took a long time for me to realize it.

In order to notice what we are feeling and how it affects our daily lives, we have to be aware of what we are doing and saying during every interaction and every encounter. Many of us are sleepwalking through our lives, and are unaware as to how we interact with ourselves and those around us. It’s easy to get complacent in our routine of work, taking care of the family, and the same old conversation we have day in and day out. But if we bring more awareness into how we interact with ourselves and those around us, we might notice some negative traits that we have unintentionally embraced. Oftentimes, this negativity hinders our happiness, and adversely impacts those around us.

Sometimes looking into the mirror of self-exposure can be a little intimidating. It can show us things about ourselves we don't like, but this can be a wonderful thing. This awareness helps us to grow and evolve, and when we notice a character flaw like a negative attitude, we can begin to understand how to change our thoughts, actions, and habits to become a better person.

Here are some tips to help free you from negativity:

Listen to your self-talk. What do you say to yourself internally? We all have an inner voice that leads us; it tells us what feels great and what feels lousy. Does that inner voice have a negative tone to it? Are we looking at the world from a negative angle? Notice that self-talk and change that inner voice to a more positive direction.

Who is in your inner circle? The people who are closest to you say a lot about who you are. Change who you bring into your inner circle and you will notice how you talk and think differently. If you are around positive, uplifting people, you will most likely take on some of those traits. On the other hand, if you have negative people in your life, you will have more of those traits. Look at your inner circle and choose wisely.

Every experience is an important lesson. Just because something failed, or didn't turn out how you wanted it to, doesn't mean that it will never work out. For example, if a marriage failed, it doesn’t mean that marriage is off the table for good and will never work out. Every failure is a lesson; but the key here is to actually learn the lesson. If you are making the same mistakes over and over again, than you might want to reexamine what you should be doing differently. However, if you have the awareness and mindfulness to take a lesson away from every failure, then you can guarantee a better outcome the next time around.

Know that you will never be happy if you focus on the negative. We will find whatever it is we seek; and if our habit is to look for the negative in things, we will continually have negative experiences. But if we train ourselves to look for the good aspects, we will not only attract more positive experiences, but we will be able to find the positive in challenging situations. Only when you can train yourself to recognize the positive during moments of adversity, you will be able to learn and grow from your mistakes. But if you are only able to point out the negative, you put yourself in the position of a victim, and will continue making the same mistakes over and over again. When you realize that life doesn’t happen to you, you put yourself in the position of power to make changes for the better.

Think about what is the biggest source of negativity in your life. Consider what you can do to make changes around it. Realize how your life will be better and happier if you can implement some changes. The work is worth it to have the best life possible!

Visit www.livewithmeaning.net for more information. Look for the Live With Meaning podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.

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