by Sam Horn
Would it matter that they got an extra hour of sleep? Or would it matter that they saw the golden sun illuminating the sky as it peeked over that world-renowned landmark? Would they remember the extra winks, or would they remember the fragrant tropical air, gentle trade winds ruffling the palm fronds, and the fresh plucked plumeria flower behind their ear?
Several couples tracked me down the following day to tell me those seven words, “What will matter a year from now?” were just the incentive they needed to get up and get outside. They all agreed the memory of that once-in-a-lifetime Hawaiian sunrise beat staying in bed.
Are you dealing with a situation that is bumming you out? Does it make you want to pull the covers over your head and stay in bed? Do you find yourself dwelling on it and getting more and more depressed? Ask yourself, “Will this matter a year from now? What will matter a year from now?”
Henry Miller said, “Life, for many of us, is one long postponement.”
Hopefully, that reminder of what really matters – and that postponing it could be cause for regret – will be just what you need to get up and get outside where you can fill your life with memorable experiences that serve rather than sabotage your quality of life and peace of mind.
Philosophy #3: Nurture Yourself with Nature
“A lot of people never use their initiative because no one ever tells them to.” – coffee mug slogan
Would you like to know how you can initiate a more positive perspective, anytime, anywhere? Picture your mind as a camera. Understand that anytime you’re feeling troubled, you usually have your mental lens on telephoto. You’re focusing exclusively on your trials and tribulations. You are thinking only about a difficult person or disturbing situation.
Want to know how to get out of that bad mood? Switch your mind to a wide-angle lens.
Look around you. Focus on all that’s right with your world instead of what’s wrong. Instead of obsessing about your ordeal, looking at your world with a wide-angle mental lens helps you become more aware and appreciative of the blessings surrounding you.
When my sons went off to college (Virginia Tech; go Hokies), we went out for “the dinner.” If you’re a parent, you probably know what I’m talking about. This was my opportunity to sum up everything I’d learned about life and pass it on to my sons as they made their way out into the world.
One of the things I suggested was, “If you ever get in a serious funk, head out into nature. If a girl breaks your heart, if you fail a test, if you conclude you’re studying the wrong major and want to switch; get outside and get moving. Hiking in a forest, climbing a mountain or swimming in a lake will immediately shrink whatever you’re dealing with back to its proper size. It’s a great way to put thinks (intended) in perspective.”
Philosophers from the beginning of time have talked about the power of nature to put thoughts in proper perspective. Aldous Huxley said his father considered a “walk among the mountain as the equivalent of churchgoing.” Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I believe in God; only I spell it Nature.”
Teilhard de Chardin said, “The whole of life lies in the verb seeing.” Every time I reread his quote, something deep inside me says, “Yes, yes, emphatically yes.”
When we immerse ourselves in nature, we can’t help but experience a deep sense of gratitude. When we reconnect with the “nature” of things, we are filled with a sense of awe rather than isolation. We can’t help but smile at the sublime majesty of it all. We understand that miracles surround us right here, right now. If we drink it in with our eyes, we can’t help but savor the fact that we are alive, that we can feel, hear, smell, see, taste.
Are you going through a challenging time and having to deal with a person who saps your soul? Could you do yourself a favor this weekend? Could you drive to a nearby seashore, mountain range, river or nature reserve? Could you spend at least an hour not reading a book, not checking email, not listening to your iPod, and not thinking about your life back at home or work?
During that time, simply immerse yourself in the serenity that surrounds you. If you’re fortunate, perhaps you’ll be able to forget about that hurtful or hateful situation. Perhaps you’ll find yourself feeling what John Muir described as “The weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace in a silent, serene wilderness.”
Philosophy #4: Create a Calendar of Comments
“What time is it?” – Baseball pitcher Tom Seaver
“You mean now?” – Yogi Berra
Are you thinking, “Sounds good in theory, but I live in a city and it’s tough to get out into nature. What can I do to gain a better perspective now?”
Good point. Here’s another way to keep a wide-angle mental lens so you’re focusing on your blessings instead of your burdens.
Buy a beautiful calendar – one that speaks to you - and hang it in your kitchen. It can have photos of kittens, puppies, fast cars or beautiful scenes in nature; just make sure you like looking at it every day.
Now, start noticing all the magical things that happen around you every day. Resolve to write down one thing that goes right every day. Log an insightful quote you saw on Twitter, an invigorating walk you took after breakfast, a credit card bill you finally paid off, a funny remark you overheard, the glory of a spring day, a compliment from your spouse, or an inspiring movie. Just take twenty seconds to record something that went well that day.
As Frank Lloyd Wright commented, “If you foolishly ignore beauty, you’ll soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.” Record the beauty in your world so it becomes top-of-mind.
Many psychologists have concluded there is only one thing that makes us happy. Think about it. Money does not make people happy. Neither does fame. All you have to do is read People to know that many wealthy celebrities are unfulfilled. Even love and good health don’t necessarily make people happy.
The only thing that directly results in happiness is a sense of gratitude. You can have everything but be miserable if you don’t value what you have. You can have very little yet be content if you appreciate all you’ve got. It’s very straightforward; the more gratitude you have, the happier you’ll be. The less gratitude you have, the less happy you’ll be.
If you invest the time to make daily entries into your Calendar of Comments, do you know what you’ll have as the weeks and months go by? You’ll have:
• Visual evidence of all that’s right with your world
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• a written legacy of all for which you have to be grateful
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• a permanent keepsake of your beautiful moments
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• an in-sight, in-mind antidote to the injustices you have to endure
Mother Teresa once quipped, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish She didn’t trust me so much.” If life is giving you a lot to handle, your Calendar of Comments can help you focus on life’s marvels instead of its miseries.
If you’re a parent, you’ve undoubtedly learned you can’t control your children’s lives, nor can you choose everything that happens to them. You can give them happy memories and create good times to offset the hard times by prominently displaying and maintaining a Calendar of Comments in your home so you have an ever-present reminder of your blessings vs. your burdens.
The actor Jeremy Irons said, "We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.”
If you’re lucky, your kids will suggest, “Let’s read the Calendar after dinner,” and you’ll have second and third chances to relive your happy memories. One of our favorite entries was made on a Christmas Day. Andrew tore into a beautifully wrapped present and cheered with delight upon discovering a motorized truck. After several minutes spent unsuccessfully trying to start it, he pouted, “It’s not working!” Brother Tom patiently explained, “Of course it’s not working. You forgot to read the de
structions.”
If you work in an office, buy another calendar and post it where everyone has access to it. Ask your coworkers to rotate responsibility for making daily entries. Record a contract your company won, a surprise birthday party for your supervisor, a customer who called to say thank you, a major project that was completed on time, an award given for outstanding service.
When setbacks occur, when you encounter difficult clients, when the internet goes down, when the committee chair doesn’t know what she’s doing; look at the calendar to remember your triumphs instead of these tests of patience.
This calendar can help your work team concentrate on their accomplishments rather than their annoyances. It serves as a counterbalance to the crises that can be an everyday part of the business world. Pull it out once a month at staff meetings to remind employees they are making progress, that they are making a difference, and that their work does matter.
Philosophy #5: Build Emotional Fitness To Stay Strong
“I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster recently. The other day my mood ring exploded.” – comedian Janine DiTullio
Have you been on an emotional roller coaster lately? Have you snapped at someone, simply because you were exhausted and didn’t have the energy to choose a better behavior?
Let’s be honest…dealing with difficult people can be stressful. Trying to be considerate - when others aren’t – takes commitment.
Each time we choose to reel in our frustration, think before we speak and try a new Tongue Fu! technique instead of saying what’s on the tip of our tongue; we spend a bit more energy than usual. Spending that energy is almost always worth the effort. But what if we’re running on empty?
I’ll always remember a nurse who told me, “All day long I take care of others. I pour my heart into my job. Every day is full of difficult doctors, worried family members, scared patients and overwhelmed staff. By the time I get home, I’m worn out. I find myself being short with my husband and kids even when I don’t want to. What can I do?”
Here is a surprising suggestion for building your emotional fitness so you can keep making good behavioral choices even when you’re energy is running low. Dr. Chrisina Grimm, a certified Tongue Fu! trainer who has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, has an intriguing, counter-intuitive premise.
She thinks that, sometimes, the LESS we have on our plate; the EASIER it is to become irritated with other people. Want an example? Do you have a retiree on your street who is always yelling at kids to stop playing in his/her yard? Sometimes, the more time we have on our hands, the easier it is to get upset with trivial issues we wouldn’t even notice if we were focused on more important priorities.
As Christina points out, “A state of boredom is our brain’s way of saying it’s not getting what it needs to thrive. The default setting of the human brain is to learn. If our default is to grow, not doing so frustrates us … and we often take it out on whoever is around us.”
Think about the last time you were unmotivated or uninterested. Were you making your best choices? Treating yourself well? Treating others well? Probably not. Your car doesn’t go anywhere while it’s stuck in neutral and neither do you. Following the same routine, day after day, isn’t what you’re designed to do. Human beings need a mix of routine and spontaneity to feel and act our best each and every day.
Consider some of your routines. Are any of them getting old? Vow to do something new every day. It doesn’t have to be life-shattering, just different. It can be as simple as watching news on a different channel or taking a bus or train to work instead of driving.
Mixing things up, even a little, gets you out of lethargy and stimulates your brain so you have more energy and are better able to respond to unwelcome surprises. Keeping yourself mentally fit by deliberately putting yourself in new situations requires you to stretch yourself which builds emotional strength. This will make you less vulnerable to people who try to take advantage of you.
Philosophy #6: Manage Your Mood with Music
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Fredrich Nietzche
In a world of rules and regulations, it can be easy to forget there is more to life than discipline and responsibility. What is your music? What reminds you life is not a mistake?
A friend loses herself playing the piano. She told me, “Playing piano is my outlet. If something’s bothering me, I ‘take it out’ on my music. I rip into Rachmaninoff if I’m frustrated and vent my anger by pounding out forte passages. Then, I calm myself down by playing a little Chopin. I can experience an entire range of emotions just by playing one of Mozart’s symphonies. By the end, I’ve purged my emotional gunk and I’m ready to re-greet the world.”
Also, check out Pandora or another free online internet radio. Feeling gloomy? Enter in George Winston and treat yourself to lyrical melodies. Or, put on a little Beyonce’ and start dancing. Nietszche thought a “day was lost if you have not danced at least once. If you’re a person of a “certain age,” try some Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett and sing along with favorite songs that bring back fond memories.
For centuries, human beings have turned to music to soothe their soul. Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to say silent.” Young singer Taylor Swift says, “People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.”
Need something to lift your spirits? Thanks to radios and the internet, music is a free, 24/7 option. As Leonard Bernstein said, “Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.”
Philosophy #7: Pour Out Your Soul – and Then Get On With It
“A true friend is someone with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think out loud.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do you have a friend with whom you can say out loud what’s weighing heavily on your heart?
We’re taught to keep a stiff upper lip and to turn the other cheek. Yet trying to deal with trauma by ourselves seals the mental anguish in our head, where it accumulates and has no opportunity to escape. Going it alone turns our mind into a mental pressure cooker. All the sadness and stress builds and builds until our mind has no alternative but to blow a gasket and explode – often in inappropriate ways and at inappropriate times.
Pouring out our soul has the power to purge our psychic pain. Getting frustrations and sorrows off our chest gets them out of our chest, where they could otherwise cause heartache.
Think back to a time you told all to a friend. Remember how relieved you felt afterwards? You may have even let out a heartfelt sigh and said, “I feel so much better.” Your friend probably didn’t even offer advice, maybe she simply let you talk it out.
Having someone serve as a sounding board helps us talk our troubles out of our system. We feel like new person because we are! We’re now free to carry on because we are no longer carrying inside all those collected insults and injuries.
A 30-something named Adelle told me, “I agree with this in theory, but I’ve got a friend who is a drama queen. Every time we get together she complains ad nauseam about how awful her job is, how all the decent men are taken, and how unfair it is that’s she’s drowning in college debt. She feels better after she dumps all that on me, but I don’t. Plus, she hasn’t done one thing to change or improve her circumstances.”
Adelle’s right. There’s nothing wrong with wanting our friends to commiserate with us as long as we don’t turn it into a weekly habit. Ruminating over what’s wrong with our life – without doing anything about it – can actually prolong our pain. It ultimately makes us feel helpless to make changes.
Dr. Christina Grimm says, “Pain exists to let us know something isn’t working and it’s time to do something about it. Without that pain, we would wander through life making mistake after mistake without any knowledge of our errors or hope of correcting them.”
I suggested to Adelle, “The next time your friend starts her chorus of complaints, say: ‘Okay, I agree this is a bummer. It’s obvious you�
��re frustrated and that means something needs to change. If it hurts badly enough for you to say this out loud repeatedly, it must bother you enough to do something about it.”
There’s no reason to pretend we’re not hurt or to apologize for feeling frustrated. It’s healthy to pour it out to a friend. If that pain persists because the situation hasn’t changed, then use it as it’s meant to be used: as a motivator to make things better.
Philosophy #8: Center Yourself with Deep Breathing
“Man has made his bedlam. Let him lie in it.” – comedian Fred Allen
Have you ever noticed that when you get stressed or mad, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid? Did you know this breathing pattern is a sign you’re about to become less smart (and more anxious) than you were a few seconds ago?
It’s true, the activation of our primitive fight-flight brain means our creative problem-solving skills and higher-order communication skills go out the window. When our “lizard brain” is engaged, we exchange our best thinking for base-thinking.
The more upset we become, the less likely we are to come up with calm, cooperative responses to the issues or individuals that are provoking us. The key is to create a buffer between us and our reactive lizard brain which causes us to have two “mental left feet.” One of the best ways to build that buffer is to center ourselves with deep breathing.
It may sound simplistic, however, breathing deeply is a time-honored way to stay poised when under pressure. Increasing the amount of oxygen our brain gets means we have a better chance of responding with the right words rather than resorting to the wrong, loudest ones. After all, as my psychologist friend Dianne tells me, “It is a common misconception that raising the volume of our voice increases our chances of convincing someone else to do what we want them to do.”
If you feel your life is bedlam, doing this 5-20 minute breathing exercise can reduce your stress and counter-act mental clutter and chaos.