*The Ultimate Positivity Guide*

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by jest, Jun 14, 2017.

  1. jest

    jest Fapstronaut

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    So after a few months doing research non-stop about a plethora of different things and listening to all kinds of people talking about this and many other subjects, I've come to several conclusions, I thought I'd share some of them with all of you. If this can help even one person then I consider my job to be done.

    The ultimate positivity guide (it was initially named "The Ultimate Self Improvement Guide" and I hope we as a community can make it so if you guys wish to provide some insight on topics I'm not very knowledgeable about) aims to help each and every one of us to see the "light at the end of the tunnel" when it comes to controlling our thoughts, emotions and urges.
    At this point in time I will not cover how to socialise/work out and a few other things that are often recommended by the NoFap community, simply because there are other people out there that do a better job than me at explaining those topics, therefore I'm only going to share what has helped me so far.


    THE ULTIMATE POSITIVITY GUIDE
    Step #1 - Self Love
    Before anything else you need to learn to love you for who you are. This is tough for a lot of us due to insecurities (everyone has them and even if you don't, occasionally something you do might trigger one) and self consciousness. A lot of individuals assume that they need to work on their physical appearance before they work on the inside and it's true that we are all beautiful on the inside; however, I strongly suggest that you work on both your appearance and your mind simultaneously, or work on your mind first. Why?
    If your mind crumbles at mere thoughts that are of your creation then what makes you think that if you have an amazing looking physique you're going to feel better about yourself? True happiness comes from within ourselves, we should be able to create happiness out of nothing, whenever we are, wherever we are.

    It's the same for several other things such as getting a girlfriend/boyfriend, getting a better job, moving out of your parents' house, getting that good ass videogame you've been waiting for and so on and so forth - these things are nothing but bonuses to your life, it's OK to WANT them to be in your life but you absolutely can NOT rely on them for your happiness.

    A lot of us are unable to love ourselves due to the fact that we just begin trash talking ourselves inside our heads, if we do something wrong we beat ourselves up for a while and what does that achieve? Nothing whatsoever.

    We worry about what other people think whether we want to or not because in the end we just want to fit in society, we want to be successful and happy.

    We can't be negative and we can't let our emotions rule our world!

    So what can we do?
    I started by listening to others and their insight, we are all very knowledgeable and everyone has something to say, I also did a lot of thinking but having an overactive mind is terrible for you, this is where meditation comes in (most of us already practice it here I believe).

    What you need to do is take the time to understand what parts of you (both mentally and physically) you're unhappy with and ask yourself what can you do to change them, personally I had trouble controlling my emotions and I was very judgemental therefore I decided that I needed to seek and research anger management, how to deal with mood swings, how to be more accepting, and things of this nature. You know what you don't like about yourself and you also know what you can do to change, but you probably don't have the drive that is necessary to become better or you're just too lazy. Addictions are also a huge part of why we don't love ourselves in this community but there's enough info about NoFap in countless other threads already, so I'll keep it short and simple:
    everything that you dislike about yourself you can change with time, effort, perseverance and discipline.

    Step #1.2 - Self Love Exercises
    10 second rule
    What helps me in my journey is to first recognize when I'm feeling bad and then ask myself "is this really true or am I overthinking it?", if these bad thoughts keep popping up in my head I like to do the 10 second rule, I recognize I'm being a victim of my own negative state of mind and then I say "I'll think about this in 10 seconds" and I start counting, by that time I'm already busy doing or thinking about something else - if the thoughts persist I do it again, you can do this as many times as you like, focus on the number of seconds rather than on the useless negative thoughts.

    Turning bad thoughts into good thoughts(experiences)
    Now if you don't like counting, you need to learn how to take a negative situation and make it a positive one. Let's say you did something that was embarassing, what embarassment really means is that you're worried about what other people think but here's the thing: you can't nor shouldn't try and put yourself in anybody's shoes - you don't know what people think nor should you try to assume what they're thinking. With that being said, take every experience good or bad as exactly that - an experience.

    Let's look at a pratical example: you tripped and fell because you were too distracted looking at your phone and maybe someone laughed at you, do you think they're going to remember your fall every day for the rest of their lives? Chances are, if they're strangers they don't care and if they're your friends they're not going to hold that against you. The lesson you learned is that you shouldn't look at your phone when you're walking on uneven ground.

    Let's also say that when you fell, you were walking by yourself and someone came up to you and helped you get back up, wow what a total embarassment! A total stranger helped you get back up due to the fact that you were too distracted to notice where your feet were going. But what if this stranger suddenly becomes your friend or even your lover? You talk and have a giggle or two and you exchange numbers and what was seemingly a terrible situation that made you feel awful, is now probably the greatest thing that ever happened to you. Let's forget about the love of your life that helped you back up for a moment; when you went through that embarassing situation your mind must've sky rocketed into bad thoughts only mode, these thoughts are the trash talk we tell ourselves on a daily basis because we aren't happy with who we are, you have to learn to be more neutral about things, I'm not going to preach that "everything happens for a reason" although many people believe in that, you have to tell yourself that something unpleasant just happened but it says nothing about who you really are nor what you stand for.

    There's ALWAYS something to take from EVERYTHING that happens to you, there's always a positive side to every scenario but we choose NOT TO SEE IT.
    Bad thoughts show up because you aren't happy, but if you don't do anything about them then they're going to keep coming back stronger and stronger, you're feeding your negativity by not acting.


    Turning bad thoughts into good thoughts(on your own)
    Alright say you're not the outdoors type and you embarass yourself or you feel bad about yourself on your own, at home. In this scenario you're your own worst enemy, you're battling your overactive mind. Which in the end is what you really need to do in order to achieve true self love, you put your mind in it's place, your mind becomes a fortress of happiness and positivity and all the good feelings. But how though?

    Whenever a bad thought arises, say, "I'm fat" or "I'm bad at socialising" (just a couple examples) ask yourself "what are these thoughts really telling me?" let's analyse the first thought "I'm fat" this may or may not be factual information, so then ask yourself "Am I really THAT fat?"; "Is this thought just an exaggeration?"; "Can I do anything about me being fat?"; "Am I fat by choice?"; "Can I change?"; "Do I want to change this?"; "Am I powerless before this thought?", the more questions you ask the more insight you'll gain from your mind and you'll start to understand yourself at a much deeper level, if there's a chance to change and you CAN change, then change! If not or maybe you don't like exercising and you're actually OK with having a little extra fat but you're just worried that other people won't love you due to it - that's where the problems start, you see, if you don't love yourself other people won't either. This works for any negative thought you have, you need to ask the thought questions until you break it down into little pieces that you can then decode and use for your own advantage.

    Let's look at the second thought "I'm bad at socialising", for whatever reason this pops up in your head but you probably have friends whether they're real life friends or online friends, therefore you must have some social skills whether they're barely noticeable or not is irrelevant. What you think is what you become so if you keep telling yourself you're bad at socialising then that's exactly what is going to happen! If you act like you're amazing at making friends and talking to people, eventually you'll become amazing. If you go through an embarassing moment then refer to what we discussed above.


    Gratitude
    Last but not least, be grateful for who you are. We are all unique and that's what makes life interesting, George Lucas made this old film back in the day, some sci-fi thing where everyone follows these rules and therefore humans are more robotic than robots themselves and everyone is the same with the exception of a few outlaws that act differently and want to love each other, if you've seen it you probably know what I'm talking about.
    Point being, like attracts like, love yourself so that others may love you too. Every day make a mental or written list of qualities you like about yourself, think about your most unique ones because you definitely have them! Your mind it simply too clouded to let you see through that fog of negativity. Nobody is the same, everyone is born different, there are infinite combinations that make up people's personalities and physiques and that's what makes things fun.

    You're special, I'm special, everybody is special. Learn to appreciate you for who you are regardless of your income, social status, relationships, amount of friends you have, if you live in a shack or in a mansion, none of these things are relevant because you create your own happiness, it's not a physical thing therefore it can follow you around wherever you go and you can always be happy regardless of anything that happens to you.


    Step #2 - Developing Awareness
    Once you have a decent grasp on what you want to change about yourself OR once you've decided that you're going to love yourself from now on and nobody is going to affect you or your emotions (nobody should have that much power over you) it's time to develop awareness. What exactly do I mean by this?

    If you're at peace with yourself you can be at peace with everybody else, even if you hate their guts because of that pencil they took from you in the 1st grade of school (thief, if you're reading this, I forgive you, we all make mistakes). Self love helps you connect with yourself on a deeper level, but what about other people? One of the things that I struggled most with in my journey was to understand how people were feeling and why, most people who don't love themselves or those who love themselves way too much (a common mistake) often have a hard time controlling their emotions, urges and natural impulses, which leads to the people around them to fall into the same pit.
    These people are toxic and/or energy vampires and they'll do their BEST to suck your positive energy out of you but don't blame them, they're not at fault. Their problem is what we've already covered above, they don't love themselves, but you're trying to get past that and so you can't say they are at fault if they're unaware of what they can do to change themselves.

    There's this great example: imagine a massive labyrinth, it's pitch black and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people walking around bumping into each other. Can we blame those people for that? No, they can't see. A lot of people can't see anything these days but that doesn’t mean you have to follow the herd.
    Your state of awareness is gradual and will show itself shortly after/during your self love journey, the more you put effort into yourself and into researching and understanding other people, the more aware you'll be.


    Step #3 - Creating Your Happiness
    Alright, you understand the concepts discussed above and you're ready to put them into action, but not without reading this section first! I've written that happiness isn't something tangible and that we shouldn't be stuck up on relying on material things or even people in order to bring joy into our lives, but how exactly should one be able to be happy and maintain that at all times?

    Sorry to tell you but there's no easy way of staying happy all the time, chances are, even if you're a complete and total zen master that is always relaxed and that doesn't let anything interfere with his/her emotions, you still won't be able to be happy constantly simply due to the fact that we can't always control how we feel.

    But worry not! I've put together a list of a few examples of what you can do (for starters) in order to feel true joy without much effort and without overthinking anything. All of the suggestions in the list can be achieved by everyone, however, I'm still going to rate the task's difficulty by colour (according to my journey):
    green means it's easily achievable with practice,

    yellow means it might not be easy for everyone or it's circumstance dependent,
    red means it's tough to do but you'll get there if you put enough effort into it.
    Let's get right to it.

    The (staying happy as much as possible) List

    • Accept that whatever is meant to happen will happen;
    This does not in any way, shape or form mean that you don't have control over what happens to you, it's quite the contrary, you are in control of your life and your reality is almost 100% influenced by you. However, if we're always stuck in overthinking the past or the future, without focusing in the present moment, we will never achieve true happiness. Try and develop a more neutral way of dealing with your issues first and they will eventually sort themselves out before you notice.

    • Remember that your thoughts are also your emotions;
    Thoughts are extremely powerful and hard to control but if you keep bringing yourself down then you'll just feel worse. The idea is to stop negative thinking and identifying your bad thoughts over and over again until your subconscious rewires itself in order to bring positive thinking into your mind more often.

    • Your brain is a wild dog but you're holding it's leash;
    We're simply made of an infinite amount of consciousness that just so happens to be living life as a human being, this means that our willpower is also infinite. There's nothing we can't do if we set our minds to it, you've certainly heard stories about people who have disabilities or diseases that have it worse than you and yet are happier than you are, why is that? Because they decided that they want to live their life to the fullest and they won't let anyone get in their way, let alone their own brain.

    • Connect with other people and with those in need;
    I used to hate people, but once I've realised that we're all one and the same, I can almost talk to anybody as if I'm approaching a close friend as long as our vibrations match. Now some people aren't going to match your vibration/frequency, this can happen due to a myriad of reasons but don't worry about it, don't waste your energy on people that aren't worth it, instead, and simply put, connect with those that you feel are worth connecting with.

    • Become more spiritual/have faith;
    Now I'm not religious and I'm one hell of a skeptic, but what has been helping me cope with everything that brings me down is to have faith. Faith in myself mostly but also faith in the Universe, because it's a beautiful thing, it's where existence exists.
    Things like solfreggio frequencies, law of attraction and whatever else you believe in are going to be a tremendous help to you because you can rely on them if you start feeling negative. You feel bad but you say "Yeah I feel down right now, but there are forces at work greater than me that will help me soon.". Having faith can change your whole mindset and make you feel much more complete.


    • Get a pet/be around pets sometimes;
    We're all animals, we can relate to each other on many levels. Pets don't talk (usually) and therefore it might be easier to connect with one rather than with a person, use that to your advantage, it might also eliminate loneliness and give you a sense of responsibility.

    • Change your diet;
    Technically it's not that difficult to change your diet, but you will probably need help unless you're really into it and you do all the research yourself, you don't have to do major changes but there's always a chance that you're not eating healthily enough even if you consider your diet to be "varied". A lot of people advocate for vegetarian/vegan diets and I'm going down this path as well and I can say that I feel more energetic and in a better mood so far.

    • Take calculated risks;
    Those who take risks and get out of their comfort zone are much more likely to feel empowered afterwards. Every step you take out of what you consider to be your regular life will feel like a small victory torwards enlightment and a fulfilling life. You don't have to go crazy, start small with something that is really basic and simple but that you never do or engage in, then make a habit out of it, if it paid off or if it makes you feel better that is. Careful not to dive head first and come out with a concussion though, always evaluate what is best for you before actually doing something and don't be pressured by anybody to do something you don't want to.

    • Learn to identify patterns;
    A lot of our issues on our day to day life are exactly the same, if someone toxic is around you bringing you down at home and then when you go to work there's someone there doing the same thing, it doesn't matter if they're 2 different people, it's the same exact scenario and on top of that our mind loves to make associations subconsciously which leads to us perceiving certain situations wrongly if we're already upset or angry about something that happened prior to the bad situation at hand. Most people live in patterns which is why when we fall into a depressive state of mind it's very difficult to get out, we're used to living with that same pattern every day and it's going to keep happening unless we successfully identify it and find a solution. Once you start telling yourself "I know exactly what this pattern is." then you can find a way to counter it. Countering a pattern may be as simple as staying silent or as walking away, or avoiding a certain time of the day all together by waking up earlier or going to bed earlier, or by eating different foods, you name it. Patterns vary and it's up to you to figure out what you can do to change them.

    • Spend your time slowly and wisely;
    Why is this particular suggestion in red? Why because it's probably the hardest thing to do. We're usually always in a rush to do things, perfection and success can not be rushed! Take your time and enjoy the ride, life is a learning process and we're all perpetual students. If you don't feel good with your life right now then you have to make changes, gradual ones or immediate ones if possible but don't be too brash! Start doing everything in a much slower fashion, breathe slowly, walk slowly, talk slowy, eat slowy... No, you're not turning into a sloth! We're always in a hurry and for what? Life must be lived minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, learn to be more present and enjoy all the activities that are a part of your life. Develop patience little by little, after all, "good things come to those who wait".


    Step #4 - Developing an Aura of Positivity
    Ever been near someone that made you feel like they were so happy that you suddenly felt better about yourself? Some people have such a tremendous amount of positivity around them that you can even feel it from kilometers(miles) away!

    Wouldn't it be great if you could make others feel good just by being yourself?
    This step, much like the awareness step should come naturally. However there are a few things you can do to speed up the process, the most obvious one is to follow all of the previous steps and suggestions, then you can practice simple things such as being a better listener, working on your humour, having zero shame about who you are/building up your self confidence, picking up traits from people you admire, respecting everything and everyone equally, paying attention to other people's feelings and so on.


    You must become an example of what people should strive to be and you will in due time if you're committed enough. It's great to have role models but your goal should be to see yourself as your own role model in a very non-egotistical way, of course.

    Throw away all values that aren't your own and come up with new ones, everyone experiences a different reality and therefore it's silly to judge people on what their beliefs are, you have to be respectful torwards others in order to gain respect back. We mostly grow up with our parents or figures of authority's values and morals in our mind and it's more often than not that we bring those into adulthood without actually stopping and questioning if we agree with them or not.

    Doing good deeds such as helping the homeless or feeding the stray cats down the road also helps, but you need to do these things out of pleasure and not in order to gain something from them. Just give, give and give some more and expect nothing in return, once you can do this, you'll be surprised by how other people and even the Universe reward you.

    Step #5 - Your Journey is Endless (Resources)

    Even when you finally love who you are and everything around you, know that you don't need to stop there! There are many more ways of staying positive and influencing others as well as attracting everything you can wish for into your life. So here is the resources section, things that have helped me stay in a good state of mind that I wish to share with you today.

    ON YOUTUBE

    https://www.youtube.com/user/AlphaMconsulting
    ^These videos are geared torwards males mostly.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/Kemetprince1

    ^Uploads daily.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/NoahElkrief
    ^Channel is dead but the videos are helpful.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/koiscorner
    ^More about spirituality.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC47w9g7lESxzqefb5vWkN1Q
    ^A few of the older videos here and there are great if you're strulling with emotions.

    Also the TED/TEDx Talks channel.

    These channels are aimed torwards self improvement, controlling your emotions, spirituality, wealth, being healthy, dealing with depression, breakups, etc.. There are many other channels out there that have the same goals as these do, it's up to you to decide what to watch and what information you want to take from them.

    ARTICLES/WEBSITES

    http://www.thelawofattraction.com/
    ^Mentioned this a couple times in the guide.
    https://cronometer.com/

    ^In case you want to keep track of your new diet.


    WHAT ELSE?

    I didn't cover meditation or yoga in this guide as of right now but I plan to do so in the future once I get a better grasp of it but no promises, you can also do your own research on the matter meanwhile and there's also plenty of people already talking about it here. I also plan on writing a section about HOCD and fetishes and how I've managed to beat them, but that's a little off topic considering this is about staying positive, therefore, I believe the guide is pretty much finished as far as my insight goes.

    If you're strulling with something that wasn't covered here, it might be somewhere in the youtube channels I linked so go on and have a look!


    What's next?

    If the community decides that we could improve this guide then we can all drop some knowledge in the replies to this topic, I'm looking forward to reading all your thoughts, opinions and ideas!

    I hope you enjoyed the guide and if you read through it all, I salute you.
     
  2. MrPrince

    MrPrince Fapstronaut

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    Great and inspiring thank you
     
    jest likes this.
  3. lavendereyez

    lavendereyez Fapstronaut

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    Wow, this is really good information. Thank you so much for posting it.
     
    jest likes this.
  4. SheMonk

    SheMonk Fapstronaut

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    I love everything you posted here. <3
     
    jest likes this.
  5. Thank you for this. Fantastic read.
     
    jest likes this.
  6. How can you self love when you've done something unthinkable and unforgivable, and never told anyone about it?
     
  7. jest

    jest Fapstronaut

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    You have to forgive yourself, you can't be stuck in the past forever because you certainly can't alter it. Every day is a new day, both the past and the future are illusions, there is only the now. Nothing stops you from improving yourself other than you.

    If you regret doing something it means that you wouldn't have done it if you knew better, so forgive yourself first dude, what's done is done. If there were other parties involved and you did something to someone and you're worried that they'll never forgive you, you'd be surprised at how understanding, compassionate and forgiving human beings can be. So move on, focus on the present because yesterday exists only in your mind.
     
  8. Thank you, I'll try to keep this in mind.
     
    jest likes this.
  9. Insightful thread!!
     
    jest likes this.

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