Tag: breath

4 Ways to Disempower Your Negative Thoughts 😎

On By Cathy NoiceIn Cathy NoiceLeave a comment

You stand on the scale and you’ve gain 5 pounds.  You think, “Fatso, why did you have that extra chocolate chip cookie?”  You avoid setting up the meeting with your boss because you are sure your idea will be shot down.  “She doesn’t think I’m smart.  She’ll never like my ideas.”  You gossip about your co-worker because you know they will never get the promotion they want.  “He’s an idiot.  There’s no way he’ll get it.”  All these thoughts are wearing a super highway of negativity in your brain.  The good news is you can change that.

Your brain is malleable and can be changed–and it doesn’t even involve surgery.  The key to disempowering your negative or unwholesome thoughts is to change your pattern of thinking.  It takes practice.  But when you start creating wholesome thoughts, they beget more thoughts that are wholesome.  Soon, you are a wholesome thought-machine.  As Professor Mark Muesse teaches in the Great Courses: Practicing Mindfulness, “Unwholesome thoughts break down into three areas: selfish desire (I want my neighbor’s car), hatred (I hate that person because they are different from me) and deluded thoughts (I think I’m the greatest or completely unworthy).”

Here are Professor Muesse’s four “R’s” of disempowering thoughts:

  1. Simply replace the negative or unwholesome thought with something opposite.  If someone cuts you off in traffic, instead of angrily swearing and tailing them, you should instead think, “I’m sure they are in a rush for a good reason.”  I’ve done this when my boss’ door was shut.  I would switch my paranoid thinking: “She’s going to fire me,” to “She must be working on my raise or a new challenging project.”  When I had a four-hour unplanned airport layover a few weeks ago, I replaced my “I hate this airport and this lousy airline” thought (which became my new negative mantra for a few minutes) to “This’ll be a great opportunity to listen to my book and get in 10,000 steps.”  I also cultivate compassion by saying, “Just like me.”  If someone steals my parking space, I say, “They want to be happy, just like me.”  Replace the unwholesome negative thoughts with positive, wholesome ones.
  1. Reflecting on results.  Think about the long-term results of this thinking. Contemplate the forward trajectory or consequences of these thoughts.  If I believe that I am a nervous speaker, I will become a nervous speaker.  If think that I am financially insecure, I will become financially insecure.  Seeing the long-term consequences helps squelch the inner critic.  Another way of looking at it is: do you want to be the Grinch?  Even Grinch-like folks were small children at some point.  It took years of unwholesome, greed-filled thoughts to result in the vengeful person they became.  What are you really creating with all those unwholesome thoughts? Your best you?
  1. Redirecting attention.  This is where you direct your attention away towards something more wholesome.  Like your breath, your toes or your ear lobes.  I advise my clients to do this when they get angry and have regressed into their lizard brain (the fight-or-flight part of your brain).  When you are hijacked by emotions, it’s important to get out of your head and back into your body.  Especially before you say something you might regret.  Your best thinking is in your prefrontal cortex but it’s impossible to get there as long as you are in a state of fear or anger.  Remember the phrase This too shall pass.  Good or bad, everything is impermanent.  We just need to accept that it is impermanent.  Joy or terror, thoughts pass away, lose power and fade.  Bring it all back to the breath.
  1. This is all about challenging your assumptions.  It might be that you’ve become jealous of your co-worker’s new convertible sports car.  You assume that if you had that car, you would be happy.  Examine what you might feel you’re lacking.  Maybe you want some freedom.  Maybe independence.  Look at the underlying assumptions of why you might be envious.  You might be envious of your boss’ new smart phone.  You want to have the latest technology.  But won’t that phone be an out-of-date piece of junk in 3 years?  I recently moved my home office.  I thought about a nice chair I wanted for it.  I realized that I didn’t want to add any more furniture to my already fully-furnished house.  I realized there was a chair and ottoman that was unused in another room.  So instead of feeling like I was lacking, I discovered I already had what I needed.  Challenge your assumptions.

Any type of mindfulness is a practice that takes time and consistency.  Habitual thoughts are not easy to break but it can be done with persistence.  I personally journal each evening about how I have reframed my thoughts throughout the day.  I think the reflection helps me hardwire the new positive, wholesome thoughts.  Good luck!

Dodging a Bullet: Hurricane Florence

On By Cathy NoiceIn Cathy Noice, Workplace Navigator1 Comment

If you have been reading my posts, you know that my home was flooded in Hurricane Matthew on October 8th of 2016. It was an incredible lesson, a challenge and, ultimately, contributed to the demise of my marriage. So you can imagine my anxiety as I saw the path of Florence some 5 days before it made landfall and its potential path over my home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. I was scared. I wasn’t sure what to do and if I even had the fortitude to survive another storm. I did. Currently, my dog Baci, my boyfriend Roy and I are just fine, but I’d like to share my experience dodging the bullet.

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Here is what I learned this time around:

Prepare

Five days before the storm made landfall, every store I went to was out of bottled water. There were random posts on Facebook that the Dollar General had water or bread. I started to fill containers and empty soda bottles with water. I filled every one of my dog’s water bowls to the brim. I filled the bathtub. After Matthew, we had to boil water for about a week. I wanted to make sure there was plenty of water for toilets, dishwashing, etc. I had three (yes, three) exterior battery packs and every electronic device completely charged by Thursday morning. Being able to charge your phone is critical after the storm has passed. In addition, I had everything in my garage stored at waist height or above or in my house. The garage received the brunt of the damage from Matthew and I didn’t want my front yard being full of debris after the storm.

Vigilant

I’m pretty sure I logged about thirty plus hours of Weather Channel before, during and after the storm. I watched as it dropped from a Category 4 to a Category 3 to a Category 2 at landfall. I had two separate weather apps that notified me of flood, hurricane, and tornado warnings and watches. Forewarned is forearmed. It started to rain on Thursday afternoon so I took the opportunity to run the dishwasher and wash a load of clothes. Knowing we could easily be without power for a week, we were vigilant to use it before it was gone. I cooked things that needed my electric oven and held off on the things we could heat up on a camp stove. When I woke up in the morning of Friday and still had power, I made two cups of coffee before 6 AM. We lowered the thermostat about 5 degrees lower than normal in anticipation of losing power. Use what you have before it’s gone.

Break

We never lost power. Thank goodness. The downside of not losing power is that we were sucked into the anxiety of Jim Cantore (infamous storm-chasing Weather Channel correspondent) knee high in water right outside the hotel I had stayed at just 5 days earlier and constant weather alerts on my iWatch and phone. The apex of which was early Saturday morning when I woke up at 4:30 AM to see the glimmer of water up to the first step of my deck. Gulp. This is it. Matthew all over again. I was devastated. I wept. I remember Roy telling me to take a deep breath. We weren’t being flooded at that moment. This could be the worst of it. We marked the bottom step as our high-water mark. By 11 AM, it was down about an inch. It turned out to be the high-water mark of the storm. We stopped watching the news on a continuous basis. It’s not like we never turned it on but taking a break and, more importantly, taking a breath was really important.

Explore

When the water started to recede, Roy suggested that we walk in the rain down to the dam. The dam on my lake had been reconfigured to spill at a lower lake level, so it made sense to check it out. So there we were, walking in the rain about a mile and a half down to the dam. We saw many snapped pine trees and debris but as with any exercise, it was a relief to get out of the house and to see that actual dam. It had been the cause of the damage from Hurricane Matthew as the lake hadn’t been lowered and the dam wasn’t functioning properly. It was reassuring to see the deluge going over the dam and that nothing seemed amiss. We were not the only ones suffering from cabin fever as we saw many out on the road driving to see how the neighborhood had fared through the storm.

Aftermath 

Keep in mind that if you weather the storm, things will not be back to normal for a while after the storm. It took at least a week for there to be gas and stocked store shelves. Interstate 95 and 40 are still partially closed and countless other roads are closed. Roy headed to his home in Morehead City (near the coast) and it took over 6 hours to get there. Demands on local services were sketchy especially at the coast. Mail service was delayed, businesses closed, ponding on roadways and rivers was still cresting. It will be months, if not years, for many areas to get back to normal. Or at least a new normal. The aftermath goes on and on.

Gratitude

I’m so grateful we didn’t suffer any damage from the storm. There were tree limbs down, ponding, and debris, but it was small and insignificant compared to those along the coast. When co-workers, friends and acquittances now see or talk to me, their first question is “Are you OK?” They were aware of what I went through in Hurricane Matthew and were concerned that I would have a repeat. Heck, I was scared I was going to have a repeat. I feel guilty that we never lost power, cable, Wi-Fi, cellular or running water. I dodged a bullet but I am so grateful that I won’t be dealing with insurance adjusters, contractors and, most importantly, staying put in my lovely home without incident. I am most grateful for those who love and support me, no matter if I am in a beautiful lakeside home or living out of a suitcase.

We prepared for the worst and hoped for the best, and that is exactly what happened. There are thousands who aren’t as fortunate as I. If you would like to help those affected by Hurricane Florence, please contact the American Red Cross.