Self-Awareness for Everyone

Tapping into this place between the subconscious and conscious mind The Void or The Flow State are references to that place outside of time and space where you simply are. They’re the ultimate expression of the here and now — the present moment. In the flow, you ride along aware and unaware at the same time. It’s an amazing disconnect where super cool things happen. Creativity directly connects you to The Void or The Flow State. That is one of the best ways to see, recognize, and develop your empowerment. The three states of mind Everyone everywhere is made up of three minds. The first is the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is how your neurons fire to make your muscles do things, your heart beat, your lungs breathe, digestive system process food, and so on. The second is the subconscious mind. This is where your memories, values, beliefs, and habits live. For the most part, they simply are. You can access them at will, but that requires a conscious act. The conscious mind is your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self, as you perceive it here and now. It’s the conscious awareness of who, what, where, how, and why you are, now. Via the conscious mind, you can access the subconscious to make changes, create new habits, review old memories, and so on. Two specific and separate places exist between the conscious and subconscious mind. One is the ego. The other space between the conscious and subconscious mind is The Void or The Flow State. This is a place where you simply are, being, doing, and existing, here and now. The Void or The Flow State lacks ego and loses track of time. How does the void of the flow state work? When you reach this place, you tend to find yourself in a metaphorical current, being carried along by the act of creating, working your mind, body, and/or soul. It’s a place where thought, feeling, intention, approach, and action are one, moving automatically. Unlike the automation of habit, rote, and routine, however, The Void or The Flow State results from mindful conscious awareness action. This differs from habit, rote, and routine, because it’s a product of intent. You are doing a thing consciously and intentionally, rather than habitually and subconsciously. The act of the doing combined with the intent leads to The Void or The Flow State. When you work in this place, it’s one of the most empowering feelings you can get. The Void or The Flow State can’t be forced Trying to force your way into The Void or The Flow State will have the opposite effect. Instead of being in that place where you are - doing, being, creating, in the now – you’ll connect to the ego and its artificial reflection and expression of who, what, where, how, and why you believe you are. This will keep you out of The Void or The Flow State because it’s missing the element of surrender. Why is this so empowering? Because any act where you have reached the ultimate place of present conscious awareness is your doing. Because you thought, felt, intended, and acted on something to make a thing happen, and then allowed it to be, you empowered yourself from the start. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Set aside 30-60 minutes to do an activity that you enjoy. To attempt to get into the void or the flow state, begin with a 2-minute breathing exercise. Set a timer. Breathe in as deeply as you can. Then, breathe out completely. Repeat for the full 2 minutes. Once your breathing exercise is complete, go to it. Do the activity you set the time to do. Allow yourself to get completely immersed in it. Once you’re done, check how long you were at it. Did you lose track of time? Did it feel as if you simply were doing and being, in the moment? If yes, you experienced working from the void or a flow state. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gratitude is essential to our health, wellness, and wellbeing Gratitude is never a bad thing. It is a matter of positivity and it always builds and never destroys. Saying thank you, and meaning it, expressing the feeling behind gratitude is a tool for change. When we express how grateful we are for things we have, things we receive, tangibles or intangibles, we empower ourselves, as well as those around us. Gratitude in this way also improves our health, wellness, and wellbeing. On every level, gratitude is important to mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing. In the face of institutionalized disempowerment and disenfranchisement, we need every tool we can get to fix this. Gratitude is not selfish Not to put too fine a point on it, but feeling grateful and expressing gratitude is not an act of selfishness. How can I express gratitude when so many people are suffering so horridly? Because feeling grateful for things in no way disempowers anyone else. All those people who are experiencing awful things and suffering do not have their lot in life made worse when you are thankful for things. I know how hard this is. But consciousness creates reality. When we get focused on all this awfulness around us, we discuss it, we rant about it, we feel terrible seeing it, then we inadvertently energize it more. Being grateful and expressing gratitude is positive. Tangible or intangible, big or small, gratitude is always empowering There is no such thing as negative gratitude. Sure, there’s false gratitude, but that’s not gratitude. Genuine, true, real gratitude is always positive. Genuine gratitude is an expression of appreciation. Appreciation is a direct pathway to kindness, compassion, and empathy. Everyone, everywhere, desires kindness, compassion, and empathy. Saying thank you, giving thanks, and offering gratitude are all positive, empowering acts. What’s more, they are just as powerful when given as when received. Gratitude is abundance Saying thank you, and FEELING thankful is empowering. When you receive genuine thanks, doesn’t it make you feel good? Giving it is equally – if not more powerful than - receiving it. The number of things for which we can be grateful are infinite. Mindfulness and gratitude How can you recognize and apply genuine gratitude? By using mindfulness. This form of mindfulness is active conscious awareness. It’s not recognizing the world without via your six senses, though that is a factor. It’s more about knowing your inner being. To do that requires active conscious awareness. This is a matter of recognizing, here and now, in the present, what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intent is, if your approach is one of positivity or negativity, and what your actions are or aren’t. Tangible or intangible, big or small, gratitude is always empowering and always positive. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: In the now, say and feel Thank You at least a dozen times today. Whether to someone or something or to yourself, say it. When you say it, think it, feel it, and intend it. In this way, you empower yourself to change your life for the better. Gratitude is an expression of appreciation. Because like attracts like, appreciation appreciates. In this way, not only do you empower your life for the better, you empower the world for the better. To give this an extra boost, at the end of the day, before you go to bed, write out at least 5 things you are grateful for. Read what you write and put the energy into it to feel it. This practice can be applied forever. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Growth comes only from leaving our comfort zones Despite being an actor in HS, a DJ in college, and serving as a court herald in my medieval organization – and speaking publicly in front of hundreds, sometimes – I’m more introverted than extroverted. Ambivert is a fair approximation for me. Doing this uncomfortable thing is extremely positive for my overall life approach. Why and how does that work? You can’t grow from your comfort zone What does it mean to live? It’s not simply a matter of existing, of being half-present, of just surviving. It’s about thriving. Having experiences, learning things, meeting people, doing things, and the like. Unfortunately, this means there will be pain and bad things. However, that’s just a part of the life experience. Living isn’t always comfortable, and that’s okay. Growth comes from experiences. Some are tangible, others intangible. Actively growing is empowering, and opens you to all kinds of potential, possibilities, and options. Becoming comfortable getting uncomfortable This is just like any muscle. The more you work it the stronger you get. It is equally important that you work and grow your mental, emotional, and spiritual muscles like you would your physical ones. This will be uncomfortable. That’s largely because you are stepping into the unknown. There is no certainty in the unknown save uncertainty and the unknown. Getting mindfully uncomfortable The first step in the process is to identify what you desire to change. Mindfulness around this topic begins with acquiring conscious awareness of my thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions. Just thinking and feeling this out is a step away from my comfort zone. That’s because it points me in the direction of the unknown and uncomfortable. Mindfulness can only be practiced by each of us individually. The power of non-toxic positivity Looking at both the positive and the negative - and choosing a positive approach - is genuine positivity. Toxic positivity ignores, disregards, and discards the negative. That’s unrealistic, unhealthy, and of course toxic. Doing the uncomfortable thing via conscious awareness is a positive approach that can help you actively grow, change, and evolve. Growth comes only from leaving our comfort zones. Since I would rather take the wheel and drive my life than just go for a ride, this is how I empower myself, and is worthwhile to me. That’s why doing the uncomfortable thing is positive. How empowering is that? This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: When something uncomfortable happens in the next week – specifically anything that draws you out of your comfort zone, like a conversation, an opportunity to do something new and unusual, or the like - consider it before you act on it or dismiss it. What you believe – positive or negative – is true. After something pulls you out of your comfort zone or otherwise causes you to feel uncomfortable, it’s easy to go negative. However, you have a choice. Here’s the exercise: 1.Write whatever the situation is/was down 2.Explain why it generated the emotion it generated 3.How are you feeling? 4.If negative, can you refocus to find and/or create a positive? This is meant to show you how self-awareness and mindfulness empower you to change any belief you hold. It will also show how you can get comfortable and work with positivity in an uncomfortable situation. this in mind going forward. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Choice is how you can take control of your life experience Quite possibly the single greatest superpower that we have is choice. The rest of the animal kingdom on this planet largely has a very set life path. Humans, however, have choices, like to merely survive or thrive. Some are the product of environment, privilege, birth, etc. However, most are inherent to all and are immaterial/intangible. This is due to the perception versus the reality of control. The perception of control is all about outward appearances. People doing things, having things, and being things that make them appear in control. Yet most of that is false, and not genuine control. Why? Because the only things we have genuine control over are our internal processes. Specifically, thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, life approaches, and so on. All of which are intangible and immaterial. Why is this the only real control we have? Because we alone exist in our heads, hearts, and souls. You alone control your mindset We have zero control over anyone or anything apart from ourselves. We can’t control other people. Change is inevitable and the one and only constant in the Universe. It can, will, and does happen. All the time. Who you were is not who you are or who you will be. Sometimes this is in subtle ways. Other times in blatant ways. This is why beginning with mindset is important. Because by recognizing and acknowledging your mindset – which only you can do – you can gain control of it. Mindfulness for choosing What you have utter and total control over is your conscious awareness. However, this works only in the now, in the present. That’s where mindfulness enters into it. The truth is that thoughts, feelings, intentions, approaches, and actions/inactions are most of what you can control in life. That’s because they belong wholly, entirely, unequivocally to you. Being mindful empowers you. Choosing is empowering When you make active, conscious choices, you are taking control of your life experience. Via actively choosing, you make a decision and drive your life. When you are consciously aware you can practice mindfulness. When you’re mindful, you enable yourself to exist here and now, in the present (which is the only measure of time that’s genuinely real) to actively choose. Active choice is empowering. When you choose, you are deciding who, what, how, where, and why you are. Ultimately, that is how you can take control of your life experience. Choice is like any muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. That’s why choice is empowering. Ultimately, choice is how you can take control of your life experience. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Tomorrow, be mindful about all the following choices. Pay attention to them, and before you make them, consider why you make them: ·When you get dressed ·What you choose to put on ·What you have for lunch ·Any conversations you initiate ·What music you listen to ·Any website you choose to visit ·Any other active, conscious choices you make throughout the day At the end of the day, write down anything you remember about your choices. How did they make you feel? Were they worthy of you? Did you feel empowered by active, consciously making your choices? Keep this in mind going forward. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the meaning of life is staring us right in the face? If, as I postulate, the meaning of life is To Live, education and learning are a cornerstone of that. One of the failings of many of our leaders is their desire to keep us ignorant. It’s a matter of their retention of control to keep us reliant on them to understand certain matters. Rather than empower, they prefer to disempower us by slashing education and maintaining the false control that they think they have. Coupled with this, we are not taught in any formal way how to recognize and know ourselves. At least, not beneath the surface. We’re hyper-focused on appearance and other elements of the body, often to the exclusion of the rest of what we are. Hence, we neglect to account for mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing in favor of the physical. Education is empowering Learning builds up our ability to not only acquire new information, but to better understand the world around us. Life is all about learning. The more we learn, the more we grow. The more we grow, the more we become able to consciously create our realities and manifest an incredible world. As we educate ourselves, we can create something greater, something better than the collective reality we find ourselves in. We can empower ourselves, and from there empower one another to make the world a better place and change the narrative away from fear to reason. True education cannot be forced Formal schooling tends to be more about learning how to learn than gaining knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, many people consider their education done when formal schooling ends. Knowledge is power. True power is the empowerment of the self. When we’re empowered, we can build incredible things to better ourselves. By bettering ourselves and living our lives as fully as we can, we better the world around us. What’s the Meaning of Life ultimately got to do with self-awareness? If the meaning of life is to live, then you must be self-aware to do that. That means not just recognizing the world outside, but the world within you. To do so, you must question your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, here and now. Only in the now can you be truly present as the now is the only time that’s truly real. You have the power to understand the meaning of life by experiencing all it has to offer. To do that, you need to live, That begins via self-awareness, and self-awareness is for everyone. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: This is an exercise for living life. Start by setting aside 5 minutes where you can be completely by yourself. Get a pen and paper/notebook, tablet, or some other means to write or type. Set a timer for 5 minutes. For the first 2 minutes, just breathe deeply. Breathe in as deep as you can, let it out fully. Repeat until those 2 minutes are up. Now, ask and answer this question: What experiences do I desire to have to feel the most alive that I can? There are no wrong answers. This can be taking regular walks in nature, sex, naps, travel, read a book, watch a funny video, or what-have-you. It’s less about the actual experience and more about how that will make you feel. Stop at the end of the 5 minutes and look at what you’ve got. How can you apply it? If it’s a financial issue, are there alternatives that will also make you feel alive? Repeat this whenever you question the meaning of life and your place in the Universe, or anytime you have uncertainty or just feel like doing this analysis of your life and desires. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How and why does your approach to the unknown matter? Sometimes, when you can’t put your finger on why you are feeling a certain way, the answer is simple. The unknown. When you are facing many uncertainties, challenges, and questions with unpredictable outcomes, you seek answers. Yet the outcome of all the above is utterly unknown. Recognize, acknowledge, and consciously choose your approach You can make choices to take a different approach. If you allow yourself to fall victim to your visceral senses when they’re negative, that’s the approach you’ll take to everything you do today. However, if you choose to seek positivity and take that approach, that will be the approach you take to what you do today. Either way, the outcome is unknown. The truth is that outcomes on almost every level are largely unknown. No matter what you plan, what you do, or your intentions, shit happens you didn’t expect, adding to and altering the outcome and expanding how much is unknown. Hence, if you have any desire at all to make choices and decisions for what your life looks like, choosing your approach to the unknown is a must. The three primary ways to live this life Every single human being is here for one primary purpose. To live. I’m increasingly believing that the meaning of life is just that simple. To live. ·Let life live you ·Curl up in a ball and await death ·Get behind the wheel and drive life Everyone shifts between these from time to time. Nobody is immune to being hurt physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. There are also other ways to live this life between and apart from these three. Mindfulness and self-awareness of control in your approach to the unknown We have a very limited amount of control over the world around us. Externally, this amounts to what we wear, to some degree where we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. Otherwise, all the rest of our control is internal. What that means is that it’s all about conscious awareness. Rather than letting your subconscious mind do the driving via rote, routines, and habits, you’re choosing to apply active conscious awareness. That practice is mindfulness. Via mindfulness, you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and actions you do or don’t take. From thought, feeling, intention, and action, the choice of an approach to life is yours to be made. NOTE: Your feelings and emotions are valid. Nobody but you can feel them, after all. However, you can assume control of them via mindfulness, and rule them - rather than let them rule you. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: This tool is for recognizing your approach and changing it if necessary. To begin, set aside 5 minutes at the start of your day to do this uninterrupted. Take a full minute to do some deep breathing. Focus wholly on your breaths in and out for that minute. Then ask, ·How do I feel right now? ·What am I feeling now? ·Is there anything I am anticipating that’s coming up? ·Do I think today will be good, bad, or neutral? Please write both the questions and the answers. Based on your answers, how would you define your current approach? Does it suit you? If yes, carry on. If no, here’s how to act to change it. Take several deep breaths in and out to center yourself. Then, write down these questions and the answers to them, answering immediately as you ask: ·What am I thinking? ·How am I feeling? ·What am I feeling? ·What do I desire? The above mindfulness questions help you be more self-aware and present, here and now. With this conscious self-awareness, if you are dissatisfied with the answers you can take action to change them. That is the best way to face the unknown. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not knowing things is how you grow and evolve Multiple forces are pushing the idea that “I don’t know” makes you weak, makes you inferior, and sets you up to fail. They don’t know something? Look how inferior they are because they don’t know and we do. This is utterly backward, however. Scientific curiosity is born of looking at something, saying “I don’t know but desire to learn.” The unknown is where great discoveries abound. Seeking answers when you don’t know is how we got to the world we’re at today. Empowering learning and growth All learning of real knowledge begins with recognizing that there are things you don’t know. More than that, there are things you don’t know but desire to know. Thus, you start to do what you can to learn. “I don’t know” leads you to question things and empowers you to seek answers. Social studies, advanced math, and science in school start to address this and teach you. However, it doesn’t address the question “Who am I?” That is a self-directed matter. Who you are can be known to you, and you alone. That’s because you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody but you can know you, as such. Self-awareness 101. Working with and from “I don’t know” makes you stronger, not weaker The truth is that admitting “I don’t know” makes you strong. Not knowing things doesn’t make you lesser, unworthy, or defective. Truth is, it makes you human. “I don’t know” applies to everyone everywhere. That doesn’t make you lesser, or weaker. It empowers you to grow, learn, and evolve. Because nobody knows everything about anything - but human beings are inherently curious and seek to learn, grow, and evolve - the starting point is inevitably “I don’t know”. That’s why “I don’t know” is so damned healthy. It is from not knowing that we seek to gain more knowledge. I don’t know, because there is always something to be learned No matter what scale you measure life, the Universe, and everything on, there is always something to be learned. When you are taught to fear “I don’t know”, you are disempowered. You remain sheltered, ignorant, and at the mercy of the people telling you not knowing makes you weak. Nothing could be further from the truth. There will always be things to be learned. Knowledge to be gained. That’s why it’s healthy to admit “I don’t know.” Without that admittance, how else can you grow, evolve, and expand what you know? How else can you know who you are and change if that isn’t who you desire to be? This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Is there something you have always desired to know? Take steps to learn it. Watch the YouTube videos, visit the website, read the blogs, buy the book, and/or experiment with the practice. Whatever it is, make the time and the effort to learn it, however best you learn things (reading, watching, listening, doing, and so on). Don’t put this off until tomorrow. After you finish listening to this podcast, take something you don’t know – but have always desired to know – and make the effort to learn or learn about it. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does anything I do Matter? The Squirrels in my brain are being major dicks at the moment. Why? Because they’re chewing on thoughts that do me no good and are almost entirely out of my control. On top of my work to be as genuine and true to myself as I can be, there are other things I can’t pretend don’t exist. It’s far too easy to feel a sense of impending doom and gloom about the world right now. Taking a different vantage point While the above can and does impact us in different ways, for the most part, this is indirect. Here’s the thing – what can I do about anything going on in the world at large? The answer is little to nothing. Focusing on it and giving it all of my attention doesn’t help the situation. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t help me and my life. When you look at the big picture, and the situations all around the world, it feels like anything we do doesn’t matter. However, that’s simply not true. Does anything I do matter? Of course it does. It matters to me. What that means is that anything that I do matters. It matters to and for me. Ah, but isn’t that selfish? From a certain point of view, yes. That, however, is dependent on your definition of selfishness. Mine is simple. Any action taken with malice of forethought, knowing full well that you are causing hurt or harm to another, and YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT, is selfish. Acts of self-care, though someone might call them so, ARE NOT SELFISH. When you begin with self-care, you become more empowered. When you are more empowered, you become a beacon. That beacon can help others to also become empowered. Does what I do matter? Hell yes. Because we get one shot each, in this time, living and experiencing in these bodies. How I make the most of that time is what matters most. That starts for me, first. Am I making choices and decisions to live, to do, to experience life? Or not? Are you? Does anything I do matter to the big picture? In the abstract, no. However, when you zoom in on yourself and your life, it absolutely does matter. Know this – choosing to be the best you that you can be, to live with passion, does no harm to others. We’re not in competition for either tangibles or intangibles. Hence, you or me deciding to live as fully as possible doesn’t mean someone else can’t. When I am mindful of and work with this, I’m empowered. I believe that choosing and deciding to live life as fully as possible matters. To make anything I do matter to the big picture, I must start with myself from within to do more without. This is not selfish, but it is self-interest. I alone live my life and can be who, what, where, how, and why I desire to be. You have the exact same power and ability, too. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Write out everything that is on your mind right now. List it in three columns – good, bad, neither, or neutral. Please each thing on your mind – no matter what it is, and if it’s big or small, personal or global – on the page or screen. Give yourself 2-5 minutes to do this. Stream of consciousness, write anything that comes to mind. When done, highlight, circle, or underline anything you cannot directly control. For example, politics, war, horrible people and business practices, and so on. When done, rewrite the list excluding all of those things. From the new list, when it comes to the neutral or the bad, what, if anything, can you do with or about it? Lastly - write out all the things from the list that you removed because you cannot control them. What, if anything, can you do about them? If nothing, can you release them and move on without them? Use this exercise anytime you find yourself questioning if you matter and/or feeling overwhelmed. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world needs more genuine, non-toxic positivity to combat the fear Whether we like it or not, we live in a fear-based society. All around us are messages aimed to keep us afraid. Why? This might come across as cynical, but I can’t disprove it: Because capitalism demands sales. One of the best ways to get people to buy goods and services is via fear. The best way to combat a fear-based society is with reason. Reason, tied to logic, is the antithesis of fear. That’s because reason often exposes fear for its bullshit. Genuine, non-toxic positivity versus toxic positivity The use of toxic positivity has made genuine, non-toxic positivity seem hard to distinguish. It causes many to automatically dismiss all positivity, genuine or otherwise. Neutrality doesn’t help anyone when all is said and done. Neutrality can’t combat negativity. Positivity, however, can. Genuine, non-toxic positivity. It’s a matter of choice in the face of negativity When bad things happen you’ll experience an immediate, visceral, automated reaction to it. That varies from person to person, and it takes more forms than this podcast is covering. After that initial reaction, however, you have a choice. Feed the negativity or feed the positivity. Certain happenings appear to have no positivity tied to them. That’s the nature of uncertainty. Yet they can teach you something, help you grow and evolve, and open you to make choices and decisions for change. That’s a positive, is it not? The challenge of outside influences People might see you choosing to move on from something via genuine, non-toxic positivity, and form an opinion. Then, they might share their opinion. It might run completely counter to what you’re doing. Whose life is It anyway? Nobody but you is in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, there is nobody else who can think for you, feel for you, act for you, or intend for you. It’s all yours. What does genuine, non-toxic positivity look like? First and foremost, it does not apply to anyone other than you. You recognize and acknowledge the world can be an imperfect, illogical, even awful place. Bad things might be happening/have happened, and they’re not to be disregarded. Then, you practice mindfulness to be consciously aware of yourself. What this looks like is recognizing something has happened, but that either/and/or it’s a learning opportunity, a blessing in disguise, an unavoidable change, or a chance to start something new, change direction, and so on. This comes down to making choices and decisions for how you approach life here and now and then moving forward. Genuine, non-toxic positivity is working with potential and possibilities to live life on your terms and in your control. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: We’re going to use Gratitude to connect to positivity. Expressing gratitude always generates positivity. Genuine gratitude is never negative. It’s always a positive force in the world. At the end of the day, before you go to bed, for the next week, please write down 5-10 things you’re grateful for. When you write them down, write out, “I am so grateful for *insert tangible or intangible here*. Thank you!” After you write them out, read them out. As you read them, pause between each to feel the gratitude for them. This can be anything – big, small, silly, whatever. That means it can be sunshine, the purr of your cat, being able to tighten your belt more, a song, a person, breathing, or anything else you can imagine for which you can be grateful. After a week, examine what impact, if any, this is having for your overall attitude and life experience. Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recognize and acknowledge what you do and don’t (can and can’t) control The world is at your fingertips. On the one hand, this is incredible. Only in the last two or three decades have we had the power to learn and know anything at all about any topic whatsoever. On the other hand, this is terrible. There is so much information available that it can be incredibly overwhelming. What’s more, finding fact versus opinion – informed or utter BS - is another challenge that can only be overcome by choice and action. Parsing out the information constantly bombarding you can be increasingly challenging. It’s even harder when many of the solutions you’re offered line someone’s pockets and at best offer temporary comfort or relief. Is there anything you can do about that? Misrepresentation of selfishness When you let your mind, body, and spirit fall into disrepair, you experience ill health, depression, anxiety, crises of faith, disassociation, and other signs of poor health, wellness, and wellbeing. You, and you alone, can make choices and decisions to care for your mind, body, and spirit. Genuine selfishness is done with malice of forethought. Hence, self-care, and putting your own health, wellness, and wellbeing first are not selfish acts. Is there anything you can do about that? The world seems to be going quite mad, right? Yet, there’s an important question about this that you might not ask. Is there anything that you can do about that? The answer is going to vary from person to person. For the most part, it’s “that depends”. Overall, however, the answer is going to be no. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing at all I can do about these things. Why does knowing the limits of what you can do about that matter? Does it do you any good to worry about things outside of your control? If you give large swaths of your time, attention, and energy to these terrible things, constantly watch the news, and scan social media, can you change them? Are you a bad person if you don’t give them more than a passing thought and basic, vague acknowledgment? NO. Why? Because you can control only a limited, few things directly. All of them are or start within you and belong solely to you. Specifically, you can control your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, approach to matters tangible and intangible, choices, and decisions. That’s it. How? Active conscious awareness. Practicing mindfulness My definition of mindfulness is active conscious awareness in action. What that means is not just going with the flow or living by rote and routine, but asking questions here and now, in the present moment, to become actively consciously aware. If you worry, fret, and focus on things you can do nothing about, you can choose to change that. Recognizing, acknowledging, and working with this can change your life in multiple ways. How? By changing your focus to things that you can do something with and/or about. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: For the next week, practice the following: Whenever you read something online, watch the news, are told something by friends, family, or anyone else, about a problem, challenge, issue, horror, or whatever, ask, Is there anything I can do about this? If the answer is yes, consider doing something about whatever “this” is. If the answer is no, however, work to let it go, release it, or just don’t think about it beyond the initial conversation. At the end of the day, write down anything that has stuck with you that you can’t do anything about. Then, to alleviate the tension it’s still causing, write down, “I’m sorry there’s nothing that I can do about that.” Does this make you feel better and free up brain capacity for other things? Author Website Email Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok Blogs:titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices