What are you thinking today? Your thoughts create your life

Published in Positivity by Chere Bork MS, RDN on July 26, 2011
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Two root canals in six days! Lucky me! Also on the plate of life is my darling father-in-law who quit eating and is slowly dying, constant rain and a husband who, while trying to build a deck, fell on the wet lawn and tore his quadricep tendon and needs surgery tomorrow. As I sat in the Metropolitan Endodontics chair (highly recommend their empathy and skill www.metroendo.com) before they even started to work on my second root canal I started to cry. I thought life was not hard, no, it was horrible. And that was before Gary fell and needed surgery. I felt like I had no control. To cope I tried extra swimming, taking Vicodine for my tooth pain and eating 8 of the 9 servings in the Baked Lays Vinegar Potato Chips (I would have eaten 9 servings if Gary had not come to my office and exclaimed, “Chere you ate the whole bag!”). We have spent more weekends in the car this summer than outside. I am waiting for summer and it is half over. I am complaining more than sweet Gary who needs surgery tomorrow, whose father is dying and whose deck project would come to a complete halt if not for his supportive friend Tim Thoma. Tim has come over on these boiling hot evenings to work on the deck.
Only Tim Thoma would stop in the middle of an Ironman race to give his mother-in-law a hug! That’s our Tim!

So, today after I found out I needed cataract surgery, I intentionally flipped the switch to optimism. Happiness goes hand in hand with optimism. If we can learn to view what happens to us as both good and bad events in a positive light, we can actually become happier. And if we are happy, we usually see things more positively.

I’m not a fan of Shakespeare but I keep his words from Hamlet planted in my brain, “Nothing good, nothing bad…it is our thinking that makes it so!” So, it is time to examine your self talk.

Optimists and pessimists explain their events in completely different ways.

Optimists* Pessimists
Explaining Bad Events  
See setbacks as temporary See setbacks as permanent
-My daughter and I fought cause she was in a bad mood -My daughter and I never get along no matter what
See failure as specific to their immediate problem Generalize the problems to their whole life
-The speech was hard because there too many people -The speech was hard because I always mess up
Explain bad events in terms of external causes Explain bad events by blaming themselves
-I caused the accident because I was distracted -I caused the accident because I am a lousy driver
Explaining Good Events  
See good events as permanent See good events as temporary
-I am always lucky -I am only lucky today… it won’t last
Generalize good outcomes to their whole life Limit good outcomes to a specific area
-I got the job…my whole life is working great -It went well at work today, but my home life is a mess
Attribute good events to themselves Attribute good events to external causes
-My ability made a big difference -Other people made it work, not me

Your thoughts create your life. Positive people seek out and expect positive experiences. You do get what you expect. Now wouldn’t it be nice to eat a whole bag of potato chips and expect to NOT gain weight. Change the way you talk to yourself and you can change your life. It is not easy but you have one life to live and just imagine if it was one you loved. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Update: Gary had surgery on July 22, 2011 and his good friends Tim and Scott Thoma have been here all weekend working on the deck. And my father in law passed away on Sunday July 24, 2011 around 12:30 am. After the phone call from Gary’s sister Pam, all I could think of was that he was meeting Vince Lombardi in heaven and then I thought of him meeting Reggie White and Max McGee and …. We will miss Howard. There was nothing he would not do for his family. Here’s to Howard! Go Packers!

Source: The Healthy Mind Healthy Body Handbook by David Sobel MD and Robert Ornstein, Phd

1 thought on “What are you thinking today? Your thoughts create your life”

  1. Chere – My friend and I went on the Door County home and garden tour yesterday. We both promised to not talk about a specific person all day and if we did we put a dollar in the jar towards lunch. Needless to say we both mentioned our person more than once! Lunch was provided with our slip ups. The optimistic part was each time we did we laughed about it as more money towards lunch and we are human – keeping the day happy, sun-filled and and in the end a day of sharing with beautiful memories of the homes, gardens and friendship.

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From Chere Bork

I love my life! I have a passion and a purpose to share my recipe for health and happiness with RDNs and others – maybe even more so now that I’ve officially retired. If you want to learn what I discovered through coaching 1000 people over 9000 hours check out my final post, “Live Like This Is Your Last Day. Someday It Will Be!”

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