How The Art of Being Human began

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My Vibrant Nation blog, The Art of Being Human, began as a 90-day No Negativity Challenge. If you’d like to read the conversations that led up to my blog, this index of the posts–listed in date order–will help.

• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 1
  I’ve decided to challenge myself to 90 days of no gossip or negativity.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 2
  Geeze, could someone turn off the voice in my head?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 3
  Negativity begets negativity.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 4
  I need to elevate my level of conversation, more Charlie Rose and less TMZ.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 5
  I don’t think we can afford the luxury of living in caves.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 6
  Removing negativity from my life is like cleaning off the dining room table before a dinner party.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 8
  Damn if I didn’t sing better than I have in a long time. The only change I made was in removing the negativity from my mind.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 9
  The constant running commentary of my mind is annoying. I am not my mind, I am not my thoughts.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 10
  By focusing on not thinking negative thoughts, I was steering my mind where I didn’t want to go. Do I want to see where I want to go or do I want to see where I don’t want to go?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 11
  The issue for me at work is not just keeping my own thoughts and language free from negativity but what to do with people around me who are negative.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 12
  Joe Friday was my guardian angel today. “The facts ma’am, just the facts.”
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 13
  The biggest thing I’ve noticed about negativity is how it is always about a future or past event and an interpretation of those events.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 14
  Hidden in negativity are messages like I’m afraid, I’m ashamed, I feel guilty, or my personal favorite, I feel judged.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 15
  Most of my negative thoughts are none of my business when you get right down to it.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 16
  It’s just facts if you don’t dress it up with speculations and opinions. Do you have any idea how empowering that is?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 17
  Today I did well. I was on the river but I was just on the river, I just drove, I just paddled, I just changed clothes. I gave my complete and full attention to whatever it was I was doing.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 18
  I thought by taking this challenge I was giving myself a rest from it all, a little break. I didn’t know that it would, in fact, become a journey and exploration.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 19
  The Negative Expert: I don’t want to be right at another person’s expense.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 20
  A young woman I work with who heard about the challenge came to me, concerned: “I hope you don’t stop being you.”
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 21
  We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us. Which brings me to people who are negative and call it being realistic.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 22
  Serenity was my companion at a bluegrass jam last night.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 23
  The difference between now and before I started this challenge is that my spirit is not nearly as agitated and my decisions are originating from a position of inner strength and confidence.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 24
  Today I am putting on a red dress and a kick ass attitude and that is not negative.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 25
  Negativity creates doubt. What would my life be like if I lived it boldly and fearlessly?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 26
  I have an opportunity to demonstrate the power of peaceful integrity, but flaming-throwing rhetoric that stirs the passions is so much easier.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 27
  Negativity has become a way of bonding, a foundation for our friendships and it’s infectious.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 28
  Chronically negative people are always available and because I was lonely those were the people I reached out to.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 29
  It hasn’t been my own negativity that has been an issue for me this week; it’s been reacting to others.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 30
  I like my life a whole lot more when I don’t have someone telling me what’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with them or what’s wrong with someone we know.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 31
  I don’t have to put a positive spin on a situation. There is room for something else, even though I don’t know what that is just yet.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 32, part 1
  There’s always a reason to complain and today was one of those days.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 32, part 2
  I woke up in a kick-the-dog mood this morning.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 33
  I’ve been trying to figure out techniques and strategies to use with negative people.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 34
  Issues from the past that I thought I had dealt with and laid to rest have risen up in rebellion to this challenge.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 35
  Fear is a breeding ground for negativity, pure and simple.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 36
  Remember, you are special – just like everyone else.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 37
  I have become as discerning about who I bring into my life as I am of the thoughts I let into my mind.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 38
  One thing at a time.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 39
  People don’t come to me bitching and moaning like they used to. They assume that I’m not going to bitch and moan and most of the time I don’t.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 40
  Love is a very selfish and generous act. I loved so that I could be free and I loved until I was.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 41
  Complaining has reared its ugly head again.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 42
  What I’ve learned from this challenge is that first of all negativity is destructive and secondly that it’s all smoke and mirror tricks of the mind.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 43
  Now would be a good time to review what negativity is and see if my smart ass comments fall into any of the categories.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 44
  How can we be fierce and passionate without needlessly destroying relationships and other people?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 46
  What I’m really doing is mentally defending myself against anticipated criticisms and slights. Why do I feel defensive?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 47
  Today feels like I’ve crested the summit.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 48
  Sadness is part of the human experience and not necessarily negative.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 49
  I see the benefits of eliminating negativity from my life more and more each day.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 50
  I’ve been holding on to something I needed to let go of: resentment.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 51
  The willingness to engage in this process, the struggle with the unknown is, for me, an act of faith.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 52
  A pissed off attitude and needing to be seen as significant has made me lose the focus of what’s important.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 53, part 1
  I was on the Oprah show today.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 53, part 2
  There was an empty place where there was negativity and we all know that nature abhors a vacuum.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 54
  I’m letting a new normal reveal itself in the absence of negativity.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 55
  Could it be that fantasy creates negativity? How is that possible?
• 90 Day No No Negativity Challenge – Day 56
  Wanna know an easy way to seal off the cracks to negativity?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 57
  I’m not a victim of the universe. In fact the universe is trying to help me.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 58, part 1
  Every day I am more fully present more often.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 58, part 2
  When I reminded him that I was on a 90 Day No Negativity Challenge, he changed the subject…to my love life. I should have let him complain.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 59
  I fed the wolf of peace. That took some doing today.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 60
  Looking back over my life I can see how a characteristic I thought of as a virtue created unnecessary drama and damaged relationships.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 61
  This morning I had two inner images, one of a farmer in the Old West planting his crop and one of the gunslinger riding out of town.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 62
  I was trying to do two very opposite things, destroy and create.
• Day 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 63
  Cynicism is the pinnacle of negativity disguised as a virtue that the rest of us just don’t get.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 64
  It’s not normal to bellow at the driver who cuts you off.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 65
  Undamn yourself.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 66
  It can feel virtuous and powerful to point the finger at someone.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 67
  That’s right folks, I stepped right up and claimed crone wisdom.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 68
  I have started unplugging.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 69
  The difference between dancing with the universe and fighting it.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 70
  The thing is, I wasn’t especially upset – a nice change.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 71
  I started out doing this challenge to give myself a break from negativity from other people. Along the way I learned about quite a little bit about negativity and myself.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 72
  A friend asked me if I noticed any difference since I started this challenge.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 73
  I’m learning to stop giving myself away.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 74
  I’ve been trying to do two things, make sure things get moving and be in the background. I know what you’re thinking: “How’s that working for you, Deb?”
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – day 75
  The difference between real optimism and delusional optimism.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 76
  Since this challenge my intuition has become clearer and spot-on reliable, but this is different.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 77
  I don’t want to be Joan of Arc anymore.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 78
  I got stories, ya’ll. But they’re not stories that need to be told by me anymore.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 79
  What I haven’t known until recently is how many other places I am in community – and how much I want that.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 80
  I don’t know everything. Why do I act like I do?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 81
  We meet in the middle when we put peace above being right.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 82
  Guilt reared its ugly little head and whispered the magic words, “You’re being selfish.” Just like that I was twelve years old all over again.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 83
  The difference between a martyr and a person who is sincerely generous.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 84
  What if we really are pieces of God searching for himself?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 85
  Desire tapped at my door and peered around the corner tempting me with wouldn’t-it-be-nice and didn’t-I-deserve.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 86
  The real secret about happiness.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 87
  What would it be like if my thoughts were randomly projected onto a billboard?
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 88
  With three days left in this challenge, I’ve collected a few souvenirs along the way. Here are my two favorites.
• 90 Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 89
  What I see when there is no negativity in my heart and mind.
• 90-Day No Negativity Challenge – Day 90
  What’s left?
• What I learned From my 90 Day No Negativity Challenge
  Inside each of us is a little spark, a flame or a big-assed bonfire. It’s our job to preserve that fire.
• Did you follow my 90 Day No Negativity Challenge?
  I’ve started a blog to keep myself focused and engaged with my soul.

other blog entries from The Art of Being Human »