You Don't Have to Think That…
Questions of the Week:
Name one thing you did today that your future self will thank you for?
How did you create tomorrow’s better future today?
Where might you be resisting change and it’s holding you in paralysis?
Where in your life do you need to stop and pay more attention to someone important? Who is it? How will you change that and add them to your calendar today.
“Who you put on your calendar is a direct reflection of who you care about” - Ben Kinney
Today a friend of mine posted about Anxiety and her struggles with it at times. I have a deep appreciation for this topic and struggle. So many of us powered through the pandemic and just put our heads down and went to work, periodically coming up for breath and then rinsing and repeating the cycle. At some point even the best swimmers in the world and free-divers must stop and breathe. It’s in the breath that life begins and it’s in the breath that life ends. When I came up for air, I experienced an emotion that I hadn’t felt in years. It was a feeling of dread, doom, fear, failure, disappointment, and the interesting observation was that nothing had changed. Truth is, as a husband, father, coach, business owner, and investor, I was having one of our best years ever. Where was this feeling coming from?
Anxiety is experiencing failure from the future that hasn’t happened yet… Its shows up as Fear - False Evidence Appearing Real.
A few years ago I watched an Amazon movie a called the Happiness Project. North America was second only to Japan on an unhappiness scale. Unfortunately, we live in one of the least happy countries in the world due mostly our comparison with one another. Think about it… catch a fish in a starving village and you are an instant hero; haven’t sold your billion dollar tech company at 26 dating a supermodel and you’re shit. It is all a product of our thinking and last year I read some research on how our mind operates. Actually our brain isn’t designed to make us happy, it’s designed to help us survive. Anxiety is a product of our thinking. So consider if you are thinking about something that makes you anxious, your primal brain is simply attempting to warn you for survival…. Have you ever thought or told yourself a story like, If I don’t do__________, I could lose everything!” While that may be true, you don’t have to think that.
“I don’t have to think that.” - Michael Neil
I don’t have to think that… WOW.. What simple and powerful words that has the ability to help shift focus and redirect our energy and intention. When I first heard that statement, I literally stopped in the middle of a run and rewound the audible book I was listening to at the time. In the past year, anxiety has been such a focus and internal discussion I’ve read everything on the topic that I could get my hands on. I read The Shadow Effect, Think Like a Monk, The Gap and the Gain, Think Again, The Enchanted Gardner, The Power of Now, Mans Search for Meaning, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Even Un_uck Yourself, and little helped until I reread The Untethered Soul…
“Remind yourself that nothing truly makes sense as it’s not supposed to, after all we are on a planet by itself spinning in the middle of nowhere, how do you choose to enjoy the ride.” -Michael Singer
Personally, I struggled with this idea of attachment and what it creates for years. Comparison and attachment are the primary drivers of anxiety. Then one day recently I came up with a personal belief that has arguably made the biggest difference to change my way of thinking… There is only ONE… Whatever day it is, whatever month, and whatever year… There will only ever be one… Today for example, is November 30 2021 and is is the first and last November 30, 2021 that there will ever be. In the history of mankind this day has never existed and it will never exist again. So therefore it is a very special day. Since this day is special, I too must be special for getting to experience it in my own unique way… how would I like to experience this ONE special Day? After all we are just spinning on a planet in the middle of nowhere for a period of time. Why not make the best experience imaginable of that day? If you take a moment and reminded yourself daily that there is ever only ONE of this very special day and only will ever be ONE of this very special YOU, how will you CHOOSE to embrace it? My friend Ben Kinney says, “Who you put on your calendar is a direct reflection of who you care about,” so put yourself on your schedule spending thinking time and practice this ritual daily then please share your results… Thank you for reading.