Today we are covering two ways we scare ourselves to death and why it’s so unnecessary.
Do you ever wonder why you find yourself wanting something different, longing for something new, and yet when it boils down to the moment- you freeze?
When I was a child I was so afraid of the dark, that I wanted to go get my parents in the night, but was too scared to get out of bed!
As adults, we sometimes still do the same thing, just a different scenario.
Have you ever been in a situation before where you knew that the only way you were going to succeed was to do something uncomfortable and so you squirrel around avoiding it?
Perhaps, hoping an easier path is going to come along?
Today I’m going to let you in on a couple secrets of how we scare ourselves crazy and an even bigger secret- how we do it on purpose.
One way we scare ourselves is:
- We take others random experiences and throw it into our future so we can trip over it.
THAT’S NOT KINDNESS!
If I had chosen to do that with my sister, Jane, when she was learning to ride a bike at three years old, I might have started her lesson off with how our brother, Frank once went over a little dirt hill on our lawn, landed on a garden rake, popped the tire, flew over the handlebars and gave himself a concussion.
I could have told her of disasters I had read about where people who enjoy biking and ride on the road have been killed tragically by vehicles not paying attention.
I could have told her of the many times I had fallen from my own bicycle and scraped knees and elbows and how much it hurt.
But would anyone do that with someone who was trying to learn how to ride a bike? Of course not! What would you do?
We would focus on how many other people ride bikes all the time, how others have learned and lived to tell about, how much fun it’s going to be- things like that.
This is kindness.
A definition of kindness: being friendly, generous, and considerate
But how do we apply this to our adult lives practically?
Stay off the news!
Quit listening to the police scanner.
Stop reading the details of every school shooting, or mass public atrocity.
Unless you have a clear purpose towards action- you are just spending your time scaring yourself to death in preparation for the next day!
Kindness is being friendly to your brain by choosing carefully what you dwell on.
If you want to believe good things can happen today, you need to build a pile of positive references to think about.
Those aren’t on the news- you’re going to have to find them somewhere else!
Podcasts, books, friends’ successes, the fact that you went to church, school, or the store safely for the past 10 years, there are places we can see positive track record to give us courage, but it aint on the TV.
Remember, kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate with your own mind by refusing to dwell on the calamities and tragedies of others.
What one way can you take action in the area of kindness today? What can you choose to watch or listen to that is friendly and generous to your own mind?
Another way we scare ourselves is:
2. We take our own past painful experiences and throw them into our future so we can trip over them.
If you listen to me long enough, you’re going to discover that I had a roller coaster life as a teenager. In short, it’s important that you know that I ran away from home several times. My poor parents.
As a parent myself now, I can’t imagine the stress I would be under if my kid starting running away from home at age7. But that was me.
I can honestly say, and I think my mother would agree that we have a great relationship when we don’t have to live together, but we operated very differently and sharing the same space was extremely hard. I think there was relief for both of us when I got married. That’s my past exprience.
So, last year when we moved from New Hampshire and my parents offered their home as a transitional landing space for our family of 9- I didn’t want to go. I was so scared. Why?
Because I was taking my past experience and throwing it into the future so I could trip over it.
Immediately, I’d begin to feel the stress of feeling unsuccessful as a teen and imagine that it would be that way again. Cold sweat, heart racing, almost panic at times of going back to my childhood home 24 years later.
But we are different people now. We’ve learned how to have conversations, how to talk about what’s not working, how to give each other space and grace for their weirdness.
When I dwelt on it- the dwelling made it so much scarier and impossible to succeed.
And this was not that.
Where are you projecting your past into your future and scaring yourself silly?
Where can you say, “This is not that,” and then take a deep breath and let this incident play itself out all on it’s own?
Those are the two tips today of how to be kind to yourself:
1. Don’t take other people’s past experiences and throw them into your future so you can trip over them. It’s not kindness!
2. Don’t take your own past experiences and throw them into your future so you can trip over them. It’s not kindness.
Kindness is choosing to treat your own new steps, actions, and endeavours with friendliness, generosity, and consideration.
Now what one take away do you have from this episode?
What’s your one takeaway?
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