I happened to watch a montage from The Ellen DeGeneres Show of her favourite scare moments where she sets up these hilarious moments that freak out guests… so funny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr7bRw0NxQ4). This reminded me of a tool I use in the therapist office to help people understand why they aren’t enjoying life very much. When something happens to us, after the split second initial reaction (like the fear response by the guests on Ellen) we have a choice of how we want to respond. If we aren’t responding in a positive way to things that happen, how can we enjoy life? These guests are initially scared, but they’re able to laugh after, which is incredibly healthy. You may be thinking how can I respond in a positive way when my life is so hard? That’s a great question, but if you’re saying something like this what that means is you’re really good at not seeing the positive. If you’re reading this post you have a computer, internet, the ability to see and read, and you have the freedom and time to surf the internet. Life is pretty good for you. Sure, you will have bad things in your life including death and disease, but life is cushier for you than for the majority of people in the world. If you want to enjoy life more, you need to start seeing the blessings going on.
Here are the basic ways we can respond… remember the old adage: You can either laugh or cry? I’ve made this a little more option friendly.
Fear (anxiety): Some things in life should scare us like skydiving, cop pulling you over, a stranger hugging you like a best friend, but anxiety should only be a warning sign that something needs to change. If we have too much fear we need to change our circumstances, our mindset and/or our confidence level in our abilities and strength.
Mad: Some things in life should make us mad because they’re unjust, unfair, and unloving, but this should be used sparingly. If not, again we need to change something.
Sad: Being sad can include feelings of regret and guilt, but sadness is meant to be a healing and teaching tool. This should only be used sparingly.
Critical: Being critical and judgemental should be the least used response we have unless we’re hired to be a critic. If we want to enjoy life more, we need to stop judging everything, but rather accepting it and seeing the good. If we’re in a position to change something that could be better, great, but we shouldn’t be going through life wanting to control and change everything to our preference.
Brush off: My brother-in-law is awesome at this. He’s able to brush things off so well, which means he just accepts things and carries on. This is the one category I want to be better at because it’s easy to let your partner upset you when you shouldn’t feel an attack. If you can brush things off, you’ll be lessupset and you won’t feel the need to be ready to fight and be defensive.
Laugh/Happy: If you want to enjoy life, you need to be in this category the vast majority of the time. How do you get there? Start to see the good in things. We need to be more like Alec Baldwin’s character on Friends (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DJblHzEdLw). Don’t be too much like this because then you’d be annoying, but to start seeing life through this kind of perspective leads people to enjoying life more. If you need help with this, you may want to set up a time to see me.
This week may you find the positive in order to enjoy life more.
Rev Chad David, www.ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people