Whiteboard Wednesday Quote - February 4

"Between stimulus and repsonse there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom." Victor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning"

My road rage used to be BAD! I eventually figured out that it wasn’t the slow or seemingly inept, non-blinker-using driver who was upsetting me. I was upsetting myself. I was wasting my energy reacting and losing all control based on something I had no ability to control. 

We are granted with opportunities to practice with “smaller” things, the weather, the driver in front of you, the fact that you have a pimple the day before your event, so we are better able to RESPOND to the bigger things. We see the disturbing stimulus. We acknowledge the turbulent emotions that come up. We take a breath. And then we respond (yes, this response could still include honking your horn). All of this practice is really expanding the space that Victor speaks to in the quote above.

The game is about catching ourselves before our automatic reaction takes over. It's our responsibility not to let the outside control us. That's true freedom.

Whiteboard Wednesday Quote - January 28

"We suffer more in imagination than reality." - Seneca

I discovered one thing worse than the dentist this week: worrying about going to the dentist. "It's never as bad as it seems" is a lesson we are told growing up (ok, maybe it is as bad as it seems sometimes, but definitely less than .01% of the time), but one that I inevitably forget over and over. What did Portia Nelson say? “I am astounded at how long it takes to discover… for the first time, the things I have learned… over and over again all my life.” True.

It turns out my tooth wasn’t chipped beyond repair, and that my gums aren’t receding so fast that I'll be lucky to have teeth by 35; both slippery slopes my mind had been taking me down.

It’s never as bad as the mind tries to convince us. I know that. But do I understand? Do I remember? It turns out that understanding is remembering in the moment.

Remembering that the mind is often an incompetent consultant spewing seemingly research-backed risk-management advice. This information may have kept us alive when we were kids, but we aren't kids anymore. We can learn, through remembering more and more, that it's within our power to drop the ceaseless worrying that drains us and makes our days difficult.

I'm not saying we have to reach a point where we enjoy going to the dentist, but we certainly don't need to waste our days dreading it in imagination.

WhiteboarD Wednesday Quote - January 21

A lady visited the office last week to notarize a document. I was signing the document when she quietly said, glancing up towards the whiteboard in my office, "That's just what my granddaughter needs to hear. She's going through uncertain times with school, and I just keep telling her it will be ok." She proceeded to pull out her phone and take a picture before she finished her job and left.

I'm hoping these whiteboard Wednesdays will serve as a similar function for us - a quiet reminder of something we may need to hear this week.

This is also a nudge to be sure to write down, jot a note in your phone, or take a screenshot when something you read hits you. It's not accidental, and you could pass it along to someone else. 

This quote is from After the Ecstasy, The Laundry. This is a wonderful read that emphasizes that the path isn't something we accomplish once and are finished with. While the daily tasks don't change, like the laundry, the way we experience these seemingly ordinary experiences will.