What Else Can Your Negativity Cost You?

[Joyce Shafer]

You are aware of some costs to you from being negative—too aware, likely. But there’s a new way it might cost you, and it’s not on the horizon, it’s happening now.

How easy it is to slip into negativity, especially when we’re frustrated or disappointed. That kind of approach to life situations is all around us. When we do this, we believe we’re being practical, logical. And we get burned by it each time we do it. When we do this, we’re saying that Spirit does not exist in every individual, every event, every moment. It’s an amnesia that takes hold of us for as long as we tell ourselves whatever keeps that discomforting feeling alive in us.

When we do finally allow a “calm serenity of thought,” as Ernest Holmes wrote, we notice that changes take place, positive changes or shifts that evolve into something for our benefit. Life events calm down, a solution or resolution arrives, something inevitably shifts—most especially us.

Maybe you’ve had this experience and, like me, you shake your head and wonder why you couldn’t or didn’t get out of negativity faster. Why is it that we slip out of gear so easily? Because it’s what we and many around us often practice. We confuse it with being proactive. Interestingly, there are those in the world who now pay attention to this in ways we, perhaps, didn’t anticipate.

The CEO of a company told an interviewer that his due diligence, when he considers hiring a new employee, is to research each person’s social sites. If there are occasions of negative postings but the majority are positive, they’ll discuss what was going on for the person at such times. If all postings are negative, or the majority are, they will not hire the person. He clarified that there’s a difference in having an opinion and being negative; that opinions well stated are acceptable, but not incessant negativity. They also look to see if the person’s personality is revealed, as well. The thought behind this is that people would rather be invited into a workplace where who they are is accepted by their associates from the start.

This kind of puts a damper on the value society has placed on being cynical and negative as a way of life or as a form of cleverness (unless you’re a well paid acerbic comedian), and asks us to reassess our responses, reactions, and behaviors. If what this CEO does catches on, an addiction to negativity may cost us in more ways than ones we’re familiar with.

Most of us carry learned negativity; and what we learned has become our first response or reaction when we’re triggered. We believe so many things that hold us back and keep us negative. Holmes stated what we must do to stop this cycle: renew the mind—as often as it takes; and it may take a lot of renewing. You might even say we need to re-knew or re-know the mind—retrain it, that is.

Re-knowledge your mind with what you know is true about spiritual laws. You use them all the time, even if you aren’t conscious of it. Don’t aim at never having another negative thought or feeling—that’s not the target—and thinking it is will create unnecessary inner turmoil. Nor is it healthy to believe you can’t vent. Just choose where, to whom, and how you vent with more conscious awareness.

Aim at re-minding yourself of the truth a bit sooner each time you’re triggered. Re-mind yourself to pay attention to your thoughts and transform them as needed. As the saying goes, this is simple but not necessarily easy. But, it will get easier the more often you remind yourself to use what creates the inner and outer experiences you desire. And remember that you always have to start with the inner.

Not doing this has already cost you. Don’t allow it to cost you even more in the future, in ways you’ve yet to anticipate.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer
State of Appreciation (Issue 130) is now live at
http://stateofappreciation.webs.com