ABCs of Positivity

ABCs of Positivity

The first fae member of the Fairy Positive family was The Gratitude Fairy.* I like to think of gratitude as the gateway emotion: it’s next to impossible to move from any negative emotion or state unless and until you can feel a sense of gratitude. And it doesn’t matter what you’re grateful for, or how big or small the gratitude is. The feeling of thankfulness is expansive – the more grateful you are, the more you feel you have to be grateful for. So if you find yourself needing to get to a better place, starting with the smallest of gratitudes is fine.

So once The Gratitude Fairy had come into existence, it wasn’t long before her cousin, The Creativity Fairy, emerged. Then came thoughts of The Sustainability Fairy. The Gratitude Fairy already has her own book. The story of The Creativity Fairy is written – now it needs the art. Sustainability is on the back burner simmering quietly – though every now and then a bubble pops to remind me she’s there.

If you know your alphabet, you may have realized we have 3 of the 26 letters covered with the three fairies introduced thus far. As I mentioned in The Birth of Fairy Positive, I don’t fancy myself the Sue Grafton of the fairy world, writing every book in alpha order – but I like to imagine I might one day write one book for each letter of the alphabet. So I decided to assign a word (in a few cases, two words) to each letter of the alphabet in a collection I am calling The ABCs of Positivity.

I will spend the next 26 days fleshing out each of these concepts in its own post. In the meantime, here’s a teaser for each letter of the alphabet.

Abundance – Abundance means so much more than material wealth. We’ll explore the many areas one can experience abundance, and how to bring more of it into your life.

Brilliance / Balance – Brilliance is intense light, vibrant color, and/or exceptional intelligence. How would developing more of any of those increase our sense of positivity? And why/how can we bring more equilibrium to all of our life experiences. I will try to address both these concepts without being too disjointed about it.

Creativity – I used to teach a class called “If You Have a Brain You Are a Creative Person.” It’s still my belief we are all creative in some way. Many of us have figured out where our creative talents lie; for others, they may be latent. We’ll explore why and how to bring them to the surface.

Discipline – If you’d told me even 5 years ago that I’d even consider writing a book about discipline as a positive, I’d have laughed in your face. Well, things change – and I now understand my old friend Matt Moran’s statement that there is freedom in discipline. If you view it, as I used to, as soul-crushing, I will offer you some thoughts on why you might want to reconsider that.

Education – I’ve long been convinced that most ills in the world could be corrected – or significantly improved – with a proper emphasis on the right kind of education. Lecturing seldom works – but teaching by example is a great way to get your message across. Every one of us has had teachers throughout our lives – and most of us have been teachers at one time or another.

Forgiveness – It’s hard to question the fact that forgiveness can lead to a more positive life experience, but sometimes it’s challenging to get there. We’ll explore why and how to let go and move on.

Gratitude – In this post, I will focus on the gifts we experience when we learn to make gratitude a regular practice.

Health – Yep this is a BIG topic. I’ll touch on the ways I focus on my health and why our mindset has so much to do with how well our bodies feel.

Initiative / Intuition – It’s my contention that a key ingredient to success is resourcefulness, along with its first cousin, initiative. Resourcefulness is the ability to troubleshoot and problem-solve. Initiative means moving ahead without waiting to be told. Another important I word is intuition, that inner knowing or ability/willingness to trust your hunches. We’ll tie them all together in this post.

Joy – Seems kind of on the nose, but joy is a lovely emotion that deserves its own exploration.

Keys / Kindness – I started with kindness, but as I imagined the idea of kindness, I was still noodling on K words and the concept of key popped into my head and would not be silenced. While keys literally open doors, kindness opens figurative doors. So kindness is a key. You’re gonna love the logic of this post.

Love / Logic – Speaking of logic … I tend to be fairly center-brained, meaning I balance my emotional, arty aspects with precision and problem-solving skills. Knowing when to apply love and when logic is needed is an art many of us can learn.

Mindfulness – Much like joy, this is a bit on the nose, too. It’s a touchstone word today that is almost overused – and yet it is such a key (see what I did there?) to a positive life experience that we’ve got to say a few words about it. I’ll talk about my own daily mindfulness practice and how it came to be.

Navigation – How we move through life determines, in large part, what we experience. Navigation can pertain to driving instructions or use of an app or website. It can also relate to how we move through the world, both literally and figuratively. You don’t have to know how you’re going to get there, but as the Cheshire Cat said, “If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there.”

Opportunity – How good are you at recognizing opportunities? How good are you at creating opportunities? We’ll look at why some people seem to get all the breaks – and why others always feel like they came in second – or last.

Practical Philanthropy – This is the title of a book I wrote a while ago and plan to rewrite for the Fairy Positive series. We address giving back in ways that work for people who aren’t millionaires and billionaires. And why it’s important.

Questions – From the earliest days, my dad drummed into me the concept: “If you don’t know, ask.” Consequently, I have been a consummate lifelong question-asker. We’ll explore which questions to ask, which questions to answer, and which questions to ignore altogether.

Relationship – Another BIG topic. We’ll explore what they have to do with a positive life experience.

Sustainability – This topic is near and dear to my heart. We’ll define sustainability and talk about what the average person can do to make a difference.

Tranquility – What does it mean and how can we experience more of it?

Unity – In a world that seems so fractured, this should topic should probably move to the top of the list. This post will feature ideas for achieving unity in a world that is actively working to divide us.

Versatility – A mentor told me many years ago about working for a company: “If you’re irreplaceable, you’re unpromotable.” This sums up the importance of versatility – it’s crucial if we want to grow.

Wonder – Related to my question-asking, I wonder about so many things. Some are answerable – others virtually imponderable because they are so big. Why should we wonder? And what can we expect to come from it?

eXploration – Yes, it’s a cheesy move to use an “ex” word for X, but there are absolutely zero words related to positivity that begin with. Besides, you’re a creative, innovative, versatile thinker who wants to explore new horizons with me, don’t you?

Yoga – I’m not much of a regular practitioner, but there are so many benefits of yoga that permeate our everyday lives. We’ll take a look at a few of them.

Zeal / Zest – While often conflated, these words are not interchangeable. Zest is lively enjoyment; zeal is diligent devotion. We’ll look at how and why to inject more of each into your positive life experience.

If you’ve read to the end, good on you! Let me know in the comments which post you’d most like to read. Maybe I’ll shake things up and go out of order after all. How about if I start with A, and we’ll see how it goes?

Tune in tomorrow for Abundance. Until I see you again … thank you fairy much for reading.

* If you’d like to learn the details, you can read about how it all came about my post titled Birth of Fairy Positive.

**All original art by Laura Orsini

ABCs of Positivity A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, consultant, publisher, and creator of Fairy Positive, an antidote to the worries of the world. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.