Daily Gratitude

Daily Gratitude: How true this is. Have you ever tried something new that you weren’t very excited about but felt that you should do it? How much progress did you make and how fast? Now think of something you started doing because you loved the idea. How did that progress? Probably a lot faster and more successful than the first. Why? Because your head was in it. It was something you wanted to do. It was a mental change.

I can’t believe how “good” and well behaved I’ve been for the past 6 weeks in a sling. Sure the first couple of weeks were because of the pain but after about week 3, I remained extremely conscientious about not doing things I wasn’t supposed to do. Why? Because I didn’t want my clavicle to take any longer than necessary to heal because i have things to do with my right arm .

I set it in my mind that although this was inconvenient, it was just something I had to accept and deal with, staying away from the pity party or the “how can I get around this” type of attitude.

I had mentally accepted this and the steps towards recovery. It was a change of mind from the kicking and screaming and the “why me. This is the pits” type thinking. And guess what?

I made a lot of progress. You can too by examining your thoughts and feelings about something you “have to do”. How can you make it exciting so your mind can embrace it enthusiastically? Spend some time pondering that question.

Daily Gratitude

Daily Gratitude: At first this seems both counterintuitive and impossible, to say nothing of being improbable. On closer examination though, it’s an important concept.

The reality of this is something I’ve learned recently (from a book titled “Don’t Believe Everything You Think”. At first I was not onboard with its concepts, thinking it made no sense and that it simply meant you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s happening in the world.

However, I have come to understand it better in the last couple of weeks. Here’s my interpretation: thoughts come to you from the universe. Thinking, though, is something we do, we create and therefore can lead us down paths we don’t really want to travel. We can change our thinking if we want and to me that means it’s generated from within and doesn’t come from the universe.

Here’s an example. I developed nerve pain in my arm which apparently was the result of being in the sling. Ok, fine. The thought was “this is pain, nerve pain. It’s bothersome.” What happened next, though, was of my own making. My mind started to go down the wrong road of “oh no. What if this is like the pain after shingles? It feels the same. Will it ruin my life again? I can’t handle that?’ What will I do?” Etc. This is thinking. And it’s not doing any good. It’s destructive, in fact.

So being wiser from having read the book, this is what I did: i recognized the “thought” (I have this pain) and then I was able to separate the second part (the destructive thinking) and I told myself “yes you have pain BUT you don’t know anything about what is going to happen with it. You’re just thinking and essentially creating these bad ideas that haven’t even happened yet”

This interruption allowed me to recognize what I was doing and stop it cold in its tracks. This kept me from going down that long and lonely road of “everything is ruined”. The interruption enabled me to stop and move on to something else. Thus, my brain wasn’t able to keep doing “zoomies” up and down one particular neural circuit in an activity that would possibly have led to chronic pain and suffering.

This is also the essence of the two arrow concept of pain and suffering.

Practice stopping yourself after you have a thought. Instead of “it’s raining so my weekend is totally ruined. Why does this always happen to me?” Go with “it’s raining. The other stuff trying to take over my mind is just my thinking and it’s not necessarily true so just stick to the fact that it’s raining and move on” then actually do the moving on. We’re masters of distraction nowadays so why not use it to our advantage. You will feel much better if you just stop with the thought (it’s raining). Try this for awhile. At first it may not be easy but it will be worthwhile.

Daily Gratitude

Daily Gratitude: This is probably one of the best pieces of advice one could ever read. All too often we walk around with the burdens of the past on our back. Perhaps that’s one reason back pain is so common nowadays. People are not only carrying the weight of the world on their backs, but they are also carrying the weight of their past as well. It’s like a modular backpack – you just keep adding modules to put more “stuff” in. And that stuff is our regrets, our hurts, our failures, losses and anything else we’ve experienced and accumulated over the years. Everyone talks about decluttering. It’s even a business endeavor now-teaching people how to declutter. But who talks about or teaches how to declutter your life. There are wise people who do equate the two and it would be smart to seek them out. Many times when you declutter your house, you end up feeling lighter and being happier and sometimes you can’t figure out why. The reverse happens too. When you’ve grown in some fashion AND recognize it, you may get a spurt of energy and find yourself cleaning and discarding. Do you really need all those bad memories or can you throw them out and replace them with good ones? Do you have to hold on to the regrets? Of course not. So why are you continuing to regret something? What does it do for you? Use the questioning method to begin to release all those old burdens you’re carrying around. Take them out of the backpack and examine them closely. Can you find the trashcan, lift its lid and deposit some of this old “stuff” inside, leaving it to be picked up with all the other trash this week?