Feeling called to write a little on the subject of positivity recently. Positivity and gratitude are two things I’ve really set out to embrace and promote this year. I believe the two are key to calling in a happy and abundant life. The way that we think about things massively impacts how we feel and experience the world, that much is undeniable. As we work to cultivate a positive way of thinking and attitude of appreciation, they in turn become more natural and free flowing.

However, this doesn’t not mean we should deny ever having any negative thought patterns or emotions. I’d personally feel an absolute fraud if I pretended to have gone from absolute zero to “perfectly positive” in the space of less than a year. I started this year with an old Scottish traditional ‘Loony Dook’-a New Years icy dip in the River Forth. I’d intended to ‘wash away’ 2017 and start 2018 positive and fresh. It had been a stressful, upsetting year all round on many levels. Finally some extremely sad events within my inner circle at the end of the year brought up for me suppressed and unresolved emotions of grief and guilt, which left me all round in a very bad headspace. Not at all where I wanted to continue and luckily I have the best support network. ❤️

Now, I am the happiest I have been in a very long time. I have done so much work to get into this space, and am thankful and lucky in equal measure. But the process has been long, with many bumps and learnings! And of course there are still days I feel heavy negativity and old thought patterns creeping in. Just this Thursday, for example, I felt a wave of negative energy wash over me seemingly inexplicably. I did not try to suppress it, deny it or ‘positive mental attitude’ it out of existence. I simply accepted it as natural part of being human. I asked myself “what could be triggering this for me?” I reached out to let someone know how I was feeling. I couldn’t account for the feelings or come up with any magical ‘quick fix’, as there never is, so I simply gave myself permission to feel a bit shit and do very little in the way of speaking and moving😂 Once I shifted my awareness to it and allowed myself to feel it, it passed relatively quickly. We cannot be crazy positive all the time, nor should we try to be at the expense of feeling very real and natural human emotions. It simply isn’t healthy or even a good example. Pretending that a positive attitude and thoughts will make all negative emotion disappear and be overcome is oversimplifying a complex range of human emotion and conditions. It is denying your own and others real human experiences. We must allow ourselves and others to feel and express negative emotions. The darkness cannot stay long where we have turned a spotlight on it.