Positive Mental Attitude — How The Pandemic Helped Me

The year 2020 has finished its first quarter with plenty of unexpected turns — somewhat tragic to humankind. It swallowed Australia with a fire tongue, swept away thousands of lives with a new respiratory virus, and left millions more with fear and uncertainty. My heart truly goes out to each and everyone impacted.

In this historical moment, despite how horrible things are, I believe there are a couple of sublime opportunities that have arrived on humanity's doorstep. I'll share a personal story to illuminate this point.

@edwinhooper

I was born and raised in Vietnam. I met my husband, a Michigander, in the winter time of 2011, and we started dating nearly a year after that. The day I met him, I would not in my wildest of dreams, knew that he would become my husband and we would be living in the United States seven years later. But it happened.

Which one is me?

We decided to build our lives in the US. We setup shop in Miami, the city of sun and beaches. I am having a great time but yet, building an entirely new life, a new identity, and a new career is proving to be rather challenging.

I chose to become a coach because of my desire to help people. But little did I know, helping people is an art of living that requires a lot of growth. Coaching is less a profession and more of a lifestyle. You can only take your clients as far as you carry yourself. Self-development is a big part of coaching practice.

Don't get me wrong; I am absolutely in love with it. My struggle lies deep in not knowing what my identity is. It is hard to build rapport and start helping people when you don't know even know who you are and trust yourself, right?

This challenge results in my lack of confidence "English is not my mother tough. What if I mess up? If people think that I am a fraud?!" I was confused in choosing my coaching niche. I got overwhelmed and caved-in, even got diagnosed with mild depression.

I can assure you that although each person has a different experience, somewhere during our life, this challenge of lack of self-confidence will display itself, then destructively affect us.

Standing where I am today, I would say that sounds like a blaming statement.

Challenges are challenging and are not in our control. Though, our attitude toward such problems is a hundred percent up to us. You might be surprised by how many things are in our control and that we can alter our reality if we know how.

When the pandemic started, investors pulled out from investing in my husband's business. I ran cooking classes where I promoted home cooking and healthy eating. I had a side-hustle at a nail salon as a lashes technician. For the record, I do not know how to do nails, despite being a Vietnamese in America.

Back to the story, we were freaking out. I was confused, angry, anxious — all of those familiar feelings when we face adversities.

Then something happened. I heard my intuition, my gut telling me that "there must be so many people out there suffering from the same feelings as me, and some even worse. What is this telling me? The world needs my service more than ever. I can be there for those in need and who are ready to transform. I want to show up for them!"

And I did!

You see, without the unfortunate pandemic, I would not have felt my calling so loud and clear. I was too busy 'suffering' and forgot to ask for 'help.' I was juggling, trying to make some money and forgot about the 'real prize.' Instead of investing time and effort into manifesting my gift, I spent the time to judge and doubt myself.

Once I reached out and offered my help, the world answered tenfold.

Let me break it down to you. First, it equipped me with an unlimited amount of time to do some deep personal work without distraction from the regular daily hustle. I picked up the book "Success Through Positive Mental Attitude" by Napoleon Hill and learned about having a "Positive Mental Attitude."

The book described that you can turn "the invisible talisman over and use the side which has the force of positive mental attitude rather than the side which has the force of negative mental attitude." This is a choice that is under your control.

Applying this principle, my negative emotions are no longer in my way, and they served as fuel for my desire to serve the world. I understood that 'negative emotions' can have a positive intention. It is there to tell us that we can do better. I used a 'positive mental attitude' to channel my emotions into pure power. I got my first paying clients and ran my virtual program. I got to truly help people and found my destiny, as well as my identity. I developed the 'inspirational dissatisfaction' — in all adversities lies my real strength.

My struggles resolved mostly because the pandemic put me in the environment to orchestrate my revolution as a human being. Think about it, just like in any hero movie, every hero has to go through challenges and come out better on the other side. It is not the challenges that make them heroes, but their attitude toward problems that make them one. It is not our challenges that make us a failure, but our attitude toward ourselves and how we perceive the challenges.

I can't help but think about how grand the universe is and how Mother Earth is so mighty. Humans over thousands and thousands of years had the dream to conquer all of nature's forces. From vehicles that provide speed, flying to win against gravity, traveling to the Moon and back, dreaming about building a new home on Mars. But yet we're almost on our knees because of a single submicroscopic infectious agent that's smaller than a living cell.

@garri

Mother Earth is asking us many helpful questions "how can we do it differently?" What might we have to let go of to grow?". She is coaching us to be a better kind than we currently are, as she successfully coached me.

But these questions are only helpful, and this situation of a global pandemic only works in our favor if we choose to heed her calling.

You have a choice to hang on to what you know and feel comfortable with, and experience this 'new world' that is harsher and brings struggle. Or, you can turn on your "positive mental attitude" and perceive the "new world" with its benefits and start working on answering your questions, find a solution, and forever level up in life.

This year has brought some of the most beautiful days of my life. I have never felt so alive and fulfilled. My heart is filled with enlightenment. My mind is at peace, and my soul is lighting up every day. I am grateful for my existence.

~ Sage