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: 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?

Daily Gratitude: This is a pretty simple philosophy but an oh so powerful one. It’s also a goal toward which we all should aspire – every day. We are in a time when freedom is being threatened and maybe you feel as if there isn’t much you can do about it. But there is. Each day you can do what is within your scope and your power to let people know you care about their freedom and happiness. Maybe it’s leaving a bigger tip than usual. Maybe it’s giving money to someone on the street. Maybe it’s just smiling at a someone. How is that fostering freedom? Because if you’re smiling at someone it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to beat them up or rob them. You’re giving them a sense of belonging (to the human race) and that’s freedom in and of itself.