Daily Gratitude: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”

This is key to learning to back away and get a Birds Eye view of what’s happening in your life.

While you’re in the midst of troubling times, all appears exaggerated. Your thoughts are rampant and the end of the world seems close.

What can you do about it?

Remember that “this, too, shall pass” but here’s something to try ahead of these times.

Review your life. Find some bad times where you were feeling horrible about how life was going. See if you can get back into feeling the way you did way back then. Really relive it for just a few minutes.

Then remember how you felt 6 months to a year later. How important in the grand scheme was that bad time then. I bet it was more like “oh yeah it sucked but we got through it. What are you doing for your birthday.” It’s as if you’re just reporting on a news item.

The original episode is influenced mostly by emotions. The memory of it later is influenced mostly by facts. That’s why the memory probably isn’t as charged.

Write that sequence of events, thoughts and feelings down. Concentrate on the difference and see how “yep, it really did pass”.

Create a list of these situations – the befores and the afters.

The next time something bad is happening, review your list to remind you that it’s your emotional response that’s influencing you right now and you will get through it and it won’t seem as tragic. Sometimes doing this exercise can help you have a more positive perspective on the present moment.

Daily Gratitude: How often do we get hung up on just one thing being to blame for something we don’t like. We zoom in and focus on just that circumstance.

What we forget is that there’s a whole slew of events that must intersect for that one circumstance to occur. Why not blame all the other factors?

When traffic is slow we tend to be upset with the cars that are around us – the ones we can see. But it’s most likely not their fault that everything has slowed down. It may be an event, person or broken down vehicle miles ahead. I think we don’t get mad at that because we can’t see it – you know “out of sight, out of mind”.

Instead of blaming anyone or anything, let’s just accept what’s happening and recognize that it’s simply that many factors have come together to create this “instance”. Nothing we can do will change that so why waste energy on the negative thoughts we’re harboring.

Daily Gratitude: You fear things are going to happen and you are afraid you are not big enough to cope with the situation when it arrives. So begins the cycle of fear. We just don’t like to admit we’re afraid so we say we’re worried.

But it really is just fear. If we thought we could handle anything (either by ourselves or with help), then we’d be focusing on how to get it done, not being afraid of what will happen if we don’t do it; what other people will think; and of course, what other people will say.

It’s interesting to spend some time examining why care so much about other people. Self help gurus always say not to let that happen but you need to know how to keep those thoughts out of your head.

I think the best way is to fully belief in what you can do and what you feel is right. If you don’t have total belief, then instead of looking at others, go inside and see what’s missing? Is it a concept you had hammered into your head when you were young and maybe now you’re not so sure. Maybe it’s like a scab that’s coming off. You might find raw skin underneath which could mean you should look more closely at the issue. Or there could be fresh new skin there waiting for you to embrace it (a new belief).

Even if you’re not positive you can do something, if you have the desire and the passion to try it, then the heck with others. Babies fall all the time and we laugh at them. But they get right back up because they just hear fun (or funny) sounds. They don’t hear ridicule like we do later in life. So they just keep trying to walk or stand up.

Next time you feel yourself beginning to worry, ask yourself what’s really going on. Ask “why” over and over.