When mistakes turn into learnings, we often get the choice to cry, get angry and frustrated or to just laugh at the amazing way life teaches us lessons. Then we grow.
On this occasion – I had a good belly laugh.
Practice what you preach right?
I’d just finished a coaching session with a beautiful human, exploring how our anxious thoughts about future events are just that – simply thoughts.
Ultimately, all of our feelings are nothing more than our thoughts in the present moment coming to life. Thinking about the future and ‘what might happen’ or ‘what might go wrong’ can make us feel pretty awful in the present. That’s how powerful your thoughts are. Even if you are thinking about something that doesn’t actually exist (the future), our thoughts can feel real.
Please never, ever forget, that what is creating those thoughts is more powerful than the thought itself.
When we become self aware, we are able to catch ourselves having unhelpful thoughts. But they only become powerful if you put energy into them. Otherwise they are just thoughts, like a movie sitting dormant on a hard drive in the cloud that isn’t being streamed into your consciousness. It is only real, if you think it is. Like watching an engrossing movie.
So our coaching session concluded.
On my way home, I pulled in to McDonalds to grab a coffee.
I swung into the drive-through ordering lane with the large black speaker-box primed to receive my order. “Welcome to McDonalds. Can I take your order please?” the speaker box said.
I asked for a large Mocha. There was a car behind me that I noticed in the review mirror.
Then I reached for my phone to open the McDonald’s app so I could read out the QR code linked to my loyalty card. After all, who doesn’t love a 6th coffee free?
As I tapped the app it was taking FOREVER to load up. The large black speaker box suddenly took on a strange personality. It started judging me!
Over the next three and half minutes my app crashed a few times, it was slow to load and then when it finally did start up, I had to login in again and fumble around with trying to remember my password, finally launching successfully, only to be bombarded with advertising and “later” or “ok” buttons to push frantically.
210 seconds can feel like an eternity in the pressure cooker of assembly line-like conditions that a drive through lane arouses.
I could feel it in my bones. A huge line of cars mounting behind me in the drive through queue that was certain to trigger outrageous levels of drive-through rage. I might even have a gherkin thrown at my window by someone as a final reminder of my time-wasting incompetence.
I was sitting in my car thinking:
“what if the black speaker box tells me to drive forward, before my app has loaded?”
“What if the cars behind me start to beep their horns out of frustration?”
”What if I am causing delays and frustrations for people that I’ve never met!?”
“What if…”
“What if…”
All of this was happening, of course, in total silence. During those three and a half minutes I resisted the urge to say something or do something despite the deafening loudness of my thoughts that no one else could hear.
Despite my thinking and my worries. I said nothing.
The three and a half minutes passed. And do you know what happened?
Absolutely…nothing.
No one said a word.
No one beeped the horn.
No gherkins of disgrace landed on my windscreen.
Nothing happened.
I scanned my loyalty QR code. Collected my coffee. Pleasantly went on my way. And laughed at the power of my thoughts.
Most of what we think – is noise – that only we can hear.
You have the power to create thoughts. You have the power to let them go too.
You were born with that power. It never left you.
If thinking about things that only exist in your head, causes you to feel anxious – take a deep breath, clear your mind, smile, and remember that nothing happened.
Welcome back to the present. The place where the future doesn’t exist. The place where you are creating life with every breath you take.
Now – is the time for something to happen.
You – get to choose what that will be.
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