Recycle the Spirit

A few years ago, I would have dismissed the idea that negativity holds any value. Now, I see it differently. I’ve had both a change of mind and a change of heart.

As a child, I was taught never to waste a single thing. My grandmother lived through two world wars and the Great Depression. My father learned to recycle and repurpose everything, and naturally, this philosophy was passed on to me. Recently, I realised this perspective had extended into the way I manage my spirit, not just my material life.

I began to understand that no energy is wasted.

We know that positive thoughts and feelings can motivate and inspire action. But on reflection, I realised that it’s not positivity itself that drives change, it’s the impulse behind it. That was lightning bolt moment #1.

This same impulse can direct energy toward both positivity and negativity. Energy itself is neutral. It moves wherever we send it. That realisation was lightning bolt moment #2.

I had been only harnessing the positives in life, believing the negatives should be discarded. But if all energy can be repurposed, then even negativity has potential.

I wanted to extract everything possible from life, good and bad.
I decided to stop throwing out the negatives.

After all, I had been taught that there is treasure in the trash.

My spiritual front garden was pristine, enclosed within its white picket fence. But my spiritual backyard was in disarray. It needed work. So I welcomed negativity instead of fearing it.

“Bring it on,” I said. “I am going to clean up my spiritual environment.”

I wanted to break patterns: judging myself and others, indulging in self-pity, dwelling in criticism. Every time I caught myself engaging in negativity, I used it as a key, an opportunity to open a door toward something positive.

Judgment, criticism, and self-pity became triggers, reminding me to:

• Appreciate instead of criticise.
• Express gratitude instead of judgment.
• Offer compassion instead of self-pity.

Like a miner searching for gold, I kept digging until I found the silver lining, the hidden wisdom, the blessing disguised as adversity.

To support this practice, I turned to a dictionary and thesaurus, replacing:

• Criticism with appreciation
• Judgment with gratitude
• Self-pity with compassion

And when I became the target of criticism, pity, or judgment, whether self-inflicted or external, I applied the same method.

Identify the lesson in your hardships.

Gail Goodwin 2013

Negativity isn’t just something to endure—it is something that pushes us toward growth.

I began asking myself:

• What strength has this experience forced me to develop?
• What lesson is hidden within this discomfort?
• What do I gain from being judged, pitied, or criticised?

Every hardship contains a hidden benefit, if I am willing to search for it.

Life contains both light and shadow and both are teachers. By learning to recycle negativity, I have discovered that transformation is not about eliminating struggle. It is about harnessing energy in new ways. Now, I see every challenge as raw material for personal evolution. Nothing is wasted.