Cultivating a Positive Mental Attitude

(even when everything feels like sh*t)

In all honesty, is there anything worse than someone being all smiley-happy when you’re in the foulest of moods? It just pisses you off even more.

You want to be free to wallow in the deepest depths of your despair—and having a Positive Polly chirping happily on your shoulder is akin to someone raining on your parade, but the opposite. Like sunshine on a rainy day, to quote the famous 90s philosopher, Zoe.

But here’s the thing. You’re allowed to feel your feelings! In fact, you must. If you don’t allow your true feelings to come through as you feel them, they just get squished down (technical term).

And they gotta come out somewhere, somehow. And they will, believe me.

So right now it’s OK if you feel:

💔 Like you’re mourning. The loss of the life you were used to. A routine. A steady income. Going to the gym. Going to restaurants and bars.
💔 Scared. That you might get infected. That your family might get infected. That this will get worse. Or never end. That you’ll run out of money. Or food. Or toilet roll (sorry, couldn’t resist).
💔 Like you want to cry forever or sleep for a thousand years or not shower or do the washing-up or get dressed or whatever.

Allow it.

But ever notice how bad luck comes in a run? That’s why they say (still don’t know who ‘they’ are tbf) catastrophes come in threes… but really it’s more about where your focus lies.

Good and bad things happen allllll the time. You just notice more of what you choose to. IKR?

And without getting too Mystic Meg on you, the Universe is made up of energy. All energy vibrates at a certain frequency—including the things you do and don’t desire.

Like attracts like.
Vibration attracts vibration.

So if you can start to focus on the good shit in your life, more good things will start to happen. Disclaimer: not by thought alone (we wish!) but by taking considered action towards it.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a big ol’ seminar on the Law of Attraction (but if you’re interested in learning more, check out the recommended reading list at the end).

Particularly if you’re a) completely new to all this (don’t forget, I’ve been on journey of self-healing for several years now so I’ve got my head around many of the more woo concepts) and/or b) if you’re feeling truly terrible about the planetary pandemic.

It’s OK to not be OK about this. But, when you’re ready to reset your mindset, here are my tried and tested tips for feeling—and staying!—positive:

🦄 List three things you’re grateful for, every day. I honestly used to roll my eyes at this advice, big style. Literally, my eyeballs would rotate backwards in my sockets as I was soooo over it (interestingly before I’d ever even tried it).

But now it’s the absolute first thing I suggest to others as it has no doubt helped me to manifest great things into my life. Including three Mulberry handbags, I shit you not.

In a v quick summary: giving thanks is like having a hotline to the Manifesting Department of Universe Inc. By regularly appreciating the good in your life, you start to raise your vibe to one of abundance—and you become wide open to receiving more of the same.

🦄 Avoid negative and self deprecating language. Like, as much as you can! I’m someone who uses humour and acting like the class clown to get people ‘on side’. But all it does really is belittle yourself, placing you in a position of ‘less than’.

Deprecate literally means “to pray away” and now I think of it as essentially me telling good energy to get the fuck outta here. Same if I start to get negative about things. Btw, I’m not saying all my thoughts are now exclusively rainbows and unicorns (although, that’s defo the goal because HOW COOL?).

But these days I catch myself if I’m having a rant. I’ll tell myself to stop (sometimes out loud, which is lols). Often the negative chat is about another person (“I can’t believe she thinks that’s the right thing to do!” or “that arse hole cut me up!” or “that shop assistant was so rude” blah blah blah).

So I’ll remind myself to stay in my own lane—especially as you can’t control what other people do to you, but you can control how you react, right?

This is a key way to take yourself outta victim mode (“bad stuff happens to me”) and into the driving seat (“I choose how I respond”).

🦄 Mediate and/or journal. I’ve bunched these two together because although they’re quite different (meditating is like receiving a download and journalling is more about offloading your thoughts), both are good ways of clearing out your mind.

Especially if, like me, you’re someone whose internal monologue is fucking incessant. Doing one or both of these daily will give you a bit of respite from the crazy. Again, I’m not going to go into the how rn but will pop some ideas in the recs below.

Imagine you’re in a protective energy bubble. Yeah, I’ve saved the wackiest one for last. And similarly, this is a more recent practise for me.

I think my interest in energy fields began when I studied crystal healing (about a year ago). The thing that really resonated with me (pun intended) was the concept of chakras and auras. I’m a very visual, colourful person and this was something that came easily to me.

Since then, I’ve picked up a couple of books about energy healing but one that really piqued my interest was on the subject of violet flame energy. Because when I visualised a protective bubble around me, it was always purple smoke!

As it turns out, the violet flame is a very high vibe spiritual energy. Who knew?

But the proof is in the pudding as they say (wtf does that actually even mean?!) and now I am someone who doesn’t catch colds and lurgies—coming from the girl who, in the space of 18 months, once had: sinusitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, pericarditis (why do they all end in ‘itis’?) annnnnnd walking pneumonia. So this visualisation shit really works. But: you gotta believe it will work.

There are few ways of creating a sort of spiritual shield. Essentially, you imagine a protective force all around you, a bit like having a Reddy Brek glow.

If this is just a great big reach for you (I understand, really I do), a gateway accessory could be a crystal bracelet—my faves for giving negative energy the heave-ho are: black tourmaline, smoky quartz, amethyst (shout out to the violet colour lol), amber and fluorite.

I also like to wear rose quartz to surround myself with love. And actually, that should be the main tip here:

🦄 LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. 

Applying a generous smothering of love to any situation will always make it better. But start by loving yourself first, yeah?

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