“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”-L.P. Hartley
“But plant your hope with good seeds, don’t cover yourself with thistle and weeds,”-Mumford and Sons, (Thistle and weeds song title)
In the book: Grit by Angela Duckworth, she discusses one of the main differences between people who have a growth mindset vs people with a fixed mindset is that those with a fixed mindset (feeling that achievements have a lower ceiling than others) carry around a feeling of hopelessness for change.
Most of the time this hopelessness comes from a negative past.
As L.P. Hartley eloquently put it, when we travel to the future, we leave the past behind. We cannot let the anchors of our past weigh us down from taking flight toward our future.
By all means, consider your current situation.
But also realize, that with hope, the future will look vastly brighter.
Dream big, plant seeds and sprout forth to a more meaningful and positive future.
The picture above was taken from the book: Grit by Angela Duckworth.
It is a really good book.
In one chapter she discusses the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. She discusses the that key to cultivating a growth mindset (which has been connected to higher learning, more successful careers, larger more positive impacts, etc) is realizing that there is hope in your situation. When you can attach hope to any time of adversity, you realize you can decide to improve your current life. If you believe that you are hopeless than growth cannot occur.
The great news is that there is always hope.
So today, when faced with adversity, grab on to a hopeful future, realize you have options for a better tomorrow and GROW 🙂
So…it’s (its?) July, 2020 and the world is definitely on the wackadoodle side of normal. I guess a pandemic can do that. The thing that is most concerning to me, isn’t the virus. It is the fear, and how when left unchecked, it becomes a guillotine, sharp and divisive. Left vs right. Black vs white. Mask vs no mask. Vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers. The world has gone bi-polar and the middle ground (which is where I prefer to live on many things) is becoming a deeper and deeper canyon. Fear is a powerful and useful emotion. It is a great tool to spur action, to incite change. Fear should urge us to consider our options and steer our trajectory toward a brighter future. The key is it should help us use our other emotions and logic to make a decision. Fear should never drive the decision alone. Many times fear is irrational, and making decisions based on fear usually results in less-than-ideal situations. Fear is meant to propel us in short, fight vs flight moments. “Should I run from the grizzly bear, or fashion a bow and arrow out of that pine tree sapling and go toe-to-claw with the big fella?” Fear is definitively useful in those types of situations. But when fear gets to drive us on a day-to-day basis, the road we take will not be a straight, calm, collected or enjoyable one. When fear is behind the wheel, we are all over the damn road, erratic, swerving and taking a heck of a lot longer to get from point A to point B, because we aren’t really concerned with getting to point B at all, we just want to get as far away from point A as humanly possible in the shortest amount of time allowed. We aren’t concerned with a brighter future, we just want to run as far away from the here and now as we can.
Fear is regulated by a part of our brain called the amygdala, a primitive portion that when activated, shuts down our parasympathetic (resting) nervous system. Our heart rate increases, blood pressure elevates, energy is pushed away from our reproductive system and digestive system. The amygdala also puts the brakes on our prefrontal cortex a bit. As Marwa Azab, Ph.D. states in PsychologyToday.com (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neuroscience-in-everyday-life/202003/10-things-the-brain-does-in-response-pandemic) “In situations that may compromise your survival, the brain would rather be overcautious and wrong. Rumors, fake news, and anomalous stories gain credibility.” Our emotional systems override our logic-based ones and we begin actively searching for threats, rather than working toward a more calm and collected state.
In scrolling through the “news feed” of the day, I can’t help but stop at some comments that I know incite even more divisiveness. And when I read the comments, I am saddened by the loss of connection that is propagating. No matter what side people fall on any of the topics, I can’t help but feel disheartened by the anger and estranging comments. There is so much “if you don’t feel this way you are actively trying to hurt others.” Or “If you don’t feel this way, you are a sheep, blindly following those in charge.” As I said before, I wholeheartedly believe neither of these positions ring true one bit. For the past few years I actually have been telling my wife that I was concerned how separated our world was becoming. It seems there are two sides to so many things, and too often only two sides (I know that’s a lot of twos and toos). Recent events are increasing the gap and that worries me.
Human beings thrive on connection. We don’t always need to agree on everything, in fact having some discourse and disagreements can help us learn, grow and understand. But when we are sitting in a place of fear, anxiety or worry, the disagreements can escalate to firm, immovable stances, and “immovable” definitely implies, “not-growing.” It has been said numerous times before, but it bears repeating: we are only going to get through this crazy time together. I don’t mean that in a cliche sense. There have been numerous scientific studies that show the power of connection. In one such study, strong social connection was correlated with a 50% increase in longevity (https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316) and other studies have shown that social connection boosts immunity, lowers stress and increases empathy (which is something we all could use right now).
So, during this time, it is O.K. to put your stake in the ground so that others know where you stand. Just also realize that others have a different stake in a different ground and the best thing we can do as Stephen Covey has said is to “Seek first to understand.”
Jon Gordon has discussed this topic quite a few times on stage and in his books.
How many times do you think (especially on Monday’s) about what you “have to” do today?
“I have to go to work.”
“I have to take out the trash.”
“I have to pay that bill.”
“I have to unsubscribe from the free paper towels Monday email service. I still have no idea how they got my email…”
If you took the time and wrote out all the times you think about what you “have to” do, the list would be staggering.
If we could reframe those thoughts into “get to”, just replace one word, our world seems brighter.
You see, there are thousands of people who would love to GET TO do what you HAVE TI DO.
You have to go to work? Tons of people are out of jobs right now.
You have to take out the trash? A lot of people are homeless and don’t have a trash can to take out.
You have to unsubscribe from stupid junk emails? The world is full of people who don’t even own a computer.
And from another angle, everything we think we have to do, actually helps us somehow in our own lives.
So today, each time you think of something you have to do, spend twice the time thinking of how blessed you are to get to do it, and how whatever it is will actually help you in the long run.
Thank you, Erin (Chiropractic Assistant Extraordinaire) for sharing this!
It fits right in with a great talk a colleague (Dr Kerry Iselin) gave last night.
He discussed how before his afternoon shift, he prepared by increasing his vibration of love. He sits in calm, quiet and just brings to mind the people, things, experiences he loves that day.
This exercise helps him feel grounded, loving, removes stress, fear and worry, and in fact makes him more powerful and ready to serve.
I think Van Gough would agree.
Today, take a page from his playbook.
Think about everything and everyone you love for a few moments before starting in any task, and revel at how much better you feel and your increased ability to accomplish tasks and make a more positive impact on those around you.
Sometimes we forget that there would be no harvest without tending to the seeds, the efforts, the process, the journey.
The numbers are important. They are a way to see where we are at that moment in time. But they don’t tell the whole story.
Unless, we are hoping the story ends there (boring and finite).
No we forget that our efforts, our imaginations, our work ethic, our vision for the future and the connections we have and create with others will determine the bounty of future harvests.
It is impossible to precisely tell what the yield we be from our efforts.
But the key is to keep tending to the seeds, and to enjoy the journey.
Count the fruit, sure, but then get busy tending to the process :-).
Vishen Lakhiani (creator of Mindvalley.com) discussed a phenomenon known as “the paradox of intention” in a great talk you can find here.
He discusses 4 states of being. Think of a square with four boxes.
People can be happy now, unhappy now, have small dreams of the future or have big dreams of the future.
Too often people are not hitting the sweet spot (upper right if you are playing along at home). People tend to be content now and not thinking of future growth, or sadly more-often-than-not, unhappy now but big dreams of the future.
The caveat is this: in order for true growth to occur, we need to be happy now but with big dreams of the future as well.
So dream big, but also be extremely grateful for how far you’ve already come in life.
Start with gratitude, smile big and keep on dreaming-all are factors to make those dreams come true!
As human beings we have the amazing ability to think about the past and the present which is pretty cool, except when those thoughts take us away from the present.
Studies have shown that our minds are prone to wonder which actually decreases not only our ability to focus on tasks at hand, but actually decreases our happiness.
When we can focus, and even more so when we can train our ability to do so (via activities such as meditation), we can improve our happiness in the moment and for the future 🙂
Dissemination of Inspiration 