Positive Outlook

Meet my newest painting "Positive Outlook" I hope it brightens up your day! ☺

Introducing my newest painting, “Positive Outlook”. 11″ x 14″ mixed media on paper. Prints and super cool merch are available at my FAA shop! I hope it brightens up your day!🌞🧡🎨 Instagram Facebook Pinterest Tumblr YouTube Link

View On WordPress

I usually don't take so much selfies lol but lately i do feel like taking alot of it though.

Anyway here is another new selfie of me 🥰.

Hope that you all like it my lovely followers 😘.

I think the nicest thing someone's ever said to me was when the other night someone said "I think bringing people together is your superpower"... Not 'strength' but 'superpower'.

If you had to name one thing as your superpower, what would it be? Sometimes we are so harsh on ourselves that we forget to see the beauty that others see in us.

I am incredibly tired and every joint in my body feels.... bad™️, but I am still very excited to do the social work interview tomorrow!!! Maybe I'll have to wait two days more to be seen by a doctor but at least I can forget this for a moment and think about the future.

Already planning out my interview clothes and some talking points from my work history and stuff... I hope they can match me with someone. I hope I can help someone who needs me⭐

On the plus side, due to being ill and sitting around at home, I’ve now got basically sixteen hours a day to write and / or play Three Houses.

So now my fic is coming along great and the game is pretty fun XD

oooh I'd love to know your take on the idea of positive thinking that you mentioned in your answer to the anon a few asks below.

Alright Anon! To be clear this has very little to do with F1 but let's go.

Also it's a loooong rant so I'm putting it under the cut.

First off let me say that positive thinking is important, and it is a real thing. Cognitive biases are very prevalent in mood disorders such as depression and anxiety and contribute to maintaining these conditions.

For example, people who suffer from depression tend to have a selective memory biased towards negative events, which means they remember what matches their depressive mood better than the rest. If you've ever been depressed, you may remember feeling like it was always this way and would always be this way. It's difficult to remember what it felt like to be happy and to believe it is possible to be happy again. That's due in good part to such cognitive biases.

So yes, positive thinking is important. It's good practice to train your brain to not focus solely on the bad things happening, just as it's good practice to train your internal dialogue towards yourself to not be self-deprecating, just as it's good practice to remember to not catastrophize and rationally think about your different options when confronted to a problem, etc. Do your gratitude logs, do your positive affirmations, do whatever works for you to try and maintain a balanced worldview.

HOWEVER

There are several problems with the way positive thinking is marketed to us. Yes, marketed, people looove talking about big pharma but we don't talk enough about the wellness industry. So here are several things to also think about.

It's normal to not always be happy. We've set happiness as the goal and the standard and it's fucking stupid. It's ok to not be happy. It's human to not always be happy. It's part of life. You're not failing if you're not happy. Not being happy doesn't necessarily mean you're depressed. Allow yourself to not be happy. It's normal. And it leads me directly to my second point...

Leave some room for your so-called negative emotions. All the emotions are adaptive, meaning they have a reason to be, even when they're not nice to feel. Now let's be clear, I'm talking about the daily thing right? If you have depression or anxiety or something else, they can get somewhat dysfunctional and that's a whole other thing even though it's also ok. But like. Being sad is a normal thing and serves a purpose (sadness and displays of sadness lead the people around us to help and take care of us), anger is a normal thing and serves a purpose (it lets you know what is beyond your limits and gives you the impulse to change things that are unacceptable to you), even more complex, social emotions such as shame or regret or grief have a purpose. Being positive is all good and fine but you cannot, let me repeat : you cannot, always be happy and positive. Hence...

There is such a thing as toxic positivity. Thinking positive is good, but it shouldn't lead you to ignore, repress, push down, or neglect your other emotions. They are here for a reason, and they're good for you. They inform you about the world around you and how you experience it. So stay in touch with the complete panel of your emotions. Don't let them overwhelm you, as they are just information, but don't ignore them either, as they are information. Also if your emotions do get overwhelming, dysfunctional, cause you distress, and/or make it difficult for you to live your life : please ask for help (and I know, help is not available to everybody and I have no solution for that but if you can : ask for help). Many people use so-called positivity as a way to try and control their emotions. When it doesn't work, because that's not what it's supposed to do and/or they have an actual emotional disorder (which often requires more care than "just" that), they get anxious, they feel like they're losing control, they feel like they are failing, they try to do more to get back on track, they try to think positive harder, they add rituals to rituals, they do gratitude logs and then add daily affirmations and then it doesn't work so they try to meditate but they still feel sad and so they drink more green tea, and and and. Those are all ways to try and control themselves. (And btw while we're here let me say that thinking positive shouldn't cost money, if you have to buy special journals and incense and tea or whatever to do it, you're being robbed.) It's not actually positive, it's not self-acceptance and it's not self-love, it leads to feelings of inadequacy and incompetency and it's not helpful. That's in part because...

The point of thinking positive is not supposed to be complete constant happiness. Full circle : the point of thinking positive is supposed to be balancing out negative cognitive biases. Our brains are wired to use our past experiences to evaluate future events. So say for example that you have depression and you're lying in bed trying to sleep but you have intrusive recurrent thoughts about the fact that you have depression (they are called ruminations and they are very common in depression). You think "I'll never feel happy again, what's the point?". Positive thinking is not thinking "I'm happy, everything is fine, I'm happy, I'm happy, that's not true I'm not depressed". Positive thinking is rather to suggest other possibilities to your brain like "but it felt good to sit outside in the sun today" or "it is possible to be happy, I was happy last year when I went on that vacation with my friends" or simply "I will feel happiness again". You're not feeling happy now. There's no denying that. Positive thinking is probably not going to single handedly and immediately cure your depression. You may not even believe these positive thoughts you're trying to have right then, but that's fine. They are just a tool among other tools, and they do have a real effect, I promise. Just not instantaneous complete forever happiness. It is mainly just remembering that it is a moment, a state of being, and other, more positive, more agreeable, states of being exist, and none are permanent. It is not denying that moment for what it is. Last but not least...

Positive thinking doesn't solve systemic social issues. As a matter of fact, therapy doesn't solve systemic social issues either. That's a big problem we're facing both as societies and as therapists and to be honest I don't have an answer for what to do about that. I often wonder what I will say to the first young patient that will come see me with so-called "climate anxiety", for example. Climate anxiety is not a psychological illness. Climate anxiety is a rational response to what is happening right now. What am I supposed to say to them? They are right, the situation is dire. "Think positive?" Bullshit. That's not gonna save the bees, nor the ice caps, nor any of us. Thinking positive doesn't solve poverty, it doesn't solve racism, or sexism, or queerphobia, or islamophobia, or ableism. In that sense, against these issues, thinking positive as it is marketed to us is privileged liberal bs. Against these issues, what we need is organized social and socialist movements, not gratitude logs.

Anyway. Let's conclude by bringing that back to Formula 1. I absolutely adore Lewis as you know, but he is an immensely rich powerful man telling me to think positive and that I can do whatever I want because where there's a will there's a way and that's absolute fucking bullshit, and he should know better himself being the only black person in his sport, he should see that if it was really a matter of dreaming big and wanting things there would be others there but there isn't, and he should understand his own Hamilton Commission report to be a proof that it's not how it works. But I get the intention, I get that he probably does know, I get that he is trying to inspire and reassure and comfort people, I get that he's trying to protect himself against his own negative thoughts, I get that it wouldn't help him and others to post daily stories about how bad things are, I get he would get horrifying backlash if every of his positive messages were replaced by call-outs of the industry and negative outlooks on things. So I don't hold it against him and understand it for what it is and smile when I see it. But yeah. Positive thinking has its limits.

(Reminder that this is all a simplification and only my opinion.)

Divided States Every time a politician speaks We regret to inform you But the voters didn’t vote in Trump And we live under a Democrat umbrella again Or what? lose osha restrictions, woah global warming.... Wall not stopped by Covid, woah weaken a country....Attack a neighboring Country, woah Putin causing inflictions....all in lines with nue elections and stalled out....woah like the 90’s Old schooled thinkers evil society controlled by leadership, like a France but reoccurrence for Ukraine, anniversary, again for Ukraine a red-letter day By Putin & followers, woah that’s today, and it’s super ozone hole hot today Divided States Divided Countries Since how long? Can I sue Geneva? Or are they a part of my own Country so I can not

(via Let's run away from our problems Fitted V-Neck T-Shirt by Abdo-JR10)

I think we need to get more comfortable with the idea that sometimes shitty, racist, homophobic, bigoted people are still incredibly talented.

I feel like every time I see a post addressing someone’s shitty behavior the post also takes the time to mention that they’re not even good at [x] anyway. And that’s just not always true? Equating being good at a skill as being morally good is just not necessary. Someone can be a fantastic writer, can have a beautiful singing voice, can create breathtaking artwork, and still be a horrible person.

I know part of this is probably just the instinct to dislike everything about a person when you dislike them, but I also think this mindset leads to people defending creatives way past where they should, because if bad people create bad art, then if this person creates art that I like and resonates with me, then they can’t be a bad person!

And you know. That’s just not true. Those two things are simply completely unconnected and I think it’d be healthier if we all started disconnecting them in our heads.

Felt sad I couldn't really interact today due to stupid big girl cramps ! >:( stuck in bedd ! To be on my phone but I'll have to move around a lil bit♡ the more then summer approaches the more anxious I get , I wanna be out the house this summer n hopefully land a job so m e wh e r e ?? Plus my step brother comes here during the summers and hes v annoying and i refuse to pamper a 13yr old like last year, I dont want my parents putting me on babysitting duty smh :( pls wish me luckk

All my lovely followers...

This is from my snapchat. I took this photo a few minutes ago. I don't think that i am even that attractive and this sweater that i am wearing has alot of sequence (bling bling lol).

Anyway i wonder what you all think of my new selfie? I know that don't take much selfies because i think that i look damn ugly. But hopefully you all like it. And i also know that i don't look like a 41 year old but more like a 16 year old 😛.

I am thinking positive things only and being happy on here.

I am not gonna let anon hate get to me anymore. I won't allow that anymore on here.

Humans are so cute

lol idk why writing this stuff down here helps but as of right now i feel like i’m ok. thinking positively (and a spliff) helps me clear my brain from all the negativity. outside is raining and smoking out there was an experience. calming..till crows showed up lol ..like 15 of them..scary… never the less i feel calm and although things are dilapidated i have know things WILL get better.

Dear diary,

Started a new job, new system for the whole company. Going live next week. I'm full of Anxiety.. All computer training. Mostly videos.. Wish me luck ! 🍀