You know, one of the most frequently asked questions I get as a speaker, is “How do you remain so positive all of the time; don’t you ever get out of bed sometimes and just feel, fed up?”.
The other questions are “What’s the most dangerous stunt you’ve performed in a movie?”, and “What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had as a professional stuntman?”, but I’ll leave those for another day!
Today, I’d like to tackle the first question - because a positive mind set is such a key ingredient to living the easy, happy and content life that is your birthright.
Universal Law
One of the key Universal Laws I speak and teach about, is The Law of Polarity. Like Newtons third law, in which “to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction” so The Law of Polarity offers us a great way out of ‘feeling low’.
You see, in reality nothing is 'good’ or 'bad’ it just 'is’. Whether something is good or bad, hot or cold, positive or negative is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.
To be more exact, it’s in the mind of the beholder.
A man might look old and lined to one woman, yet wise and distinguished to another. Likewise, a woman could look overweight and frumpy to one man, yet curvaceous and sexy to another!
A tasty curry might seem quite mild to one person, and yet too spicy to another, even though the plates were served from the same saucepan. It’s all about perspective.
The Slider
Imagine, if you will, a slider switch in your minds eye - picture it in front of you, like an old volume slider.
We can put ‘Bad’ on the left, and ‘Good’ on the right to illustrate this point. In reality of course, the slider is really in the centre, because everything ‘just is’ - neutral, neither good nor bad.
Sadly, what we do as human beings, is make a decision. It’s often an unconscious one, but we decide if something is either good or bad - usually ignoring the 'middle ground’. We slide the slider switch to the left a little, thinking it’s quite bad, or slide it to the right a little, deciding it’s ‘quite good’. Sometimes we slide the switch all the way to the left as far as it will go, choosing to label something as terrible or depressing. Of course, we have the ability to slide that switch back to the centre, and even beyond it into the positive, as far as we want to slide it. We have control. We really can make a concerted effort to look at things from a different perspective.
I mentioned Newtons third law, about 'equal and opposites’, and this applies to our scale too. This really is 'the clincher’ in todays blog, the secret to flipping your thinking.
You see, when something appears on this sliding scale, and it appears to the left (negative) another aspect of that same thing appears on the opposite side of the scale (positive).
It can be no other way. It is a Universal Law. To have an ‘inside’ there must be an ‘outside’. To have ‘up’ there must be ‘down’. To every situation perceived as ‘bad’, there must (by law) be a situation we can perceive as ‘good’.
Let me elaborate.
Hot Curry?
If the curry I mentioned earlier was too spicy for you, and you mentally push the slider toward the negative (let’s say half-way) a solution already exists half-way toward the positive side. Perhaps, in this case, it’s the cooling mint yoghurt dip you hadn’t noticed. Once aware, you try it and find the great tasting side dish cancels out the spicy curry! Better still, by eating both together, you enjoy your meal and the imaginary slider ends up to the right, in the positive state.
Great meal, great new tastes - happy days!
To illustrate the point further, and clarify this for you - let’s look at two really negative things.
(1) Debt. Let’s say you can’t pay your credit card bills, and your latest tax bill and are worried about the 'final notices’ building up. I’ve chosen this example because it’s a challenge people share with me often.
(2) Stubborn people. Someone you know is so stubborn that it really gets you down, it’s a real negative trait that drives you nuts.
To apply the Law of Polarity and my sliding scale to these two examples, we might consider the following:
(1) Although the crippling debt is far over to the left of the scale, almost entirely negative, what I’m telling you here is that there 'has to’ be an equal and opposite situation at the other end of the scale. This is Universal Law - there is no option but for a positive aspect to exist. As the old saying goes ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ and this is always true, no matter how drastic the situation.
So let’s say the persons credit card balances amount to 5,000, and the tax bill is 5,000. A total of 10,000.
The person already pays 2 hundred a month and the tax man won’t accept anything less than 1,000 per month - doom and gloom indeed. However, in this example the person might search for the solution on the opposite, positive side. of the slider (knowing it exists).
A 10,000 loan might be waiting at an excellent interest rate over 5 years. The loan pays off the tax man immediately (phew!) and better still, it pays off the credit cards, which are cut in two right away (phew again!). Even better, repayments are only 250 a month, so the person really isn’t financially in any worse shape than before, and yet has cleared the debts in one hit, and moved into a positive state. What’s more, this lesson has taught the person to be more careful, they have cut their credit cards in two, put aside 10% each month into a savings account, and opted to use only a visa debit card instead. They will never be in debt like that again.
A seemingly negative situation just turned into a positive one – simply by looking the other way on the polarity slider.
(2) I chose the 'stubborn man’ example because I have been called ‘stubborn’ many times. When my mind is made up, it’s made up. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.
So although being stubborn is to the left on my sliding scale, in the negative zone, I know the Law of Polarity has offered a positive aspect on the positive side of the sliding scale. In this case it’s tenacity.
Without my tenacity, I would never have followed my childhood dream and become a Hollywood Movie Stuntman against all of the odds. I’d never have flown a parachute for longer than anyone in history, or bungee jumped higher than anyone before or since - those Guinness World Records would never have happened. Tenacity helps me achieve my dreams, has written my first book, and got me to the summit of high mountains. It is (in my opinion) a great attribute for anyone to develop.
So one person might call me stubborn, but I turn (always) from the negative side of the scale, and look instead to the positive side of the scale. I’m going to recommend you do the same.
The next time you hit a situation that feels negative, know there is an equal and opposite positive waiting to be focused on. Look, and you will find. It’s Universal Law.
Wishing You Great Success
Curtis Rivers