I was just tracking my goals this morning and one of them caught my eye...It was this: To capture and replace any negative thinking with good thoughts. Well, if you read my first blog from this morning, you would see that I was in quite a pit of negativity and even self-pity. I don't like myself when I'm like that. It's not a pretty sight!
So, this morning I took a pain pill and ended up sleeping for two more hours, and when I awoke, was still hurting, but was generally in less pain. So I gathered myself together and, after making some phone calls, made brownies (from scratch) for me to take to the barbecue tonight. (Question: is it ethically right to make a food that tastes delicious but which NO ONE NEEDS in terms of its calorie content, and I myself won't even eat??) I would have much rather made a pasta salad or some such thing, even if it was just so that I would have something less damaging to eat than the fare offered there tonight, but I don't have the ingredients in the house to do much. I could make a SMALL portion of something...but this needs to be enough to feed close to 20 people.
ANYWAY, I am digressing.
In terms of "capturing our thoughts" (as a Bible verse calls it)...and DECIDING to think otherwise...For me, just the act of making the brownies was an affirmative action. Because of two reasons. One is that all I really wanted to do was to stay in bed today. And also because it was a commitment to attend the barbecue tonight...which also means that I am committing to getting into the shower and getting myself dressed up enough to "go public." And I found that, once I'd gotten the brownies into the oven, the idea of taking a walk or doing some yoga was no longer as intimidating. And that was just because I'd gotten MOVING.
I think that sometimes, as I tried to explain to my daughter the other day, we must start with ACTION and let the action affect or determine our attitude... Usually we try to wait until we FEEL like doing something before we do it. Well, today was one of those days when I knew I would not FEEL like doing anything positive all day long. So rather than let the whole day slide down into the quicksand of self-pity and pain; I had to take myself by the scruff of the neck and say "Look, You are just going to DO this and this...like it or not!!"
I think this kind of thinking is what lies at the base of both the Spiritual Disciplines like fasting and meditation...and is also at the base of Yoga and such. They are based on the premise that we can determine our attitudes and even our character by accomplishing an overt action. And that action can only be undertaken by a firm decision of the will. After all, who really feels like fasting? And then we find, sometimes to our surprise, that our feelings have come on board and we are overall in a much better spot than we were initially.
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