Daily Gratitude: What do you do inside your head all day long? It pays to take a look at that activity. We’re all about tracking things but usually we only track the external. Why is that? Especially when the external is a result of the internal – thoughts create things. What we think leads to images; images lead to emotions and actions. There’s debate as to whether emotions come before actions but i think they can and often do occur simultaneously. If it was always emotions first, how much would we get done (actions). If we’re waiting to “feel like it” before we do something, we could be waiting a long time. “I should go to the gym. But I don’t feel like it”. How often has something like that gone on in your head? If you’re just tracking the external there won’t be any check mark on that date if your tracker is how many times did I go to the gym. Why don’t we pay attention to our thoughts? What’s so frightening that keeps us away? Is it that we think we have no control over our thoughts? That’s actually the ONLY thing we have control over. Think of a time when you’ve been worried about something. You turn on the TV and find a favorite show or a movie you’re interested in. While watching that your thoughts are not the worry thoughts. They are the happy, laughing or interested thoughts depending on the show. Did you realize you can do this distraction without having to have the TV on? Create movies in your mind. Make them of the beautiful things you want to enjoy or even play back great memories. When you do this, you are controlling your thoughts. Find a favorite mantra or affirmation (like “everything always works out for me”) and say it over and over. In the early 2000s I found out I was being audited by the IRS. I was extremely anxious because I had no idea what it was about. Fortunately I had two things going for me: 1) I had an accountant that was willing to fly the way to San Antonio to meet with the auditor and 2) I had the smartest and treated mentor one could ever ask for and she taught me an affirmation that I could say when things became rough – inside my head way before the date of the audit. Every time I felt anxious or scared I just repeated it over and over until my nervous system calmed down. That was many times a day but it worked. If I hadn’t had that, the catastrophic thoughts would have ruled my life. I was able to interrupt them and carry on like normal simply by putting my mind to a different thought (the affirmation). I will never forget how well that worked. That’s how I use the “everything always works out for me” one now. I know I am in control of what I think and how I respond even if I can’t control what’s happening outside me. And that’s where I put my attention. Try it.