Ask Biella: “What is a good example of turning a negative situation into a positive?”

Dear Ashley, a quote from the Young Man came up as I was thinking about a particularly good example of turning a negative situation into a Positive: (There are so many.)

“If we approach so-called failure or mistakes a little differently we can find persistence, determination, tolerance, patience and forbearance. (To name but a few!) Haha, after a while of this there is no failure, just alternative successes.“

At one time, the Young Man and his Heart transitioned to a new business. They did their homework, scrupulously researching the new business. It was connected to another company from which their contracts would mainly come. This company they had checked out by a prestigious and expensive law firm. Doing everything they could in the circumstances, they were impeccable in their diligence.

But, nothing came of the venture. Absolutely nothing. Beyond exceptional, this utter failure of the new business was remarkable. When their existing finances came to an end, they had nothing. Forced out of their offices and where they lived, a re-assessment was needed. They had nothing but their focus on Positivity and their insistence on Learning and Growing.

Looking at the situation “objectively,” conventionally, they could have accepted the negativity of the situation. They could have retreated from the path of independence they had chosen. They could have gone back and started all over again, getting jobs and so on. Which in itself is not a negative, but at that time it would have been a retreat, a going back, a giving up on their dreams of independence.

The “failure” of their business did not to them mean they had to fail in their quest, their path. This they refused to do. Thus they took the lack of business in stride, insisting that it had to be good in some way. A way they did not yet perceive. They utterly refused to see the oddity of that complete lack of business, the total failure of that business, in normal or negative terms. They were determined to turn it into a Positive.

Their choices were either to turn back on their Path, to give up their dreams, or to take the only option open to them, which was to venture into the unknown. Because they refused to see the business failure as a negative, it kept them open to opportunity, to possibility. At the time, that option meant selling most of their possessions and hiring two guys with a small moving truck for a one-way trip to a remote farm owned by the Young Man’s father.

There was no-one there, nothing really except the possibility of continuing on their Path. They refused to even consider that this peculiar opening, their only option that did not mean giving in and giving up, was anything but the way to proceed, that it would be Positive. Positive in ways they could not yet see. But they insisted on Trusting that it would be so.

Off they went into the unknown. They took that one-way trip. It ended up being into the desert, to a deserted and long-abandoned farm. No electricity, no phone, no running water, no nothing. The abandoned farmhouse had its roof blown off, only a thin ceiling still in place.

Here again, they could have seen this as a “failure” of choice. But they were determined to turn that odd business failure into a Positive. This meant that being there in the desert had to be transformed from the apparent negative it seemed to be, into a Gift.

They set about dealing with their new circumstances as best they could. Determined to Make-The-Best-Of-It. Their adventures there in that wonderful desert are too long and many to recount here. After a while of insisting on turning their potentially negative experiences into Positives, they sat down and made a list. They asked themselves: “What have we been forced to Learn.” To them, Learning was always Positive. Learning and Growing was their focus and Intent, always phenomenally Positive.

Thirty-one profound lessons made their rigorously compiled list. They were rigorous in the making of that list. They focused on lessons which were not only significant, but which had actually changed them. Many in deep and profound ways. Changing them in ways they had not until then realised needed changing. They had not been in circumstances before where those changes were needed.

That list was a big deal, representing the totality of their insistence on applying Positivity and learning. Every item on that list showed a transformation of a negative into a positive. Like dealing with isolation, being alone. Handling the profound silence of the desert was another. Using the ever-present dangers of living there as a Positive for enhancing their Awareness.

Making the list itself was a massive act of Positivity. It brought home to them the fullness of the power of their insistence on turning negatives into Positives, and that this practice of theirs was not really an option, but a necessity, yet a choice nonetheless. The list represented a confirmation of their life-choices, their underlying personal-philosophy and the resulting attitudes and mindsets. Primary among those was the deliberate choice and decision to find the good in everything.

The list was a confirmation. A few days after the making of that profound listing, a miracle happened. At least, in the context it most decidedly seemed so. They were visited. They knew no-one in the area, had no transport. No-one knew they were there. But they received a visitor. Not a random visitor either, but one on a mission to find them. The visitor had been dispatched to make them an offer! An offer to come to a mountaintop game ranch next to the desert valley they were in and set up a restaurant for the guests.

They accepted. This led to even more wonderful and profound experiences, starting an extended journey of adventure and marvel. A new path which enabled them to continue following their dreams and in a fairly short time enable them to move to an entirely new continent where the continuation of their path awaited. For the Young Man and his Heart, that initial “failure” of that particular business represented a most magical change in their lives. A change which forced them onto a Path which was fantastic in every way. Had that so-called failure not have happened they could easily never have connected with all the magic and wonder which they did.

Always, whatever happens, “failure” is simply a choice of Perspective. If we choose, we can instead simply see it as Change, sometimes forced change, but change nonetheless. The issue is not failure or success, but how we choose to deal with change. That choice is one that’s purely determined by our insistence on Unrelenting Positivity.

Biella