Daily Gratitude: It takes a lot of effort and practice to become quiet nowadays. There’s noise all around you. You have to block it out if you have any hope of keeping your nervous system feeling safe (or at least somewhat safe). That should be your first priority at all times for your nervous system is what rules your life.

Think about that for a second. Do you even know what’s going on in your nervous system? I didn’t for the longest time. No one ever mentioned or explained its importance. Once I learned that, though, it made all the difference in the world. I did everything I could to learn how to make my “control panel” (my nervous system) feel safe – meditation, journaling, walking in nature without the bustling sounds of traffic in my ears (which are connected to my nervous system), breathing techniques, writing, reading, relaxing, talking to my brain, etc.

It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it helps to soothe the fear and anxiety that your brain has built into it. That’s its survival mechanism but we just add to it with all the silly things we think are crucial to our survival. You know, like getting through the stop light before someone honks at you or making it out of the grocery store in record time (are you looking for a place in the Guinness book of world records?). What we do to ourselves is sometimes very funny in retrospect.

Why not take some time to talk to your brain and see what its feeling and ask it (yes that sounds weird but it works) what it’s afraid of. Then you know where to begin. Make this a major goal every day of your life.