Nope, Normal isn’t some small town somewhere in the mid-West. It’s a phrase that popped into my head a couple of weeks back and that I’ve used a lot lately in conversation with people who have brought some kind of problem up to me.
If you’re like me, life is a mixed bag of good things, less –than-good things, desires, obstacles, disappointments and celebrations. And don’t we focus on the negative stuff?
At the moment, I have three coaching clients who are neurosurgeons, and they’ve shared with me that our brains are not necessarily hard-wired…they are soft-wired, and therefore can change. One way you and I can do that is learning how to think and speak positive thoughts in a habitual way.
I like that idea – it’s a simple suggestion but not at all easy. A book I’m reading now says that by the time we reach adulthood we’ve heard the word “no” around 150,000 times, while we’ve typically heard the word “yes” far, far less. Sometimes you can count “yes’s” on one hand.
On top of that there’s the old flight-or-fight response to life.
Yikes!
So, we are programmed for worry, anxiety, fear and negativity. I know how easy it is for me to fall into that – you should hear what my car hears when I talk to myself on the drive home from work some days…
So, when I say, “Welcome to normal,” I guess it’s my way of trying to let people know (and me, too) that all of us struggle and that’s fine.
You can tell yourself a different story, anytime in your life.
So, welcome to normal! (try to smile and have some fun today – it will change your brain and maybe get you a few more “yes’s!”)