mindfulness news & tips
People involved in wellness sometimes make the mistake of giving the impression that anything negative is bad and that we should aim to feel positive all the time. But that’s not realistic.
Negative feelings often are telling us something that we need to know.
Something you need to do
For instance, if you feel anxious about a particular undone task, maybe there is something you need to do about it.
If you feel guilty, maybe there’s something that you did that wasn’t right, and that you need to try to put right if you can.
If you feel bored, maybe you need to do something different in your day or in your life.
But the key thing is not to get lost in it, not to be overwhelmed by it. We need to be able to step back and see if there’s anything useful here.
If there is, the question then is what could I do about it?
If there isn’t anything useful, you can try to change your focus to something else. For example, feeling very negative over things that happened in the past that you can’t do anything at all about now often isn’t a very useful thing to do. And in such a case, you would try to change your focus to something else.
Mindfulness and stepping back
Developing the skill of stepping out of memories and mental dramas is a major part of what is meant by mindfulness. Very often, it brings a sense of acceptance and peace. You can come into the moment by switching awareness to your body or breath or to whatever you can hear and see right now. You never get to stay in the moment for long but the trick is to keep coming back. And that makes it much easier to see what is useful and what is not useful.
So negativity is not always negative, especially when you are aware of what is going on and what useful guidance it might be giving you.
My Easy Mindfulness online course (15 lessons in your own time)can help you develop that vital skill of stepping back. Payment is by donation, so you can afford it.