Wow there’s a lot going on right now, right? This is what I keep hearing from clients. It started with the pandemic, and these feelings are just intensifying with the protests as well right now.
Many of my clients are having a hard time holding a positive perspective through all of the things that are happening right now. I totally understand. It’s a lot! I love hearing all of the different perspectives people have, and I honor and validate everyone’s point of view.
My job is to listen, reflect, validate and help clients work through difficult thoughts and feelings. It is my joy and privilege to do the work that I do, I learn so much from everyone that I work with.
My job, as classified by the licensing board that I am a part of as a mental health counselor, or according to my education, is not to infuse sparkly positive fairy dust on people. This is not a requirement, and not even advised by some of my professors or peers.
The thing is, I can’t help it! It has always been such a pleasure for me to turn someone’s frown upside down, as cheesy as that sounds.
I worked as a server and bartender in the restaurant industry before I found my current calling and as strange as it sounds, I would get excited when someone cranky would come in. It was such a fun challenge for me to work on connecting with them, and to bring a little light to their day.
The current work that I do is pretty much a perfect outlet for me to do this work all day every day. While of course I hold space for hard emotions and know it’s not all unicorns and rainbows every day, I do feel that it is my job to keep my vibration as high and positive as possible as much as I can.
This is not just for me, or my clients, it is my belief system that the more I can do this, and the more I can pass this along to the people I work with, the more this light of consciousness expands into the rest of the world. We are all a part of the conscious evolution of humanity!
I love love love this quote by Beethoven about this feeling:
“There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.”
Ludwig van Beethoven
It hasn’t necessarily been harder for me to hold this positivity lately, but for sure I can tell that many of the people I work with are struggling more right now, so this positive perspective has been working overtime!
Over the past few weeks as things have felt more intense for many people, here are some tools that have worked for me, and that I have also shared with clients to help them move through this time with a little more light.
1. Stop focusing on how hard and bad everything is:
I mean, there is a lot going on for sure! I of course never invalidate this very true feeling that things are kind of messy and heavy out there right now!
I hear so many clients though so angry about what’s happening, or sad and hopeless that things are the way they are right now.
While those are valid feelings, staying stuck in them for too long in your mind, or venting constantly about it does not help you feel better or move forward!
2. Look for the good:
There is always positive and negative, where do you want to focus?
When things are “normal” we always have the choice to focus on what’s working or what’s not. What you don’t want or what you do want.
This same dynamic is at play even during these times. You can stay stuck in judgment of masks or no masks, or protesting or not, or everything is going to be bad forever.
Or…you could practice retraining your mind to pay attention to the positive moments in your life. You can focus on the fact that we are all working together to create positive change in the world.
Working on looking for the good keeps your energy in a positive place, impacting not just you, but those around you and the rest of the planet!
3. What are you learning?
We are all learning so much right now about each other and ourselves. Focusing on the gifts of this experience for your own personal growth can help you create positive meaning from this experience.
Rather that resisting, and being angry and frustrated, focusing on “How is this helping me grow” feels so much better to your soul and physiology.
4. Remember no breakthrough happens without mess:
I’m sure you’ve had the experience in your own life of things getting really hard and bad before real growth and change happens.
I’ve seen this over and over in my work with clients, and in my own life. There is no growth very often without difficult contrast.
Remember that the world is moving through an amazing awakening process right now.
Old, outdated structures and ways of thought are being broken down to make way for new more evolved ways of being in the world.
This is a beautiful and necessary part of transformation, and remembering this brings much more peace to the process we are all moving through right now.
5. Take action:
Taking positive action, both internally and externally is really important to remaining positive during this time.
This can be moving your body, reaching out to support a friend, donating money to a cause you care about, or so many other ways of shifting your energy.
Taking positive action helps so much with your feeling of being a positive contributing member of the global community.
This is much more effective that spinning in your head about how hard things are, or venting with people in your life or on social media about the “problems” in the world right now that are truly just opportunities for us all to grow,
I hope this can be helpful for you! Things are ok, they will continue to get better, an don’t forget to remind yourself of this often!
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