Coaching Videos & Tips - February 13 2020 No.639
MAGNIFYING IT MAKES IT WORSE!
We really are our own worst enemy... if confronted by a challenging situation what do we normally do? Well, the video explains that but the key word in the last sentence was... "normally". Yes we need to get over our normal way of thinking...
Oooh, don't forget that you can browse all 638 "back issues" in The Archive!
Read the last sentence of today's Reflection. Ask yourself the question - not just now but a few times today.
There are going to be times today when you're overwhelmed by the nonsense that plays out all around us every waking day. You need to stop and ask yourself the question.
There will be times today when you, yourself, will be responsible for some of that nonsense... again, stop and ask yourself.
You and I have a choice... and it's a matter of life and death.
If you're your own worst eneby (and, normally, you are!), it means that you can also be your best friend. If you're the problem, you're the solution. If thinking one way (the normal way) digs you into an ever-deepening hole, thinking another way enables you fly.
It's all about how you think... not what you think. As we said last week, you're stuck with your onw thoughts - they've been and will always be your lifelong companions... the kind of niggling companions that you wouldn't bring on holidays, let alone the journey of a lifetime. But, yes, they're your's and you're stuck with them.
But that doesn't mean you have to entertain them. It doesn't mean that you have to offer them your precious attention or energy. Because any one of these repetitive thoughts in your own head is a nothing... until you give it your energy and attention.
A few years ago, a client who was going through a particularly hard time asked me if his 70,000 daily thoughts were worse than everyone else's... the answer, of course, is, like everyone else, when it came to his baggage, it was a mixed bag. His thoughts were a pretty normal collection! The difference (that he thought) he was experiencing was as a result of him being really good at giving his enegy and attention to his thoughts.
In other words, you have a choice to make: to what do you choose to give your energy and attention right now... your thoughts or your life? Becuase, this here and now is where your life is going on.
Last Saturday - as if on cue at the start of the French Winter School Holidays, the very height of the ski season - the coronavirus set up camp in Les Contamines-Montjoie... the ski station where we lived when we first moved to France.
Five English people, including a 9yr old, tested positive in the village. I've italicised English because it's a word the local Mayor kept emphasising... draw your own conclusions.
What more greatly occupied the Mayor of Les Contamines was ski season revenues: he wouldn't close the local school (where the 9yr old went), the French Minister for Health had to do it. His goal was to ensure there was "no panic just as everyone was arriving for their holidays"... he went as far as to say that "you can't catch the virus if you're sitting next to someone who has it on a ski lift"!