Daily Gratitude: This is another great way to say “control the controllables”. There are a few phrases I have learned which have positively impacted my life and that is one of them. I now stop, take a breath and ask if “this” is something I can do anything about. If it is, I move on to what I can do and then either take an action or make a plan of action. If I can’t, I consciously decide to focus on something else until the situation changes such that I can do something. Or if it’s never going to change, I find whatever means I can to toss it out of my mind. I recently had a health finding that could have potentially been bad news. I had to wait for several different things to happen before we would know any answers. Even a year ago I would have spent 95% of my time worrying about what it was and what would happen. This time, though, I sat myself down and reminded me that I couldn’t do squat until there was clarification. Could I hurry along any of the clarifying processes? No. So I deferred to my two favorite sayings (and primarily “everything always works out for me”) so that I would say that repeatedly to get my thoughts off anything about the issue. It took work but eventually I wasn’t even thinking about it and if I did, it didn’t take long to distract my active little mind. I enjoyed life. I am so grateful I learned and PRACTICED this. As with anything worthwhile, it takes work. But the results definitely are rewarding.

Daily Gratitude: All too often we feel we have to have the complete answer to any problems we have. And if we don’t have the whole picture, we’re failures and may just give up. That’s the worst thing we can do. All we need right now is one small idea. One possibility. If you come up with one baby step, you’re in business. You can take action on this one thing and it’s almost a sure bet that more ideas will come to you. Once you have started taking action, your system will calm some and allow more creativity to come into it. “Just one thing”. Make that your mantra.

Daily Gratitude: You can interpret this several ways. I look at the rainbow with me right smack in the middle and my past is at one end and my future at the other. I choose to look at my past in a much more positive way than I did for decades. The facts will never change but how we look at them can change. And, actually, it’s possible that the “facts” we remember aren’t even truly accurate. As I’ve learned more about IFS (Internal Family Systems), I’ve been able to work with my various parts and learn about their interpretations of those “facts”. Now that I know that parts don’t grow older but are stuck at the age when they came into existence, it makes it so much easier to realize why they feel as they do. Along with that I know I can help them see “our” life in a different way, and as such, this can remove a great deal of anxiety. Something that once seemed unbearable (like another dinner where there’s the constant threat of “incoming”), can be understood because i can see how my father’s actions were intended in a much different way than I interpreted them. When you calm your nervous system, your peripheral vision returns and you see more than you ever thought you could. That rainbow really does have two pots of gold.