Tag: good in us

The Good Place: Surrounding ourselves with Positivity

It has been a few months since I got hocked on to The Good Place. In just a few months it turned into my absolute favorite show. It is about a self-centered woman who accidentally ends up in the good place which is pretty much heaven. In order to not be sent to the bad place she tries to become a better person and earn her place in the good place.

This in itself sounds like a perfectly enjoyable piece of television, but this is not the reason I write about it on this blog. The show made an actual impact on me. Not only was able to laugh from the bottom of my heart, but I became more positive. Because all those bright pictures and all that happiness that is constantly shown in the series made me happier. In addition to that it discusses several philosophical concepts which allowed me to straighten my view of the world a little more.

But it was when I listened to The Good Place -The Podcast- that I suddenly realized one thing: All these amazing people who work on The Good Place have one thing in common: They radiate appreciation and happiness. The producers, cast members, directors, writer, everyone is aware of what an outstanding piece of art they are creating and they are grateful to be part of it. One of them once said in awe : “This is our job!” Meaning they can almost not believe, that their life is so perfect.

I find this so very inspiring. It means that working towards a wonderful life is not in vain, but it also means that appreciating one’s life the way it is, is possible and a great source of happiness. And here’s another thought: If we hate on what we are doing on a daily basis, we will never become great at what we do, because we keep avoiding it.

There is one other thing: The shows we watch and the people we surround ourselves with have an impact on us. If we watch dark movies all the time, we might get nightmares (has happened to me before) but if we watch happy TV shows, we will be a little happier in our own lives as well. And surrounding us with happy people, or just spending some time listening to happy people talk, can inspire us to be happy. It makes it easier to be positive day after day. And being positive does not only affect us. As I said before: positive people have an awesome effect on their surroundings. And if we are positive, we can make our friends and families a little happier.

That is why I think trying to be happy, surrounding us with happy shows, music etc. is worth it. It makes us and those we love happier.

Fighting with Kindness

When someone calls us “sweety” over and over again, we want to rise to that expectation. We want to become sweeter, kinder and nicer. At least that is what I experienced. And I think that with us trying to be kind in general, we will also be more likely to be kind to ourselves. And this is where we win. Because this can protect us from hurting ourselves. This ties into the overall mindset of positivity. Which I find is so crucial to recovering from all this hate towards ourselves that we fuel.

Let’s take a step back. What the heck is female energy? To me it is the desire to take care and protect those who need protection. Those who are close to our hearts. It is the wish for peace. The wish for a safe home. The need for beauty around us. The will to be sweet and cute. It is not unique to women at all. It is that it is women who we are seeing protraying that engery, most times.

Female energy is in strong contrast to us trying to be strong. Pushing on. Forcing everything beyond the limits. Female energy aims to preserve the beauty. It is not weak. It is just less aggressive, less outgoing. It aims at the peace and protection rather than trying to conquer the world.

And this is exactly, why it is so good at helping us to fight self-harm: it is an energy that will drive us to preserve ourselves.

Now, how can we connect to that drive? In the rush of our world we always try to be tougher. We are constantly competing never calming down. Never appreciating the beauty around us. And that is exactly where we need to start: In seeing the flower on our way to work. On seeing the colors of a sunset. And realizing how beautiful it is. Because we cannot try to protect the beauty if we do not see it.

But we do not only need to see the beauty around us. While that is all well and good and important to lift our spirits, even more important is to see the beauty within ourselves. Now that is the hard part. Because we all have flaws and we tend to see them waaaaay more than we see how awesome we really are. And I’ll not ask anyone to lie to oneself, because that will not help either and might even be a source for self-hatred. So no lying. But then how are we supposed to see the good in us?

For me there are many things. I have found that clothes can help a lot. Simple things like putting on a cute piece of clothing like a lace-top, or painting my nails. Putting on a smile. Telling someone close to me I love them, or patting my pet. All those things can work wonders. Because we can look in the mirror and see a nice person. Someone who is worth protecting.

Honestly, I think telling ourselves, that we are wonderful, is something  we forget is legit. Because it has nothing to do with obsessing about one’s looks. But with accepting who we are. And creating that person, we want to be. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with slowing down our lives, to appreciate what is around us. To appreciate what and who we love. And to appreciate who we are.

And this appreciation. That awareness. That wish to be kind will connect us to our female energy. It will make us happier people. And as we are happier and smile more, we will become more beautiful, more amazing and will notice that change. We will notice the positive mindset we have towards ourselves. And along with this we will be empowered. We will start being at peace with ourselves, instead of being at war. And hand in hand with that, our desire to harm ourselves will begin to fade.