It’s the weekend! Just about, anyway. I hope you’ve had the chance to laugh at yourself a few times this week, as we talked about in my last post. If you haven’t, well then, lucky you! This weekend’s “no-fail” mindfulness challenge might be just the ticket.
So this one requires a combination of a sense of humor and some realness with yourself, also known as honest introspection, also known as a mindful perspective. You’re going to catch yourself in the act of internal storytelling. This weekend, be attentive to at least one instance in which your thinking mind gets on a really good roll and tries to convince you that, in a certain situation, the worst is inevitable. Things aren’t going to work out as you are hoping, that person really doesn’t like you, or you aren’t worthy of something awesome happening. The key here is to notice that tendency, which we all have as a survival mechanism, to “rationalize” by predicting negative outcomes.
This weekend, you have permission to not only put the brakes on it, but let yourself have a little chuckle over it. You get to give yourself credit for your amazing creative talent in inventing such a captivating plot, but also recognize that it is just that: an idea. A story. It is not what’s actually happening in this moment, and if your experiences in life so far are any indication, the worst case scenario rarely becomes reality. You may tell yourself that you are smart to be prepared, but are you really? Or are you just tied up in a ball of worry? Sometimes taking the fear out of the equation makes us better problem solvers, as it happens, so you may come out of this not only with a few good laughs, but with a new solution or two as well.
Have a fun – and funny – weekend!
Photo credit: Danielle MacInnes
