Daily Gratitude: Have you ever fallen prey to this? “I hope I can finish this __ (you can fill in the blank).” You keep saying and thinking this – over and over and over. But you never really sit down and figure out what it will take to “finish this”. You know it will be a lot of hard work and that’s scary. When people are scared they tend to freeze (that’s why it’s not just the Fight or Flight response but the fight, flight or freeze response. When I “decided” I had to keep walking at vol state this year, all I could do was “hope” that when I was doing the 60 minute miles that maybe I could get there. By the way, I put “decided” in quotes because I didn’t really decide anything. Jan did. I just went along with it. Anyway, hoping I could make it to the rock was not going to do it. I knew I had to rest and preferably sleep but I didn’t know how much time I could take doing that so I was pretty much immobilized- what if it’s too much down time? What if it’s too little? What is the Goldilocks amount of time so I could rest enough yet not too much. All these things were running around in my head. Nothing was being accomplished. I didn’t have any plan. Enter Ray K. He took the info I gave him which was just a bunch of estimates clouded by emotions and he ferreted out what he could and told me how to accomplish this even walking so slowly. In essence he made the decisions for me. Bottom lines are: you need facts to make decisions and you need to remove emotions from the decision making process. That’s hard but doable. You can talk to that side of your brain and tell it that you’re not ignoring your emotions. You just want them to wait in the wings while the decision making side of your brain takes over “for just a little while.” I find talking to the parts of your brain like this helps you separate the facts from the emotions. Try it some time.

Gratitude is a powerful process

Daily Gratitude: Today is world gratitude day!! When things aren’t going so well, what do you think about? When my race was spiraling downward in July, I wasn’t thinking of gratitude. I was thinking discouragement, despair and disillusionment. That’s always a recipe for not achieving success. The universe was sending me signs that plainly said “be grateful” (the dog hit by a car, the cute kittens, the adorable little puppy) but I had my blinders on. Later I saw all these blessings for what they were. But our goal is to see them when they appear and to be grateful for what we have when we have it and not have to wait until later. Had I paid attention to being grateful, my energy and spirit would have been lifted so I could better address what wasn’t going so well. This takes practice and effort. It’s why I encourage all of us (including me) to focus on our gratitudes every single day. Stuck in traffic? Be grateful you have a car and a place to go. Something simple. Having to wait in line to check out in the grocery store? Be grateful you have the money to pay for your groceries even if you’ve had to cut down perhaps. There are people out there who can’t even afford a tenth of what you have in your cart. Take one day and devote time to this and see if your energy and outlook change.

Daily Gratitude: I talk about this a lot but it’s never enough it seems. There are some things we need a constant reminder about. It does you no good to say affirmations and have positive and useful mantras IF you’re not acting in a way that’s consistent with those affirmations and mantras. You can say all day long that you’re the luckiest person in the world while at the same time you’re cursing out the traffic in front of and around you. Or repeatedly asking “why me?” Can you see how one negates the other. These affirmations are not only meant to get you to believe in something but they are meant to spur you to action that is consistent with their meaning. You can’t use an affirmation of “I am at a healthy weight” and then spend your evenings snacking. It’s important that you realize this and become aware of what you’re doing but not so you can criticize yourself but so that you can stop one or the other event – preferably stopping the counter action. Maybe when you make an affirmation you could take time to determine what actions are consistent with achieving this goal. It’s also helpful to recognize that all the conflicting thoughts and feelings are parts (of course you knew I’d bring IFS into this). If you understand that, then you can recognize that in many ways, you’re like a school principal trying to herd your students into the auditorium so you can instruct them on the do’s and don’ts of the coming year. Some will abide and others will rebel. You have to get to know those that are rebelling and figure out what’s happened to them to make them be like that. Then you can help them become happier and more in line. It’s a process but even if you don’t know “how to do” IFS, you’ll have come so far just by being self-aware. This is also where journaling comes in. People who are opposed to journaling sometimes don’t realize the value of putting thoughts out on paper – the connection of the brainwaves to the fingers to the pen. I know I can identify my parts (issues) so much better as I write them down. The goal of IFS, just like the goal of making affirmations and plans is to get things into alignment just like your tires. Once you do that, your ride is so much smoother.