Me, My Scars and I: (Re)channelling Negativity
“Scars are but evidence of life”
I begin by taking you back 12 years to 15 January, 2005.
The date was five years after my brother and I boarded the British Airways flight from the tropical shores of Dar Es-Salaam, Tanzania, to be reunited with our parents in a land where the formerly ever-so-common Afro was a rarity; the temperature scarcely peaked above 10 degrees celsius; and my peers spoke intriguingly unique phrases: “It’s choc-a-bloc right now, so I’ll give you a bell later and we can head to the chippy together, fella”.
Awoken by an unusually early phone call some few minutes after 7:30am, Alex’s mum informed me that she was to be dropping me off at my auntie’s house rather than at my own home. Strange. As a 10 year old kid I didn’t think that, coupled with the 15 minute silent car journey, I was being prepared to meet the first of my life’s gravest tragedies that would greet me at 7:55am that chilly winter’s morning: the passing of my father, Michael Leon Matthew Colas.
As I write this piece in the skies on a flight from Shanghai to London, I’ve spent the best part of 12 years learning how negativity — whether it stems from a sudden death, a job rejection or a bad grade — can be (re)channelled to positivity.
Many, if not all, of us will be familiar with some of these initial thoughts and emotions following an unexpected turn of events:
Disbelief and heartbreak
Thoughts of the people we’ve let down
Senses of injustice
Frustration and confusion
Plummeting confidence
The infamous “what now?” question
In the same way that positivity is the antonym of negativity — all negative experiences, thoughts and emotions, too, have their polar opposites. Once we momentarily step back and deconstruct the negative situation, it becomes possible to discover the roots that allow the tree to persist despite the harrowing external conditions attempting to prevent it from doing so.
Take the seemingly perpetual “what now?” dilemma in light of plummeting confidence following a job rejection. When simultaneously occurring, the inevitable outcome is, most commonly: a sense of feeling lost.
What goes largely unappreciated is the unique opportunity to rethink, rediscover, and ultimately restart. With, on average, an 80-year window to do these three things — time soon becomes your aid rather than your kryptonite. The time dedicated working towards a previous goal can never be in vain if positively (re)channelled to fuel your energy and push you further.
Whatever form the negative situation may take, when searched for long and hard, even the most mentally and physically challenging situations can be made bearable by harnessing the inch of positivity inherent in even the darkest of circumstances.
This journey we like to call ‘life’ will continue to throw challenges at us, both big and small, each of which hold the potential to induce a downward spiral of negativity. Identifying the positives entangled and hidden by negativity is often the most useful aid in situations of despair when all seems lost. And so, as an ancient Chinese idiom reads: 水涨船高 — when the tide rises, so too will the boat.
Each of my scars — my life experiences that I previously perceived as negative — have taught me a key lesson about (re)channelling negativity into positivity.
I’m 22 and I feel stronger, more optimistic and more enlightened than ever before.
Dedicated to my father, Michael LM Colas, and my dearest cousin, Said MC Othman, my idols and motivators.
