The Wilder Zone

Don't Believe Everything You Think

Those were the words I once saw on a bumper sticker. It made  me laugh aloud because, strange as it may sound, it's great advice. It's just the kind of simple, yet profound wisdom that can transform your life.

Have you ever noticed that your thoughts, for the most part, are much the same day after day after day? If the exact thoughts aren't the same, the general content often is. 

It's as though our thoughts are caught in a perpetual loop that plays over and over again creating our own personal "Groundhog's Day." (For those of you not familiar with the movie, the main character finds himself stuck re-living the same day of his life, over and over and over again.)

A great deal of these thoughts are negative and not only don't serve us, but hold us back from being and expressing all that we are. They keep us stuck reliving the past, or fantasizing about the future, wondering "what if?" and "if only..." These thoughts create unnecessary worry, stress, anxiety, fear, and regret.

They're full of judgments and criticism, comparison and complaint about ourselves, our lives, and others, creating feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, dissatisfaction, resentment and unhappiness.

It's no wonder that we go in search of answers, of a better way, of anything that will give us some relief from the constant stream of thoughts, and that will help us attain the happiness that, at times, can seem so elusive.

If you've got a shelf full of self-improvement books then you know that much of the "self-help wisdom" tells you that you have to work hard to identify your limiting beliefs and to then change or control your thoughts, or replace them with positive affirmations.

But it doesn't have to be that hard. You don't have to identify every limiting belief or change every negative thought to a positive one. Instead, just don't believe everything you think.

Sounds easier said than done, right? It's not really, although it does take practice, and like anything else, with practice it gets easier and easier.

Rather than get caught up in a negative thought loop, practice becoming aware of your thoughts before they race wildly out of control and use them as a reminder to bring your attention back into the moment.

It's only in this moment, right here, right now, that you can be happy. You can't go back into the past to be happy, and you can't jump ahead into the future to be happy, and you don't have to "fix"  yourself or others or your life, to be happy.

You just have to be present in this moment rather than stuck in your head. When you buy into believing everything you think and you get caught up in the perpetual loop of those thoughts, you're missing out on your life, on this moment. It's believing everything we think that creates much of the misery we feel and that sucks the joy and the fun out of our lives.

You can spend the precious moments of your life caught up in wishing things were different, beating yourself up for things you "think" you should have done or not done, telling yourself that you'll be happy when this, that or the other thing happens, or that you'll never be happy because you came from a dysfunctional family, aren't pretty enough, smart enough, good enough, etc....or you can stop believing all the bs your mind likes to feed you and you can get fully engaged in your life, in this moment, because...

It's only in this moment, right here, right now that you can be happy.

How Living in the Moment Can Save Your Life

There are some activities that naturally fine-tune your ability to be fully present and living in the moment. Any activity where truly intense focus is necessary to avoid the threat of death requires that you learn to be fully present in each moment. Skydiving, rock climbing, motorcycle riding...

If you happened to read my previous post, then you know that my oldest son bought a motorcycle just over a year ago. Needless to say, while I was happy for him, there was an underlying sense of panic...a fear that one day I'd get one of those phone calls every parent most dreads...telling me that my son had been in an accident.

It required every bit of my live-in-the-moment skills to let go of that fear so that it didn't consume me. Had I not been practicing living in the moment I could have spent much of the last year missing out on my life, driving myself nuts with worry, but that would only have served to make me miserable, and probably to make my son miserable with the relentless nagging to be careful that would likely have resulted. : )

It would not, could not, have prevented my son from being in an accident or prevented the dreaded phone call that would follow if he were.

That dreaded phone call came last Friday morning.

My son was riding his motorcycle home late Thursday night when a large flat-bed truck ran a stop sign and made a left turn directly in front of him. He was traveling at 45 mph and had only a split second to react. He swerved hard to the right, missing the flat-bed of the truck by mere inches, only to realize in the next moment that he could not avoid the curb that he was then rapidly approaching.

He hit the curb with such force that his butt flew three feet off the seat of his bike. It was in that moment that he let go of the handlebars. The last thing he remembers was looking down at his bike five feet below as he flew through the air, then the flash of white light he saw as his head hit the ground and he began tumbling, coming to a stop about 40 feet from where his bike lay.

Thankfully, all things considered, he suffered only minor injuries...a few broken ribs, a badly sprained wrist and ankle, a mild concussion and many abrasions and bruises.

Had he not been fully present in those moments, had he not swerved in that split second, had he hit the truck, or had he not let go of his bike in the moment he hit the curb, had he gotten tangled in the bike, the result could have been much, much worse.

It was precisely because he was living fully in the moment during those split seconds that he was able to take the instantaneous actions that saved his life.