Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life — So I Imagine I Won The Lottery
Even dumb ideas can be helpful.
Ever wake up, and, as soon as you do, you feel down. Perhaps things aren’t going well, so you’re depressed. When your alarm went off at 6 a.m., you were so friggin’ tired your body and psyche demanded you hit the snooze button fifteen times.
You check your phone and the glare singes your eyes. You’re attracted to bad news and read it whatever it is-a google news item about how the Asian markets got nailed overnight; an email from your boyfriend who missed his flight and now he’s locked down in Rome of all places; a video of your wife leaving the bar with your best friend. Who knows? Maybe all three.
No wonder you’re tired. Your entire body economic is way off. Any sense of self, self-esteem, and hope about the future seems out of reach.
All you want is a way out. All you need is a surge of energy to motivate you, to move you, powerfully, with intention, through your day. All you need is the guts, gumption, and gumbo to stand up, shake it off, grab a shower, and get on with it, whatever “it” is.
But you can’t. You don’t know how. Sure, you’ve read serious books. The Road Less Traveled, I’m Okay, You’re Okay, and The Mindful Way Through Depression. You’ve gone the humor route reading Hilarious World of Depression. Heck, you’ve even gone with the magical route with Depression and Other Magic Tricks. And you’ve had more therapy than most therapists themselves.
But all is not lost….
Which Way Will You Go?
Yeah, the above is a quite a wind-up, I get that. However, I also deal with bouts of depression from time to time. I’ve been clinically diagnosed so yay for me.
I’m on meds, do the whole therapy thing, yadda, yadda, yadda. And although I’ve let it overwhelm me throughout much of my life, about a year ago, I decided that depression or any other ill can be who I am.
It comes down to a choice. You can take the red pill and get selfish. You can identify as someone who’s perpetually on the mend and so delusional by your stomach bloat it should be the name on your drivers license. You may not mean it, but you do it.
You’ve met these people. They don’t live in the blue pill world. You ask them, “Hey Joe, how’s it going?” Joe doesn’t pop the capsule and say, “You know what, things are great. Kids are great. My job is going great. My wife and I are running on all cylinders, and thanks to Biden, I’m $1,400 richer.”
Joe is a red pill guy and red pill guys won’t pelt you with positives.
Red pill folks say, “Well, you know, I’m still sick. My veins are killing me. I tore my meniscus, so I can’t walk. I need help getting to the bathroom, which is okay, I guess. I haven’t needed to go since the Nixon administration.” And it goes on and on.
And you try to pitch in about how great the blue pill world is and they’ll have none of it. They’ll change the subject about what’s going on in your life, and they turn it around to talk about theirs.
“Joe, sorry your so sick. Hey, we just got a puppy.”
“Oh, I had a puppy once. And then it died.”
So the question is, do you want to make a change? Which pill do you want to pop, the red one of the blue one?
Yes, The Universe-Really
Here’s a quote from The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Bob Proctor, a philosopher, author, and personal coach, states the following:
Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind, you’re attracting it to you.
Proctor goes on to cite Prentice Mulford (1834–1891), ” Every thought of yours is a real thing-a life force.”
What does any of this mean? Why bring it up? Well, it boils down to these simple words-change your thinking, changes your life.
If you can be aware of what you think, redirect them toward something else in the moment, something positive, something to be grateful for, you will find your life will change and good things will come to you. This is what Byrne believes.
I know what your thinking. Don’t give me that “the universe provides” bull crap. Take your tarot cards and your fortune teller mumbo jumbo and go live in whatever world your pill dumps you in. Which one is it? It’s the green one, right? Damn green pills. What kind of world do you think this is leaving everything we want to the universe.
It Works
I’ve tried this and it does work. I’ve supplanted images of being destitute, homeless, and alone with feeling grateful that I have an amazing wife, great kids, clothes, and a place to lay my head at night.
This gratitude created a launching pad to ask “the universe” to be published in pubs like Better Marketing. I saw myself finding a topic worthy of Better Marketing, writing it, submitting it, and receiving the good news that I was accepted from gratitude’s pad. Low and behold, thanks to ______ ________, it happened.
That is one simple example. And again, I agree, you start mentioning “the universe,” and it all sounds kind of crazy as if I’ve been snorting CBD.
Look, I’m not here to puff up to about the lessons from Byrne’s book. You can read it on your own. That said, the simple idea about changing your thoughts will change your feelings is a weapon each one of us needs in our war chest-not just depressives.
If you’re thinking, well, you make it sound so simple, then let me tell you my own philosophy on simple things-the simple things can be the hardest things we do. I don’t care what it is either. The idea of going to the grocery store is simple. But doing it, that’s hard. Grocery shopping is done with intention, so it demands your attention and your focus as you scavenge for the produce and other perishables you need. It’s exhausting.
Here’s another: Exercising for thirty minutes a day is important for your health. However, the mere act of putting on your shoes to do it feels impossible.
I mean, let’s not kid ourselves — and that goes both ways.
What do both ways mean?
Both ways mean this: let’s look at what’s what with clear eyes. Let’s live in the here and now. Let’s let go of the regular delusions that don’t serve us. Let’s give ourselves the open the door to think about the things we want, need, and wish for.
Yes, this is possible.
And as simple as it may be, it’s not easy. Oftentimes, I revert to thinking about being desolated, alone, and homeless. This creates fear, and when I feel fear, I don’t move through my day. Grocery shopping, exercise, all those things I need don’t happen. And from that, I have to drink black coffee, which I hate, I feel like crud, and I miss ESPN’s submission deadline for NCAA basketball tournament brackets.
Again, changing your thinking is hard to do.
I believe thoughts are sticky things. You can change that one idea that you’re a crappy softball player by thinking you’re a champion. And trust me, you’ll feel better until you don’t. The brain has a way of slipping your old ideas back into your subconscious, like putting a book on a bookshelf. The secret to success here is knowing what’s in the purview of your mind’s eye.
You have to muscle in your new positive thought and give it a permanent seat at your table.
That means giving it a chance to shine and allowing yourself to imagine catching a flyball, hitting the home run, and being believed in by your coach. You have to let these thoughts in while you fight to keep the old ones out.
In my case, I had trouble with this. When I changed my thoughts, positives lost their effectiveness. I could think about good times with my family, but gratitude wasn’t forthcoming even though I was grateful. I just couldn’t feel it at that moment. The same was true when I thought about everything I had, including personal possessions and professional opportunities. I got nothing.
And then one day, something kind of crazy happened. On a Sunday morning, I woke up, and I thought I won the lottery. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself holding up that big check for $300 million, and man, the surge was epic.
Ever see what lottery winners do? They go nuts, bonkers, insane, jumping up and down, screaming, crying, knowing that life was about to change in very, very big ways. These people, after paying Uncle Sam, would be able to do whatever they wanted. For them, it’s a miraculous moment.
When I thought about winning the lottery, I didn’t go nuts, but the surge of feeling good about what was ahead provided the strongest sense of hope. I found a renewed sense of confidence that the future would be okay. I found myself saying that I’m more than any illness. I found myself saying, let’s pull myself up by my bootstraps and, pass or fail, give a new way of looking at myself and the world a shot.
Did the vintage self-effacing ideas poke their way in? Yeah, they did. But I focused, meditated, breathed into the idea of winning the lottery. I even watched videos about it. I thought, hey, look, this isn’t the end-all, be-all. Nevertheless, if these people, in a strange way, are winners, I-strike that-we can be winners too.
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