There are many sayings thrown around by others when your life seems to be miserable. “If life throws you lemons make lemonade”, “smile be happy” or simply “think positive”. Sounds easy when you hear it, which, ironically often causes the negative emotions attached to failure as you realize you can’t maintain a positive attitude based on hearing a slogan.
Negativity seems to be present everywhere. Most of us agree it is better to keep a positive state of mind, but how? Many of us have developed habits that make use of positive emotions to get our way. Like the threat of anger with our children or subordinates if they don’t do or accomplish what we expect. Tears and depression are used if we don’t accomplish a goal hoping to prompt others to give us comforting attention. Maybe we will act out vengeance if we feel someone has done us wrong in an effort to establish our power and status.
Then there are the negative emotions we have as a reaction to those incidents in life we can’t control. For example, loss of a job. Suddenly our sense of usefulness seems to be replaced by a feeling of worthlessness. This negativity may become an obstacle to finding a new job. Or when the last child leaves home. This may have been something you thought you were looking forward to, but instead there is a feeling of emptiness and no purpose. Then there is the loss of a loved one. Usually people will experience grief, a negative emotion that is expected with a duration that varies for those involved. Sometimes a person will become confused and feel guilty if he doesn’t continue to grieve indefinitely making it impossible for that person to find and maintain a positive state of mind. Sometimes seeing beyond all this negativity in an effort to find a positive state of mind seems impossible.
Trying to find a positive attitude takes on many forms. Some people will write affirmations on post it notes and paste them all over their home. Taking up jogging or joining a gym is the choice for those that believe a release of endorphins will be the solution. There are those that choose to create a false happiness with a glass of wine every evening or by partying and drinking every chance they get. Still others seek a solution through counseling of some kind maybe resorting to daily medication hoping it will provide a positive state of mind.
There are some people who have mastered the ability to keep a positive state of mind. You know, those people that whistle while they work or smile just to share a smile. What is their secret. How do they maintain a positive attitude? Have they ever experienced the same trials and tragedy the people around them claim as the cause for a negative state of mind?
In this video Sadhguru invites us to explore the ways our negative emotions impact us.
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