Really - is that true?

14^th July 2012

Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life.

My mom is a poorly girl, she’s in an awful lot of pain having pulled something in her hip, she can barely move and yesterday morning I had to call NHS direct because she was having palpitations, felt sick and general looked dreadful.  They talked to her and said they’d call back, my sister came and sat with her and she seemed to calm down and seemed much better, still in an awful lot of pain and can’t walk but the other systems wore off, it seemed she was thinking all sorts of things and worrying herself silly – she’d basically put a story together in her head of how ill she was GOING to be!

Then I spent the day at a listening group meeting with other leaders where we got to talk opening and frankly and offer feedback on the business and how we felt, sitting there listening I realised we’d all created our own stories of what we believed was going on in the WW world of employers and employees and all were very different.
We all have them don’t we, our stories!   Some of them we drag round like a ball and chain!  Who would you be without your story?

It’s too easy to look at the negatives of everything and when you do this you can veer out of control you can really make life difficult for yourself.  There’s a fabulous woman called Byron Katie who writes a lot on this subject, and has a worksheet called “Judge your neighbour”, she even provides it for free on her website, http://www.thework.com/index.php although her books are worth a read too, I enjoyed them anyway. 

It’s a good exercise to do to get rid of all the negative thoughts that you are having that make your life difficult.  The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question the thoughts that cause your suffering.  It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you, and to address the cause of your problems with clarity.

Sounds too good to be true ay?  But honestly when I’ve done it in the past its really helped, it is quite extreme but it definitely gives you something to think about, here’s a link to a video where a women believes she’s too fat!  http://thework.com/watch.php?cat=watch&yid=D4oxaZlzjzI

You may not have the time or inclination to do the work but even if you don’t the next time you’re getting yourself upset, worked up, stressed out over something ask yourself how much of this is a story your writing before it’s even happened?  For example when Weight Watchers emailed leaders about no longer being able to serve tea and coffee in a meeting, a lot of leaders started putting together a story that this was the end of Weight Watchers, no one will come because they can’t have a cuppa, they won’t want to sit for half hour without a drink, we’ll lose all our members, we’ll then lose our jobs, we’ll be unemployed, we won’t be able to pay our mortgage so then we’ll lose our house and be homeless!

Oh my word, that’s just made you smile I hope but seriously, you’ve done similar at some time with another situation haven’t you?  We have our stories, we are continually putting together stories in our mind of what’s going to happen and where it will all turn out.

From an overweight person point of view the worst kind of story we can tell ourselves is something like this;

“I’ll never be able to lose all my weight, I’m greedy, I won’t be able to keep the diet up and I’ll fail, then I’ll put more weight on because I won’t ever be able to resist the doughnuts when I’m in Greggs, not forever I won’t and I’ve got a birthday party next Saturday and that wedding a week on Saturday, we’ve got that bbq on Wednesday at Tracey’s and oh it’s just pointless, I can’t get to my goal weight, its just impossible, there’s too many obstacles.  And even if I do manage to lose some weight, I never look good in anything anyway because I’m too short/tall/ugly and nobody would love me”

Recognise yourself at all in that paragraph?  I reckon everyone I know at sometime has had a conversation with themselves that was similar to the one above, and yet if you question those thoughts you’ll realise they’re not actually true, they’re just your story!

Stop believing your thoughts, you’ll be amazed at the freedom it gives you, at Byron Katie says, ask yourself,

-          Is it true?
-          Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
-          How do you react when you believe that thought?
-          Who would you be without that thought?

When I just read those questions by the time I get to the last one, I feel better.   So today if you get a negative thought or your imagination starts to run wild with you, calm it down by asking yourself those four questions above? 

If and when you have time, go check out Byron Katie, I personally love her stuff, but decide for yourself.

Well I better get on, I’ve woke up with a lovely head cold, sore throat etc, I sound like a man this morning with my deep voice, however I have lots to do so it’ll have to wait to kick in till later because there’s yesterdays work to do and also I need to take care of mom today as she can’t move, I’ll be taking her lots of cuppas throughout the day – they’re still allowed in my house, no health and safety regulations here. Xx

Have a sensational Saturday. xx