Daily Gratitude: This can make someone feel uncomfortable because it means they are responsible for what’s going on with them and their lives.

But it’s not meant as a condemnation. It’s not blame calling. Hopefully it’s a wake up call. And it should also be a sign of hope.

It means that you can change how you experience your life. Your job is two fold (to be simplistic). Decide how you want to feel. Then do everything you can to feel that way.

Huh?

You can choose to be unhappy about what’s happening right now and feel miserable or you can decide to make it “work for you”. That’s hard to do when you’re in Chronic pain but you can decide exactly how miserable you’re going to be.

Remember the post on the two arrows. One arrow is the actual pain. The second arrow is your response which is the suffering due to that response.

Put this together with the pause (between reaction and response) and you can decide to minimize the suffering.

I love to eat (long story). But I had a procedure last week that has made eating (and drinking) quite painful. There have been times when I’ve “felt” quite miserable. But then I have to do something…say it’s an interview for my podcast. And my mind goes into that and forgets to be miserable. Imagine that. Sure I’m not eating or drinking then but I also feel happier because I’m concentrating on something else. Or if I pick up my laptop and start writing, I’m less miserable because I’m not paying attention to the problem. It’s not something I planned but I’m glad I discovered it. My decision, my choice is to not spend so much time in that problem. It helps. It doesn’t fix the issue. But it helps me to not spiral downward as I used to do.

You can choose your response. You can’t control the circumstances but you can be and are in charge of what you do in those circumstances.

Daily Gratitude: Sometimes we spend way too much energy and effort trying to correct our weaknesses. I think what’s important is to identify our strengths and weaknesses and then acknowledge what we can’t do so well and forget about it. Move on to working towards improving the things you can do well. Make them even stronger

If you concentrate on the strong points, you can make a greater difference in the world and in the lives of people you interact with. Just think of the contributions you can make.

But also think about how happy you’ll be. It’s harder to be happy when things never seem to be going ok because you just don’t have that one “skill”. Don’t despair.

Go back to your inventory and focus on what you can do well. Spend more time honing those qualities and even teach them to others.

Live happy!

Daily Gratitude: It’s funny I should see this quote now. I’m finishing the first draft of my latest book and it involves IFS (internal family systems) and vol state (of course). But what I realized in writing it and during the race is that although I’ve grown quite a bit (actually an amazing amount) in the last 6 years all because of IFS, i have such a long way to go.

I did think even prior to vol state “I wonder how put together you’d be, Terrie, if you were still working where everything isn’t peaches and cream”. I think I have my answer. Not so good. Ha! What a rude awakening.

But it was the awakening I needed. It showed me I will benefit from continuing to work with all my parts. There’s so much history there. Oh well.

The point is that you will never know where you are in life until you’re tested. We’re all tested in one way or another and some of us are tested repeatedly. My theory on the repeat performances is that we just haven’t gotten the message(s) yet. We may think we have but nope. That’s what happened to me in 2016-2017. I had missed or ignored all the “messages” sent by the universe so in its frustration (ha – the universe doesn’t get frustrated) it gave me a big time message dump and after 5 weeks in the hospital I got the message. Well mostly. Long story but poignant because it taught me so much. It was not smooth seas at all and I certainly was not a skillful sailor.

What tough times have you endured? But more importantly what skills did you recognize needs or needed work? Did you “listen”? Did you become stronger? Tell us about it.