An old friend messaged me recently on the Facebook page for A Clean Mind, and she said this: “Just had to tell you again how your blog helped me calmly get through a situation I had been dreading. The phrase ‘all I have to do is …..’ is very empowering. Keep up the posts!”
Yes! Thank you! You keep up the awesome work! Obviously I was pretty psyched. Why? Because another one of the seven billion psychos currently on earth (including me) is waking up. How common is it that we’re dreading something? Very common. Totally common. But we have to do it anyway. So the question is, how are we going to do it? This is a choice, though they don’t teach us this in middle school (I’m starting to – contact me if you’re a teacher or work with kids, by the way). My friend told herself one simple sentence and it totally changed her experience. “All I have to do is (blank).” That’s seven words. Seven words! And it totally changed her experience.
Dread is comprised of feeling and thinking, just like most everything else. When we get out of our head and breathe for just a few seconds, the feeling part starts to move. So that’s not a problem anymore. Then we tell ourselves the truth, which is that all I have to do is (blank). The story of dread is usually not the truth. It’s simply not reality. We’ve been believing that it is reality for so long, though, that it seems like it. But it’s not. We’re turning the lights on, folks, one bulb at a time. And what a difference it makes.
So this is a MAJOR salute to my friend and to all the others living today who are tired of making life harder than it needs to be. We still have to deal with those same situations. So just deal with it without the drama. The drama is generally your thinking. So stop! And breathe. And then calmly tell yourself that all you have to do is (blank).
This is also an invitation for you or your friends to go to the Tools & Techniques category of this blog and look through it. By the way, if your friends or family members are stress balls then feel free to send them there. That’s where my friend found the one that she used. Another old friend said that using third person has worked for her. She would catch herself all stressed out and would calmly say, “Roxanne is upset that she’s running late for a meeting.” (Her name is not Roxanne, by the way. Or maybe it is?). Bam! That’s one simple sentence that makes the whole situation less personal and pulls her out of being in the middle of it. Then she can just focus on driving to the meeting without beating herself up the whole way there. Maybe she puts on some nice music instead. Or texts (just kidding). And she’ll still go to the same meeting! She’ll probably have a much more peaceful experience, though.
So if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, take a quick, effortless inventory. Has your life changed at all, even a tiny bit? Have you been able to remember any of these tricks in the heat of the moment? Remembering is the hardest part, after all. Like I’ve said many times, though, all it takes is practice. That’s the truth, and it’s very good news. And a big part of that is the willingness to get back on that horse when you get knocked down and keep trying, keep learning, keep practicing. You should see some results pretty soon (life will give you the perfect opportunity today, in fact). So take a look at the Tools & Techniques to see if any of them resonate. They’re just so simple. And since we’re all changing and growing, different ones will work for you at different times of your journey. That’s how it works with me, anyway. I salute you, I thank you, and as always, let me know if I can help. And if any of this stuff has worked for you, feel free to let me know. I love hearing about it. I think the whole universe rejoices, too. We’re moving into a new phase, and it’s time to wake up, one phrase at a time. “All I have to do is (blank).”