Stay safe and don't burn your dirty bits.
We are all connected. This connection is much easier today thanks to social media. We continue to listen to music, watch the news, obsess over reality shows and glace quickly through tantalizing magazines. Every moment of our life brings with it the reality of being influenced by anyone, by everyone. Although these can sometimes be very deep and meaningful encounters, they are often very infrequent.
In the last three decades, psychologist Matthew Killigsworth has learned that the human mind wanders 47 percent of the time. It wanders 30 percent of the time while we are reading or talking, and it also wanders 10 percent of the time during sex. Someone is thinking about frying bacon, aren't they?
Furthermore, we tend to exclusively wander to the negative thoughts in our minds. The fearful, dark, and isolated places that suffocate us. It is a miracle we have any confidence or courage left, when nine out of ten thoughts are self defeating.
But what about the genuinely happy people? We all know they exist because we have encountered them at some point in our lives. I mean the real happy people, not the pretenders who post selfies to prove how wonderful and busy their lives are.
The genuinely happy people have a secret, they discovered somewhere along the way how important it is to eliminate triggers.
There is a voice in your head which speaks of fear and trembling, longs for safety and comfort, and is a difficult animal to tame and train. There are also voices on the outside that are not much better, but are a little easier to master. They cannot be silenced, but they can be ignored.
All of the voices come with triggers.
If you don't like how you look, remove some of the mirrors in your house and the beasts who insult you will have to wait their turn. If you have friends or family members who always peck away at your dreams, taking a break from them will allow you to take a breath and be who you are meant to be.
Burn photos of your ex-girlfriend. Stop following your ex-boyfriend and obsessing about his new girlfriend and how you were never good enough. Stop listening to Country Music (kidding). Stop watching CNN and consuming yourself by Donald Trump and the end of the world as we know it. Stop thinking that it's your road, and that you were there first. Stop saying sorry that you are rich, talented, funny, smart, beautiful, handsome, or that you cannot speak English properly.
Identify the triggers. Eliminate them. At least slow them down.
Focus on the tyrant inside your head. That is where the real battle is, but you cannot fight it, if you swat at horseflies all day long.
Keep your pants on.
