How do you stay positive?

Have you watched this new Netflix documentary titled "Social Dilemma"? If not, I would highly recommend giving it a look. This film invited many of the top executive officers from big social media companies, such as Google, Facebook, and Instagram, to talk about our biggest challenge in the 21st century: Social Media Addiction. 

I'll be honest with you. As a small business owner who uses social media to connect, promote, and communicate with my audience, I find myself in a dilemma where I want people to follow me, like my posts, and share my posts to gain visibility. But as a coach and also as a person who has been heavily influenced negatively by social media and how we define Beauty, I want people to see how this pattern of behavior and reliance on social media for information has impacted the way we live in this world. 

I know many of my friends have decided to turn off social media entirely simply because they have chosen not to surround themselves with posts about politics, divisions, and extreme points of view on their feeds. 

Earlier during the week, I was working at my hospital job. Many of my colleagues follow me on my personal Facebook where I share videos and posts that are quite thought-provoking. One of my colleagues as we walked out to the parking lot after our shifts, asked me "I follow you on your Facebook and I must say I am really impressed by how well you stay positive despite what has been happening this year. How do you do that?" 

For those of you who didn't know, back in March I was working on two big live events that were supposed to take place here in Los Angeles. I was working with a radio station for a live storytelling event that would have had thousands of audiences to attend. Additionally, I was invited to speak at a women empowerment event in LA in April which also got postponed to next year. Following by the Black Lives Matter movement, Wildfire in California, Election Debate, and Work at the front line in a hospital...this list of life events in 2020 just continues to grow as we speak. How can anyone possibly stay positive? 

The answer is You don't. There is always going to be something that makes you feel challenged, emotionally, mentally, or physically. It's always going to be one thing after another that shows up in our lives that we have to deal with. Our circumstances will never change. It's always something waiting in front of us. What can change is our attitude and perception of how we see our circumstances. 

You may have heard me talking about this in the past, the 7 different ways of perspectives: 

1. Life is so hard. Why am I the only one living a hard life or having to deal with this? 
2. What's going on with people? Why can't they just do the simplest thing? What's so hard about this?!
3. It is what it is. This is how life is, isn't it? What choice do we have? Now we're stuck here, might as well just do this. 
4. Let's be more compassionate for each other. I'm not being very positive but I'm sure there are more people out there who are even worse than I am. I should be grateful for all that I have what I have. 
5. What can we learn from this experience? What can we do to improve?
6. How can we come together to create a better future? 
7. Life is an impermanent state of flow. 

Personally, I experience all 7 of these ways of seeing life all the time. I am certain you do too. We all go throughout the day having experiences of all these 7 different types of perception depending on what situation we are in. Knowing this as a fact opens up your doorway to consciousness by choosing how you would like to show up. 

On the days when I am feeling negative or thinking negatively about myself or others, I think about these 7 different ways of looking at my circumstances. If I feel I am at the cause of my circumstance, I ask myself what would it be like if I stopped feeling sorry for myself and gave more to others who are less fortunate than I am. If I see injustice in front of me, I ask myself do my values call for me to get angry right now? 

What you are essentially doing is subconsciously training yourself to view things with a different set of lenses. This is not a secret behind any coaching. This is the tool everyone is trying to teach you. Have a different way of seeing your circumstances.  

Earlier I was on a podcast and I am proud to say that in many of the shows I have been to including my own podcast, I pour my heart out in sharing all that I know to the listener. I don't believe in hiding these tools just to get you to sign up for a program.  I believe our superpower comes from the ability to share our knowledge with everyone. 

My question to you today would be, now that you know you have 7 different ways of seeing things about 2020, what would you do with this information? Trash it in your mailbox? Forward it to someone who needs to read it today. Unsubscribed from my mailing list? Put them into your practice. 



Warmly, 
Michelle