By Clayton Ainger
Every day we experience negativity, whether it comes from feelings and emotions, actions, behavior, self-talk within ourselves or the external opinions of others. For many people, this negativity sabotages success, relationships, health, well-being, and finances, ultimately preventing them from fully experiencing life and living their dreams.
How do I know? Because I was one of those people…
In my own life, I regularly experienced intense negativity. I sabotaged my success, my weight, my health and vitality, my relationships, my career, my finances, and my spirituality.
Let me share a few examples with you…
Health and weight. I used to weigh 252 pounds. I remember working in London and having a full English breakfast of sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, fried bread, and French fries every day for nine months. Then, at lunchtime having foods like pasta, and in the evening going out with colleagues drinking until I would fall into my apartment. Today, I am proud to say that I weigh a healthy 182 pounds and have maintained that weight for the majority of the past 10 years.
Career and finances. I used to be an accountant and tax consultant, and for 10 years of that career I was extremely unhappy and felt unfulfilled. I left with no money and high debts to start my own consultancy business, which I have grown to a six-figure turnover that is now on course for seven figures.
Relationships. I went from being divorced and alone to being happily married to my twin flame soul mate.
Spirituality. I was so afraid of what people would think and say about me that I hid my gifts for years. I also experienced psychic attacks from so-called “teachers” who tried to get me to stop exploring those gifts. I now give psychic readings to people all over the world. I run spiritual events, and recently I wrote my first book, The Ego’s Code.
I am very comfortable in my own skin, and I have accepted who I am and all that I am as a limitless being. I play many roles in my life—husband, father, son, brother, friend, entrepreneur, business owner, health nut, shaman, psychic medium, speaker, and author, just to name a few—and I love them all!
Why Negativity?
There are patterns to our negativity. It has meaning! That is why the same things keep happening over and over again in our lives!
There is something fundamental that you need to learn that will help you heal the aspect(s) of your life that you are unhappy with. The combination of your negative self-talk, thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors, and emotional well-being can reveal a key that will help you to understand and decipher what is blocking you so that you can eventually live an ego free identity. This is called the Ego’s Code.
“Negativity” is a natural and normal psychological and physical message from your mind and body—a thought, a feeling, an emotion, an action, a behavior or self-talk—letting you know that something is not quite right or how you believe it should be.
Its primary purpose is to keep you safe. On a psychological and physical level, the negativity you experience today is an evolution of man’s normal and natural “fight, flight, or freeze” responses. But there is so much more to your negativity…
Is Negativity a bad thing?
When I ask this question at events and with corporate clients, 99 times out of 100 people answer the question with a “yes.” Always, my challenge back, is that if we answer “yes” then we are making something that is natural and normal wrong.
So why do we believe negativity is bad or wrong? Often it is because of the kneejerk or unplanned reactions we have (often out of our awareness) and the subsequent outcomes or impact these reactions have on us emotionally and on our lives (e.g., we can feel regret or guilt for hours, weeks, months, or even years afterwards).
However, when our reactions keep us safe we receive a different internal communication that says everything is as it should be; harmony is restored and, therefore, it is a good thing.
But is it? What if our reaction maintains the status quo and keeps us in an abusive relationship or prevents us from experiencing the best of life. Is it good then? Or it causes harm to through self-punishment (e.g. over eating) or unkindness (e.g. beating yourself up) or self-sabotage (e.g. by spending money you had put aside to pay your mortgage)? Or it causes harm to others, which we often see in the world around us and hear from people we know every day? The obvious answer is, “Of course not!” While on a physical level we receive a confirmation that all is as it should be; on a spiritual level we know we should have responded differently.
In my experience, the main reason this continues to happen is that over time we have been conditioned and programmed to react in a certain way, which creates a pattern of reactions when specific external or internal buttons are pushed. My concern is that this will continue until we, as a global society, seek and truly understand why we experience negativity and then define its true purpose. Don’t get me wrong, scientists fundamentally understand the biology behind negativity. Neuroscience absolutely understands the brain and body responses, and a lot of philosophers have tried to understand its true meaning. However, if we knew better, surely we would do better, right? We would not react or repeat unhealthy patterns of behavior just to maintain the status quo. We would be living our dreams every day!
The Roots of Negativity
The most important thing you need to understand about negativity is that ALL forms of negativity are echoes or whispers of our past—they relate to and come from events in our past. Not just our past in the current life time, but our past in previous lifetimes, too!
So, every time you experience a negative thought, feeling, emotion, action, behavior or self-talk incident, you are reliving an event from your past, in the here and now. Basically your mind and your body have a perfect memory of your life experiences and you are unconsciously reliving one.
This is why, even when life is going great, you are flying high, and feeling unstoppable, all of the sudden something happens—a triggering event—and you feel like you are back where you started! In my life it used to feel like “Groundhog Day,” where I was reliving the same event over and over again, just with different people or a similar situation. I continued to attract people and situations into my life so that I could play out my past over and over again.
The Purpose of Negativity
Negativity has a definite psychological purpose. While it can be easy to dismiss negativity as being innately detrimental in our life, in truth it is the reactions to our negativity that result in detrimental outcomes for us. Understanding our negativity is the first step to living a positive life.
At the start of my events, I have found that the majority of participants do one of two things with negativity: stuff it down or ignore it, hoping it will go away. In fact, one of the best stories I have heard was from a lady who visualized putting a negative situation and its associated feelings in a box, wrapping it up as a present, with a big beautiful bow, tying chains around it with huge boulders, and throwing it in the ocean hoping it would sink to the bottom. Guess what? It did not stay down for long.
When it comes to a negative situation, we cannot hide from it, dissolve it, ignore it, or stuff it down. Why? Because spiritually, negativity is not negative—it has a purpose!
This is why positive thinking does not counteract negativity in the long term. This is why, for example, when you want to lose weight eventually you put it back on again! This is why you continue to sabotage similar events in your life. This is why when you want to sit and write a book, you procrastinate, as I did for so long!
Negativity is energy, and all negativity has a unique energetic signature. The great thing about energy is that it can be changed, released, or transformed into something that will serve you rather than incapacitate or hinder you. So, if you change the meaning and name of the negativity from something that is bad to something that is natural and here to help you to learn, watch what happens! Crazy, I know, especially when it makes you feel so bad. I promise that when you start to do this, you will see evidence of the change in your life too! It will transform on all levels.
Clayton Ainger and his wife Lindsay run a successful training and consultancy business, working with people all over the world, from different walks of life. Being an ex tax specialist, Clayton loves to be different, to challenge the status quo, and inspire the people and companies he works with to explore new ways of thinking, attitudes and behaviours, transforming lives and results for the long term. He is now a spiritual teacher, psychic medium and shamanic healer.
The Ego’s Code (Panoma Press) reveals how you can learn to decipher your code and stop sabotaging your success. Clayton believes that there are patterns to our negativity. It has meaning! That is why the same things keep happening over and over again! The Ego’s Code will help us understand the true reason behind negativity and what steps you can take to let that go and create a new you! Contact Clayton by email at clayton@sareosconsulting.co.uk or learn more about him on the Sareos website: http://www.sareosconsulting.co.uk/speakers/clayton-ainger/