Day 17: Also in Chapter Twelve, I talk about how sunflowers are called sunflowers because they literally “turn toward the sun.” Talk about a time in your life when you turned toward the sun and chose the light when it would have been easier to settle for darkness.
Choosing light in the midst of darkness is never an easy feat. Whenever we go through hard times in life, it always seems to be more convenient to just give into the depths of despair. Trying to find the silver lining in a difficult situation often appears to be near impossible for most of us. I’ve definitely had many moments when I’ve struggled to see the light in some really dark times, and I’ve talked about the majority of those moments in depth already. So, I won’t reiterate any of them in this post because I don’t want to sound like a broken record.
What I will say is that when I was going through those dark times, I initially adapted a pretty negative mindset that was so closely linked with deep anger. I held onto that mindset and that anger for awhile. I literally allowed myself to get so consumed by it, and it wasn’t good. I just could not see any positivity at all in those situations, and it was pretty terrible. I’m very much a person who internalizes a lot of things, and it always takes me a long time to process situations and the emotions I’m feeling. So, sometimes, it just felt better to throw myself an indefinite pity party instead of putting on my big girl pants and dealing with it. Essentially, I’d take the easy way out of just avoiding my feelings, so to speak. Until it all built up and became too much.
In the moments when the emotions would build up, I’d eventually just explode and hit my breaking point. The tears would fall, the anger would subside, and I’d finally allow myself to feel and process all of the emotions that I was feeling. By the time this would happen, I would naturally start to let go of the negativity and anger. I’d slowly start to realize that the difficult situations I was in were slowly improving. I eventually understood that those dark situations weren’t breaking me or defining me. They were shaping me into becoming an even better version of myself. Once I started catching little glimpses of the positivity and the light, I held onto them. I used them as my motivation to keep moving forward. I’d allow myself to just let go and trust the process of my life journey.
Now, I’ve grown so far away from negativity, not only with others, but especially with myself. I no longer have a tolerance for it. When I go through tough times now, I only choose to see the light because I have to believe that there are better days ahead in this world. It doesn’t make sense to me to give into the darkness and the negativity because I don’t like the person that I become when I allow that into my life. Especially with our current political and societal climate, I strive to cling to the light. To the good. To the positive because I know we are all in desperate need of it. I don’t have room in my heart for darkness or negativity anymore. I only have room for light and positivity, and I whole-heartedly believe that everyone should at least try to see life the same way, too.
La Bella Vita 