How to Stay Positive in a Negative World

In this day and age of low wages and high prices, family crises, rising divorce rates and higher interest rates, we all have times when we just get down in the dumps and many people, especially during the holiday seasons, birthdays and other memorial times, get depressed and some even consider suicide.

I have had those times when I have just been so sad, so depressed, wondering what can I do, what am I doing wrong, what is wrong with society, what can I do to make my life better, when will life, in general get better for me and my family.

Those are hard times, times when you just feel like you are in a slump, like life is dark and dismal, nothing can get better, nothing will go right, no matter what you do, but that just isn't true. There are things that we can all do to try to help our selves and our families persevere in these trying times.

First and foremost you have to, this is of the utmost importance, have to think positive, no matter what is going on. I know how hard this can be, but it has to be done in order for our thinking to stay clear and straight on the positive track. When we lose our jobs, facing foreclosure, facing eviction, or our utilities to be cut off; broke, down and out, families separating, whatever it might be, we MUST stay strong, not only for ourselves but for our families.

In order to think positive and stay thinking that way, every time we have a negative thought, we must immediately change our thoughts to something else for a while. Start thinking about what you can do at that moment, cleaning the house, future plans for your family, what you can do to make things better or try remembering some past happy moments to put a smile on your face and cheer up your thinking.

No, it isn't always easy for this to happen, especially when things rain down like a hurricane sometimes but if we don't try, things won't get better for us. We will continue to think bad, sad, be depressed and it will take much longer for life in general to get better for us. So thinking positive is a must do as a start; just a start of course.

Every time you start thinking negative, bad or sad thoughts, change what you are thinking immediately and know that life is what it is, you cannot change everything about it and you most important cannot change other people and their thinking or thoughts. If what someone else is doing is making you sad or mad or upset for whatever reason, ignore them or the problem for the here and now. They are going to do what they are going to do, regardless of what we want them to do. It is called free will. If they make you sad by what they do and you have told them, once, time and time again or in massive repeated conversations, how upset what they do makes you, it is time to let them go and let them learn on their own, the pain of their own actions and let them deal with them.

I once had someone very important to me tell me that everyone has their own path to live and once we have raised our children and they have become young adults it is then our responsibility to let them go out into the world and not only fall, but let them learn how to pick themselves up by their own boot strings so they will know how to survive in life. If they never clean up after their own mistakes, they will never learn. The same goes for people in our lives who try to create drama, live off making other unhappy, live for themselves in what I call the 'me-me-me' lifestyle. If their drama makes you unhappy, let them live their drama full life, but tell them, if they come around, leave you out of it or don't come around until they learn to not try to drag you into their drama full world. These are a negative aspect that will not help you live a healthier happier lifestyle and that is what we are going for her. A healthy, happy life, with positive thoughts is what we are aiming for and a drama free zone is one way of helping to achieve that type of happy lifestyle.

Another way to help stay positive is to find a hobby or project that helps you stay busy so you won't have time to allow negative thoughts seep into your everyday thinking. It doesn't have to be anything that cost a lot of money, or any if you red in the finance zone, just something to keep you 'busy' so you don't have time to 'think' of other, more depressing items at hand.

Such as gardening, weeding your garden or lawn, knitting, making candles or some other type of creative project. Learning how to play a musical instrument, learning how to cook some new kinds of foods, writing poetry or doing some other kind of free lance work (like writing articles for associated content is a good one) are just a few different ways you can occupy your time to help free up your mind of negative thinking and thoughts.

Surround yourself with people who care for you and are positive about life themselves. Learn to be a good listener for others who have bad problems themselves so you can see that maybe others are being dealt a hard hand at life or worse. Learn to think of others who are worse off and wish for their lives to be better. Putting positive thoughts out there for others is a good way to assist in a form of karmic balance of your own life while bringing good karma into your own.

Allow yourself to have a short time when you want or just do, feel bad. Allow yourself to cry, scream, and speak of what is upsetting you. Write your thoughts down or tell a friend or spouse but once that time is over, once you have written your thoughts down or you are done with your conversation, let those thoughts go and move on with your life. Very often there is nothing good that can be brought from bad mouthing others or what is going on in our lives. There is nothing good, other than venting emotions, can come from complaining about the bad things happening to us in life. Do what you need to do to feel better by getting your thoughts out and then move on to happier thoughts and happier people. Get your frustrations out and move on. It has to be done sometimes, granted sometimes more than often, but do not, NOT, allow those thoughts of sadness and anger consume you because then all the work you have been doing to try to make positive strides in your life and your thinking will be wiped out and you will have to start from a clean slate yet again.

If thinking of someone or something makes you sad or mad, change how you think when your thoughts drift to them or the situation at hand. For example, if you think of the fact that someone you know has hurt you by making ill made choices and no matter what you do, it won't change the choice they have made and nothing you do will be able to change the outcome anyway of how they are living or of what they have chosen to do, then change how you think of that person. When you think of them, automatically think that you wish them well in all that they do and you hope that they are happy in whatever they pursue in life. You may not really believe it at first, but eventually you will have your mind trained to not feel pain anymore when you think of them but an emotion of hope for them and their life. Once you wish them well in your thinking, automatically move your thinking on to other things in your life that make you happy, so the next time your thoughts emerge to your consciousness about that person and you start wishing them well, you may very well have trained your thoughts to also start thinking of those things that make you happy, causing you to feel positive and upbeat, instead of negative and sad. It is a good way of 'training' our thoughts and changing our thinking and our way of lives to help bring out the positive we have in our lives rather than dwelling on the negative.

So the next time you start thinking negative, start changing the way you think to help make your world a more 'positive' place to be for yourself and your family. Talk to friends, find some new friends, get a hobby that makes you feel good about yourself and keep yourself from staying on the negative thinking track by 'training your mind' to think positive every time you start 'feeling' negative about anything. If you try these suggestions, I am sure that you will find your life and your thinking about life, will improve and although things may not get better 'over night', they will get better and that my friend, is turning the negative world that surrounds us into a positive life for us.