Hello there, it's me. Your friendly guide to getting the most out of your Monday. Today I am going to share a little video a friend of mine put together. Be warned...I don't know what I am doing. But at least maybe it appears I did...not sure as I had the camera in the wrong place, and it was using my phone, etc. Okay, no more stalling.
Aimee's interview seemed to go well. But as I watched it, I judged myself. Ack, do I sound dumb? Why does my face look puffy? It does look puffy. Am I puffy today? Wait, none of my thoughts are serving me right now and this was not the point. I discovered I don't like being on video...which is why I decided to actually do this video interview. I know it's crazy, but I do things I don't like to get them over with.
To give you a point of reference, when I was 14 years old, I stepped on a snake...in Florida. I tried to be calm, but it wrapped around my ankle and bit me. Number 1, I was not calm. Number 2, I hate snakes. Number 3, I could swear it had a diamond-shaped head. And then I screamed. Long story, I spent 4 hours in the hospital having tests. I was at a hotel with an inclosed, but open pool area when this happened. When I became a volunteer years later at my favorite Living Museum, guess what I did? GUESS!! It was amazingly scary. I had to reach into a pillowcase and pull out a.............SNAKE. But it was a black rat snake. Yes, it was the scariest thing perhaps in the universe to me. I learned all about snakes though. And how the scales are actually like fingernail material and blah, blah, blah. But I just wanted to NOT be afraid. I even held a corn snake. So now, when I take my daughters to the museum, and she looks at a tiny green snake on a limb and says "Mom isn't he the cutest?" I say "Sure baby. But we are not getting a snake. Not even a little one."
So to change your thoughts, you have to embrace the pain maybe for a minute, then turn away from that by changing the pattern of your thoughts. I decided I didn't want to be deathly afraid of stupid snakes because there are LOTS around Virginia. I wanted to be mildly interested in them as another living creature, but you know, we don't have to be like BFFs or anything. So change snakes to pain and you have me taking yoga teacher training even though I was afraid I couldn't keep up. You have me challenging my mind to change my thoughts from focusing on pain all the time, to moments where I am NOT in pain. Aha. To moments where I am living in pain, but in those moments, I can still create my own happiness. I can still focus on what is working and less and less on what is NOT working. I can focus on helping lead others out of their pain and darkness. I can reach my hand right in that pillowcase and take life out and say "Aha!!! I got you. You aren't as scary as I thought. Maybe you'll bite me, but not this time. Not this time."
And that my friends, is how to change your thoughts.
