Choosing Love Over Negativity

A Path to Personal Transformation

This is a new edition of the original book, The Up Side of Being Down: It’s About Your Attitude. I have given this new edition the subtitle Healing the Dis-Ease of Negativity, the title under which I originally wrote the book. Dis-Ease, with the emphasis on the word “ease,” refers not to an illness per se but describes the discomfort and uneasiness we experience when consumed by a downward attitude and thinking pattern. 

Twenty years ago, I thought it was too pointed to put the word negativity on the cover, so I softened the subtitle to It’s About Your Attitude. Times have changed, and we are more openly discussing negative attitudes in our society. Thus, Healing the Dis-Ease of Negativity more accurately reflects this book’s content. 

The Up Side is that we can change this negative downward way of viewing life. We can change being on the Down Side of life. Healing our personal negativity with Mind Fitness guides us to recognize and accept our individual forms of negative thinking as the beginning step to healing that unwanted downward, on-the-edge feeling. 

This guide was the first in what has grown to be the Mind Fitness Series. This initial book deals with the below-the-line negativity in our lives. Unlike exercise for the body, exercise for the mind is “the no-sweat way to sanity!” Instead of running, you relax; instead of breathing hard, you breathe rhythmically; instead of a racing heart, your heart beats softly, and so it goes. You get the idea. I think you will like it.

It boils down to this:

1. Attitudinal thinking results from our personal, social, and cultural backgrounds and beliefs.

2. Our attitudes influence our moods and how we perceive and approach life.

3. We have the power to choose what our basic attitudes will be. 

We can learn new ways of thinking based on choice, responsibility, and self-determination, oriented towards love and even happiness rather than on childhood helplessness, defensive anger, or fear. 

When we start our personal Mind Fitness training, we consciously choose to take some control of our lives by putting ourselves into training that will result in our release from a condition that has been sapping our strength and energy for a long time. It is a choice for love, health, happiness, and developing our creativity and richest potential in all fields of endeavor. 

Is that an ideal? Yes and no. It is a clear personal choice to actively

learn to live a life designed around dynamic love and mental optimism.

I invite you to embark on this journey of self-discovery and transformation, and to challenge yourself in choosing love over negativity.

Joy