How To Transform Negativity In The World

It Starts With The Letter L

SPIRIT :: “It’s just all so much. Make it stop.” So said my friend Simone when we were talking on the phone one recent Sunday morning. (You may know Simone Denny, she’s the Juno-winning, Billboard chart-topping frontwoman of Love, Inc. and BKS, and sang the theme song to the original Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. Listen to her new single, a cover of the classic James Bond movie theme song “Diamonds Are Forever” here.)

Simone and I were sharing our sadness over the breaking news that powerhouse singer Angie Stone had been killed in a car crash the night before (and the loss of Roberta Flack earlier in the week.) Angie Stone was part of the soundtrack to my club kid career; Simone moved in the same circles as Stone. Her tragic death was just awful news.

Two mornings before, I was taking my dog, Léo, out for his first pee du jour, and as I turned a corner onto Church Street, I saw a trail of red. It was wet and fresh. Blood. As I did my best to keep Léo from stepping in it, I made my way - for almost an entire block - following the bloody trail until we reached the corner, one of the intersections in the gay Village I live in where the crosswalks are painted as the rainbow flag, the symbol of LGBTQ+ pride since the 1970’s.

Lying on the rainbow, with so much blood on one arm it looked like it had been painted red, was a stabbing victim. A police officer was trying to get tourniquet onto him, another police officer was telling witnesses to stick around to give statements. This scene was 30 seconds from my home.

When I walked Léo at lunchtime, the intersection was blocked to traffic, aggressive looking cop vehicles and cops everywhere, and some evidence lying on the rainbow, waiting for whatever one does with such evidence when they are investigating.

It was a grizzly start to my day, and the days of several others who actually witnessed the stabbing. Moreso, it was more evidence of a world upside down, a world perhaps going or gone mad.

That day ended with on YouTube. I watched, mouth agape, an embarrassing display: Donald Trump and his faux VP JD VAnce aggressively spewing insults, bullshit, and Russian propaganda at a modern-day Winston Churchill, a stoic Ukraine President Zelensky.

I quietly lost it. How dare they, what raw gall. I felt my blood boil, and then went to sleep in a way I rarely do: angry. My monkey brain made a rare appearance, and instead of falling asleep quickly as is my lucky way most nights, I stewed and tossed and lost sleep over it.

So Simone nailed it that Sunday: Life right now is hard. It just is. Everywhere you turn, seemingly more negative than positive. The shocking news is too much. Negative personal experiences? Too much. Cost of living, political uncertainty, two wars, America under siege; I could go on. It all feels like too much; make. it. stop.

Since that weekend and my conversation with Simone, as the world continues to be racing towards hell in a handbasket - Signal gate, Trump tariffs, Canada angry with America, fill in the blank with your own individual personal issues - I have been thinking about something I once wrote about in my former Spirit & The City column in the 24 Hours commuter paper. It has always helped me when it feels there is more wrong that right, more evil than good, and more pain than joy in our world. I have started putting it into practice again in these troubled times, and it is helping. Maybe it will be helpful to you, too.

Here’s the idea, as I wrote it in my column:

All the negativity in the world can only be transformed with love.

Love energy vibrates at a frequency far greater than that of hate (fear). If you magnify energy, it looks like waves, and those waves are measured in Hertz (Hz), the number of waves per second. When we love, or radiate any positivity, we emit high vibrations (up to .10 – .15 Hz); we literally add voltage and power to the world. When we hate, or radiate negativity, our vibrational offering is weak: as low as .01 – .08 Hz.

As quantum physics teaches, energy vibrates; vibration attracts vibration; like attracts like. Therefore, the dominant power of love literally draws more love. So “put more love into the world” isn’t just a platitude on social media in the wake of (insert the latest news tragedy) it’s the fastest, strongest actionable response to all hate – and one we can each harness always.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed from one form to another. What’s happening in the world is an invitation to collectively transform the low-vibe negative hate and fear energy on such blinding display right now with our collective high-vibe love energy.

Here’s how to become someone from whom high love vibrations beam:

Within Yourself: Practice loving kindness towards you. Someone who loves themselves is a million times more powerful than someone who doesn’t. The next time you look in the mirror and jump into any old habit of criticizing, stop. Find something to praise, even if at first it is only your willingness to stop criticizing you. Look yourself directly in the eye while looking into the mirror and say aloud “I love you.” This is powerful work – but can be so much harder than you’d expect at first – that creates a love-filled you. Begin to forgive yourself and continue to. Be an aligned person, one who does not speak or act unless they are in a place of high energy; make your alignment your top goal daily.

Within Your Immediate Orbit: Where is the bar set for forgiveness of those in your life? Where is the bar set for judgement? Where is the bar for acceptance? Adjust them so that forgiveness and acceptance have room to grow and thrive, and judgement can barely squeeze through. Listen to others to understand, not just to reply. Speak up when you hear or see hate within your public and private lives, yet stay high-minded as you do so. Tell those you love that you do. Get so good at saying “I love you” that it just rolls off the tongue. Treat each encounter with family, friends and colleagues as sacred. That means putting your smartphone down, looking them in the eye and listening and respecting that this now-moment with them is the only thing that matters.

Within The World Around You: Stop casting strangers out of your heart. Those who are not like you in race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, opinion, behaviour, priorities, status or politics still do not give you one justifiable reason to do anything other than be open-hearted. Sameness is not our friend, diversity is. When it comes to others and how you presume them to be, ask yourself: Could I be mistaken? As you make your way through the world and pass people, silently bless them with am authentic, heart-based wish for a brilliant day. Commit anonymous acts of kindness. Make it your dominant intention all day every day to look for things to appreciate in everything and everyone you encounter.

It may feel like we live in a world where evil dominates, but there is more light shining throughout our planet at any given moment in time than there is darkness. Precisely as the shit that is going down is going down, elsewhere around the globe babies are being born to joyous, grateful parents, people are making love, blissful miraculous happenings are occuring in abundance, children are screaming with laughter, playing, countless people are dancing, acts of worthy good are being carried out, grand news is being received, and this is constant truth that is never reported on, hardly ever talked about, a truth that never goes away. It’s a truth that is yours and mine to know whenever either of us needs it.

Don’t suppress the negative emotions you feel. Instead, navigate them towards the greater good of yourself and the world by dialing up the frequency of all the love you have to give us all.

Shaun Proulx hosts The Shaun Proulx Show heard weekends on SiriusXM Canada Talks 167, and now here on this Substack. More at ShaunProulx.com