Sometimes it seems so hard to stay positive. Sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it to be positive. Sometimes the struggle is real. Sometimes you just want to give up and throw in the towel.
Well, here I am, your favorite Coach, reminding you to stay positive. I’m not here saying that you have to live a positive life. That can be a challenge. Life has a natural cycle of ups and downs and sometimes we just need to process our negative emotions. I’m a big fan of a good cry. Crying is a type of release; it’s not weakness. You are getting it out of your system, and that is a good thing.
It would be unnatural for us to always be happy. I have a cat and he’s always happy. In fact, I named him Felix because that is the Latin word for happy. As much as I would like to be as happy as him all the time, it would be unnatural. His biggest struggle of the day is which toy to play with or which window to watch birds out of. I think if those were my struggles, I could be renamed Felix.
What I am saying is that you should strive towards positivity.
In my last blog post, I talked about the storms in our lives and how we learn lessons from those struggles and grow. When we are in the midst of the storm it may be difficult to be positive and living a positive life can be a challenge. It is perfectly acceptable to own the emotion when you are sad. It is also perfectly acceptable to want to process the repercussions of the storm. What is not acceptable is to stay there. You must be resilient. You must find the positivity in each situation.
I don’t hide the fact that my mom’s death was the most profound event in my lifetime so far. I also don’t hide that fact that I was able to find positivity in her death. There are dozens of reasons why I find positivity from her death. However, they only came after grieving, accepting the loss, processing my emotions, and many other methods of coping.
As much as we learn from the high points in our lives, we learn just as much from the low points and our struggles. What I am asking is that when you are in the middle of the low point, storm, struggle, or whatever you want to call it, take a pause and realize that this is just a natural cycle of life. Recognize that you will get though the difficult time and you will learn lessons from it. Embrace your resiliency.
You have the power to find your positivity. You definitely have the ability to change your narrative when you are in the middle of the struggle.
To help you, here are some tips for how to find positivity during a storm:
- Journal your feelings
- Listen to what you are telling yourself and see if it checks out
- Rewrite the narrative you are telling yourself if it doesn’t check out
- Recognize that this is just a natural life cycle
- Evaluate if you want to stay in this emotion
- Learn the lessons from what is going on, so you can equip yourself for when it happens again
- Decide if you are handling the situation the best way that you can
- Remind yourself that this is just a passing storm and the sun will shine again
- Tap into your resiliency
- Seek out a professional Coach to help you find your positivity
The thing about positivity is that it can pop up in places where you least expect it. Do you think that I ever thought that there would be anything positive coming from my mother’s death? The answer is no. However, going through the grieving process, I learned many positive things.
The other day, I was reading my journal entry that dealt with the loss of my cat, Gucci, almost three years ago now. I was so adamant when I wrote the journal, that I would never get another cat. Well, as I was reading, my two current cats were sitting on either side of me. I’ve had them for 10 months now. I weathered the storm. I got through the tough times, and I added a lot of happiness back to my life.
That’s proof of life’s natural cycle and striving for positivity. Oh, by the way, I also saved two lives. What can be more positive than that?
