The following conversation is live from my head.  Talking to myself.  Does it resemble in any way a conversation taking place in your own head?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there a “negative Nellie” in your life that gets on your last nerve?  Are you the “negative Nellie”?

That person who never, ever has anything good to say about anything.  Always presenting a bleak picture of what will happen.

Does it bring you down?  Do you find this to be a bummer?

Did you ever ask yourself WHY?  Why does this person always end up with a worse case scenario?

Do you think this is useless and defeating behaviour?  Or do you believe it is not your fault?  Or do you honesty think you are just being realistic?

Come on, girl!  Get yourself together, just a little bit.  Go ahead.  Move that ass out of that chair.  Do something.  Anything.  Let’s go.  Nobody is going to wipe your ass for you, so you better get your shit together and get on with it!

I think it might be more productive to remember the negative feelings than positive ones.  Negative feelings and the circumstances surrounding those feelings as well as remembering what produced those negative feelings ensures survival.  It enables humans to avoid danger.  Waking up that flight or fight instinct is essential to our well-being.

On the other side of the spectrum, positive feelings and great events evoke pleasurable feelings etc.,  but do not ensure our survival.  Those positive circumstances, when all was right with your world,  produce some serotonin which influence your mood.  Being cheerful and in a good mood all the time serves what purpose?  Come on, what is the point of always remembering only the good times?

As it turns out, like everything else in this world of ours, each end of the spectrum, being negative or positive all of the time in all ways, creates a huge imbalance.  One so great that we cannot survive in that state for very long.

Being too negative, fearful and in that constant dangerous situation creates an inability to react one way or the other.  The fight or flight disappears, leaving you frozen in place, unable to defend yourself or remove yourself from the danger (whatever it might be) endangering your life and guaranteeing your death in the face of real danger, like standing in the way of an oncoming fast train.  Or even suicide.  Taking your own life because there is just nothing in you any more…no hope, no joy, no pleasure, no sadness, no pain, no anger, no nothing.  Empty.  Empty.  Empty.  For a sustained period of time.  Nothing to move you forward, or backward for that matter.  An empty vessel, withering away.  Feeling nothing ever.  Actually, taking your own life would require way too much effort.

Being positive and in a constant state of arousal sustained by an endless supply of serotonin is just as impossible.  It can actually cause high fever, seizures, heart attacksand ultimately death.   There is no end to the health problems that can occur, physical as well as mental.  Like being in a state of constant idiocy, inane for life.

What does this mean?  What are we supposed to do about it when we find ourselves heading in one of those directions?  How do we find the balance that we need?

We start with the 4 essential broad topics:

Health  Chronic pain and illness can be treated.  Maybe not cured, but certainly more controlled.

Family  Unhappy relationships?  No relationships?  Lonely?  Take another look at the people in your life…you have either surrounded yourself with the wrong people or you have pushed them all away.  Either way, it is your own actions that created this situation, therefore, it is your actions that can change the situation.  Counseling is a good place to start.

Career  Crappy job? Find another one.   No job?  Pound that pavement until someone hires you.  Unable to work?  Why not?  There is counseling for this too.

Finances  Well, if you have no job or your job doesn’t pay you enough to make ends meet, you will have a lot of work to do here.  First thing first, if your money doesn’t pay all your expenses, the quickest thing to do is cut your expenses!  Sure, we all feel entitled in some way to buy that $4.00 coffee or go out for a beer, blah blah blah, but bottom line is, you CANNOT afford it, so stop doing it until you can afford it.  It is that simple.  Once you get a little control over your spending you can create a realistic budget based on the income you actually do have or, if you find that is unacceptable, you will need to take steps to increase your working skills so that you can earn more money. 

The question to ask yourself first is which one of these areas careened out of control first?  Once you find that answer you will be able to work on that problem.  You will be able to look for the help you need to alleviate that giant problem which in turn will allow you to work on the other areas that fell out of balance.

As you may have surmised by now, NONE of this is easy.  There is no easy in this life.  You must put in the honest effort to see the results you want.

No shortcuts.  No magic pill.

Nobody is going to do it for you!

No excuses.

It is what it is.  We all have to do it.

What makes you so special that you don’t have to do it?

Nothing.

You are not so special.

You are just another ordinary Joe/Jane, trying to make it through another day with your psyche intact and a little bit of good times to see you through the bad times.

Everyone wants what you want.  Everyone needs what you need.  Everyone is searching for the answers that will work for them.

You need to search too.

Come on.  Try.