Dear Ones –

Today we share a few thoughts about negativity and positivity with you. Something that has been called to our attention of late. Apart from the usual, yin and yang, must have both/can’t have one without the other, what is there to say?

It can be easy to fall into the grooves of either positivity or negativity, either one. When one is overly focused outside oneself and has unrealistic expectations of the world, one could feel annoyed when the world does not, in fact, measure up. One might find cause to critique each interaction, with friend or foe, loved one or stranger, or people in the news, and see how poorly they are behaving when they could be meeting your standards instead, the nerve. One might begin to find this a reasonable topic of conversation, although rarely with the offenders themselves. This breeds complaining and gossiping and general ill will between people, mainly inside your own heart and mind. This does in fact impact your world, your life, your friendships and experience of yourself in the world. You become victimized and grumpy, and might put people off. You will find yourself looking for examples of how stupid they are or how they have let you down or how things should be done if only the right people (your clones perhaps?) were in charge. In short, you make yourself and those around you quite miserable. You become like an unregulated factory, grinding away at the life within and spewing toxins into the air that others breathe. It’s not good. You suffer, most of all.

Ironically, this negativity is an attempt to feel better, to feel more connected and loved and taken care of and seen. It is born of a lack of connection, a longing for connection, and results in a severance of connection, which is, of course, ever so sad.

The cure or the remedy is, naturally, to be open. To be vulnerable and ask for what you need and make deals with yourself about how to stay soft even when you don’t get it. To rework all your boundaries, so you simply disallow violation, and thus have the freedom to manage when things do sometimes interfere. To rest, so you are not so very easily overwhelmed, to relax deeply instead of superficially, to breathe instead of holding your breath and to finally, truly, do your work, the work you are meant to be doing in the world. It’s OK to not know what that is. You honestly know what it ain’t, though, and don’t act like you don’t, if you see what we mean. You know the difference between holding your breath and truly resting. You know the difference between avoiding and moving ahead. You know what we mean when we say do those things you came for. When you don’t, you feel ill at ease in the world. When you do, you may feel awkward or uncomfortable, but at least there is a purpose served, even if you can’t say what it might actually be.

It might be that you just want to do the dishes with more attention, instead of resentment. It might be that you recently recalled the joys of crayons. (Who is to say that your purpose here is NOT to color things in? Nobody.) It might be that it is time to be brave and speak your mind or express your art or make that image or song or dig that hole or walk on that trail or read, truly read, that book which you have been putting off for later.

Later is Now. And when you deny that, you will get mad. And when you feel mad, nothing in the world works properly and maybe you will want to complain and there you go. The power is within you, Now, to ease up and let the world be, and tend to what needs tending inside yourself. And this is where the answers lie and where the energy dwells for positive change in the world. Start at square one and everything follows. Start at negative one and everything dries up.

The other thing about the negativity mind is that it is connected to the body and the spirit. And too much negative (there is, we think it goes without saying, always a place for a little of the negative spice. Just a pinch.) will dim the spirit and poison the mind and the body. Like Tinkerbell, when you had to clap to bring her back to life, and you did. So, clap now for yourself, lovingly, cheering you on. It’s OK, you can tell yourself. I don’t need to take it so personally. I don’t need to change a thing. I can go on my way and still love the world and be nervous in my vulnerability and not hate.

You are not wrong or bad if you spend a lot of energy generating negativity. We just want to make that clear. It is simply an unnecessary habit, born of frustration, that can be eased or healed through – what else? – liberal applications of loving kindness. To you, first, then let it spill over your edges onto the rest of the world.

The world is neither positive nor negative. This is the truth and the equanimity view. More on this and on positivity in the forthcoming posts.

For now, we remain, ever your loving servants,

BlueStar and Counsel of Light