On Saturday I spoke with my longtime friend Anna who now lives up in Maine with her brood. We were talking about positive thinking and how often we revert back to negative or indifferent thinking for self-protection purposes (I've been talking about this for days it seems). I talk with my clients a lot about the idea that what you put energy into grows. Just like the energy from the sun grows the grass, the energy we put into ourselves does the same kind of work. Again it's this idea of the Law of Attraction - like attracts like. If you put energy into your depression, your depression will grow. Alternatively, if you focus on what's happy in your life - that will grow instead.
Anna told me two stories Saturday morning that got my brain a'clicking. The first was about a friend of hers who had a car in the shop needing $700 worth of repairs and an old beat up truck at home she'd been trying to sell for months/weeks. She had no cash for repairs and no one's interest in the truck. Then she changed her mind about it. Instead of worrying that no one would buy the truck she began to believe wholeheartedly (that's the key) that of course SOMEONE would buy it. And later that day someone did - and paid her $700 for it.
Second story was Anna's. She and her daughter have been wanting horses. Now who among us can just go out and buy a couple of horses? Not too many I would guess, and neither could Anna. So she stopped lamenting about the fact that they couldn't get a horse and started telling anyone who would listen that she and her daughter were going to have horses one day. AND THEN...Anna received a call from a woman who had a couple horses she couldn't keep any longer and would Anna be able to take them off her hands...for free...!?
So totally motivated by this story since I KNOW Anna and she told me she was outside watching those horses as we spoke, I decided I needed to try this out for myself. "Start small" Anna suggested. So I did. A couple of us Monkeyslayers had a race Saturday night. I tend to get really anxious before races. I worry about things that are very unlikely to happen - like that I will overheat and pass out (even in cool Fall weather). But all day, what I focused on was "I'm going to have a good race. It's going to feel good and I'm going to run faster then I did last time. I will finish the race feeling fine." I was still a little nervous before/during the race (I don't think I wholeheartedly believed my mantra) BUT I felt a lot better during this race and I improved my time by 3 minutes! That's a lot!
Simona and I talked more about this during the post race beer and pizza party (I love you, 5k beer party) and I promised to put energy into another area of my life that could use a little sunshine.
So that's what I'm working on - building up my own little store of sunshine to put energy into bringing more of things I want for my life towards me. I did bring a big piece of apple pie my way on Sunday, so I think it's working. huzzah!
