Turn Worry into Wonder

All human beings contend with bouts of frustration and negativity. Even those of us with a positive outlook on life, get taunted by the worry bug. Daily we experience about 50,000 thoughts, images and ideas. They slip into our awareness in positive or negative ways. The negative teasers turn into worry bugs that capture our awareness too easily.

Our amygdala and limbic systems focus on threats to protect our survival. During prehistoric times, when stalked by a predator, the systems kicked in. We picked up that danger signal. 

Today our threats involve cognitive thinking: the job, the finances, or what's going on with family and friends. Our heart rates increase just thinking. 

When you say, “The older I get, the more I worry,” it’s because of all the practice.

Why do we practice worrying? Psychologists indicate that worry gains its hold on us by ritualized reassurance. All negative scenarios that can possibly occur, race through the mind. We search for ways to survive them, to calm ourselves down. Situations we worry about 94 percent of the time never happen. What results is usually something never worried about. 

Next time the worry bug bites, try new approaches.

Take a break from dancing or jousting with the worry bug. Rather than change the way you think, change your relationship to your thoughts. 

Learn to watch your thoughts, rather than engage with them.

When a negative thought distracts, stop the runaway train. Notice sights, sounds, scents, a taste of air. Engage with a feeling.

Notice what’s going on in the moment. Find words of admiration to discover the rightness of things. 

Create your own metaphor for struggle.  Consider your greatest accomplishment and how you achieved it. Bring in all the senses to recall it in detail.

Avoid always thinking in fix-it mode.

Sing La La La and launch into a favorite melody.

Keep a journal for positive ideas and gratitude comments and write in it just before bed.

Use humor to design a defense against your bug.

Take a look at a video about Wince and the Worry Bug. You'll learn how not to feed him.  
http://www.worrywoos.com/wince.html

Turn worry into Wonder!

Play with Paraprosdokians

Paraprosdokians play with double meanings of words. 

This figure of speech occurs when the latter part of a sentence surprises the first part in an unexpected way.

It is the derivative of a Greek word meaning "beyond expectation."

It causes the reader or listener to reinterpret and reframe the first part. Often used for humorous or dramatic effect, it creates an anticlimax.

Here are a few:
          
Do not argue with an idiot.  He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
            
We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
            
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
            
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
            
Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

   

Search for a few of your own surprises. 

Happy LOVE Day

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. - Lao Tzu

Love looks not with eyes, but with the mind.  - William Shakespeare  

When you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be. -Leo Tolstoy

How did Valentine's Day turn into a tradition of Love?

_{Many stories abound.} 

_{Appearing in Ancient Rome, a festival called Februalia focused on spring cleansing. Ovid explained that Februare in Latin meant purification with water.} 

Excessive rainfall occurred that time of year, possibly a reason the month received its name. 


The festival turned into Lupercalia arriving on February 15, to avert evil spirits, purify a city, promote health and fertility. 

In 270, Emperor Claudius II prohibited marriage for young men. He claimed bachelors made the best soldiers. A Roman priest, Father Valentine, married young lovers in secret because he believed in love and felt the ban was unjust. 

Claudius captured St. Valentine and held him in jail. Young lovers, secretly wed by Father Valentine, brought him flowers and notes to show their gratitude. 

One twist of the story revealed that once in jail, St. Valentine fell in love with the daughter of Claudius. Before he was executed on February 14th, he sent her a letter signed, “from your Valentine.” 

By the 18th century, individuals celebrated Valentine's Day by showing love with flowers, chocolates, and greeting cards. The tradition continues.  

Writers have mused and muddled about relationships for centuries.

Mustang Love

Spill- a-minute,

bounced

in wild

rides

of flesh and hug.

Climb back on

or

cool down.

Never a taming.
   

When you count everything you love, how long until you list yourself?