I do still have bouts of negativity, but with ever lessening frequency and intensity. Usually what happens when I have a low these days, it's either because I allowed myself to get lost in thought, which usually leads to trying to derive satisfaction from something "out there," or when I've been around very negative people and my level of consciousness has dropped low enough for the reactive patterns to gain traction.
It's a bit like weight training, in that with every cycle of getting lost and finding your way back again, the awareness/consciousness muscle is strengthened.
And to prattle on and on about this, there is an interesting thing about the process of getting lost and finding your way back, which is the tendency to overshoot the mark so to speak. To go from an intense low to an intense high, and never stopping for long at the peaceful balance in between. When you look at the two extremes, both are really just different aspects of suffering that only look positive and negative on the surface.
I always visualize an elastic string, stretched between two posts, that you pull down, release and watch how it swings up and down, finally coming to a rest in the middle. It is really no more at ease in the up-position than the down-position, and can only ever rest when it has stopped swinging. |