Daily Gratitude: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

This is mostly true. But it’s not the whole story. Many of our fears are irrational. Take my fear of making phone calls for example. I’ve written about that before (a lot .. because it is irrational). I understand that making a phone call won’t make me unpopular or hated or have bad people try to scam me.

Sure that understanding helps but it doesn’t take away the fear. I have to see people’s faces and watch their body language to trust what they are saying. That comes from something in my childhood and despite a lot of intense IFS work, I don’t know what that part is protecting me from. But that’s ok too.

The concept behind the quote is true. And it’s interesting it’s from Marie Curie. She worked with radium (I believe) and worked very hard to understand it so others could too. She seemed to have no fear. Only a yearning to learn.

What if instead of caring what other people think, we adopted the motto of “Yearn to Learn”. You know I dislike cute sayings. But I couldn’t resist.

Make a list of your fears
Do the 5 whys on each – why do you fear it and then why to each deeper level
Ask are these fears rational?
If so, what can you do to overcome them
If not, can realizing that it isn’t rational make you fear it less? It may or may not (like mine) but I would imagine many of them will be a lot less powerful.

Try it. Make your list.

Daily Gratitude: “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

Can you make a vow to remember this and say it to yourself every morning for, let’s say, a week?

Print it out on an index card and put it on your bathroom mirror. You can say it at night and in the morning when you brush your teeth.

New strength comes with sleep and rest. New thoughts also come with sleep and rest.

Prime yourself at night for the strength and the thoughts. Things often come to people in the middle of the night. Those can be your new thoughts. You also have more energy in the morning so it’s easier to change any negative or old thoughts to new ones.

You’ll need some reminders initially just as you do with anything new but after a while it will become second nature and your life will change.

Daily Gratitude: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

This is a poet and an authors way of saying “control the controllables”.

It does absolutely no good to complain about something. It’s just words and bad use of energy. Why waste that energy.

Ask yourself:
1. is this a fact?
2. If so, can I do anything to change it?
3. If you can, then do it
4. If you can’t, then accept it and move on to something within your control. And….
5. Change your attitude

The easiest way to change an attitude is to think about something in an action way. What can you do right now to stop thinking about something you can’t do anything about? Can you use the “complaining” time to write a “how are you note” to a friend, or to outline a project you n might have?

Even if you’re sitting in traffic, there is something you can do to put your mind in another neural pathway that’s positive. It just takes desire and the steps to develop the habit.

When you start to complain or hear complaining, ask yourself “what else can I do (or think) right now.