Master Key – Week 10 Breaking the addiction

I can feel the addiction to the negativity. I can manage to resist it for as much as a day by diverting  my thoughts and doing affirmations but I cannot seem to keep the door shut. When co workers complain and gossip about things I find frustrating I literally have to bit my tongue and it is so tempting to chime in. When the San Bernardino shooting happened the temptation to look at articles was a little to overwhelming and I gave in and read about it inevitably leading to thoughts of fear, anger, sadness. When the Paris attacks happened a few weeks ago I was able to mostly block it out and focus on being happy and positive, but San Bernardino is  a lot closer to home as it is only about a hundred miles away. Finally I convinced myself to stop looking at the articles and focus on something constructive that I have control over. The strange thing is that with only an hour or so of letting the fear and negativity in I felt that peptide addiction getting its fix and the cravings intensified. I have never thought of negativity as an addiction but I can see clearly now that it is as addicting as sugar. It is almost an irresistible urge to yuck it up with the complainers and ponder the scary and upsetting things in life. Even the knowledge that it is damaging to my personal goals and peace of mind doesn’t make it much easier to resist the temptation. It seems like a bow string being pulled back and if I do not get my fix need to indulge is that much greater at the next opportunity. I am honestly shocked that after all the hard work I have done to be more positive in my life over the past 20 years that I still have such a long way to go.. even more shocking is that it is this difficult for me. I can hear Mark and Davene warning us that we will be surprised by how negative we are even though we may think we are positive.