Daily Gratitude: This is so helpful if we can just remember it when a pain pops up in our body.

Pain is a signal. It’s telling us that the body need some sort of attention which could be a simple as taking a rest. It could be more complicated but the important thing to think about is that it’s just that signal, a message.

What happens, though is that we had so many layers to that signal. We add complaining, we add fortune telling, we add drama, and we add both imagination and memory.

With all those layers the messages get lost. The signal now sounds like there’s static on the line or maybe worse yet, it sounds like a party line (for those of you who remember them). It’s distorted and you have hopped on the confusion train.

When we feel a pain we tend to go to the analytical part of our brain to figure out what’s happening. That’s a recipe for disaster in and of itself. Why?

Because our analytical brain is just like an AI engine. It has to have data from which it can draw its conclusions as to the danger. That data is past experience. So if we’ve exacerbated and built on pain in the past we’re liable to do that again.

Our memories also go wild. We think “oh no, here we go again. What if it’s another round of ——— (pick a condition)?”

We add the imaginative process too. “Aunt Sally had pains like that and she was miserable for months.” You may or may not know what her condition was and time gets altered as life goes on. Things in medicine Have probably also changed since Aunt Sally had her “thing”

The fortune telling is the worst because your mind can create the most monstrous situation possible. And when you add Google to it, there’s no stopping Armageddon.

There are, of course, instances when the memory (your own and other family members) is important to consider. If you’ve had heart disease (heart attacks or angina for example) and you have the same pain again, you definitely need to pay attention and get it checked out.

If your doctor has said to come in is this or that happens, do it.

But most of the pains we have can be addressed with a calm mind

Find a sensation and just feel it for about 10 seconds. Notice only the feeling itself. Don’t name it, judge it, or predict it.

Let the body handle the sensation without adding a story.

After the 10 seconds, ask yourself:
Did the discomfort change, or did my reaction change?

Practice on the many sensations we get all the time. Don’t wait for some excruciating pain and then wonder why it didn’t work.

I guess i have to say this. Use common sense and get pains checked out if you’re concerned. This is not a “you don’t need to go to the doctor” post.

Daily Gratitude: Don’t worry (no pun intended). This is not a religious post. Faith is not necessarily religious.

For me the most important part of this quote is the first part – worry drains your energy. If I think back to all my years of worry (I got a PhD in worry), I can now remember that I was so frequently exhausted. I thought it was because of all I had to do but it wasn’t. It was because of the energy drain.

Can you think back on times you’ve worried and see if this is true in your life?

What about the “faith” part of the quote? Faith can be packaged in many ways.

Merriam-Webster gives one of its definitions as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”. There are other variations but I think it’s mostly about “complete faith” in someone or something.

This might be a process. If you’ve done something (a process) every day as a result of discipline, you may have faith that you will be able to do anything that process was meant for. Take basketball. If you do 100 free throws a day (in the right way) every day for let’s say 5 years, you can have faith that you can make the shot next time you’re at the line.

Apply that to any aspect of your life.

There is the fact that this applies to complete faith in another person. That can be dangerous. But that’s why it behooves us to thoroughly investigate people we choose to blindly follow.

The fact that faith fuels action can explain why we march ahead with passionate when we believe in something. If you want to have more energy direct your thoughts to something you have faith in. But also examine your beliefs frequently. Remember that many of our beliefs are not really ours. They were “imposed” on us from birth. That’s how humanity works. But a smart human takes inventory frequently to see if they still believe something. The strongest humans can admit that their beliefs have changed and they can alter them accordingly.

A belief is just a thought you keep thinking.

When was your last inventory?

Daily Gratitude: We have to take responsibility for our actions and behaviors, not blame others.

If we find ourselves doing that blaming and/or complaining left and right, it’s a clear signal to us that we still have work to do…inside.

In this time we have to be careful about our judgments. It’s ok to be angry, disappointed or even scared. What’s happened is not right because the needless loss of life is never right.

Being upset at what’s going on politically is also ok no matter what side you’re on. But we must be aware of the lines that get blurred when we “stand up” for what we believe. Concepts are ok. Extremes are not. In either direction.

We also must be careful not to fall into the hate trap. Even if you think the situation is filled with hate, that doesn’t mean you should lower yourself to that position. We have to remain calm and objective to make a difference if we lose sight of that objectivity, it’s easy for all of our faults and defects inside of us to come out. That makes us just as bad as those we’re “against”

We have to find peaceful ways to help make changes. Despite what the naysayers are saying about the protests in Minnesota inciting the problems, I think the Minnesota people deserve a lot of credit for maintaining peace even in such adverse conditions and with such larger crowds.

This is what both parties should do. Everyone in this should do the proper evaluations, check their own emotions and come to data based conclusions.

You can only control yourself so don’t lose it if others don’t say or do what you think they should. Mind your own responses.