DEALING WITH THE CURVEBALLS OF LIFE

We all can probably relate to something unexpected or surprising or disruptive happening to us or to someone in our lives.  Many refer to these moments as “curveballs.”  A curveball in baseball is a pitch that appears to be moving straight toward home plate but is really moving down and to the right or left.  Curveballs are meant to surprise the batter.  And curveballs do indeed take us by surprise when one is thrown our way.  It is what we do with the curveball that makes a difference.

 Take for example one of the curveballs dealt actor John Corbett.  John is an American actor who was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia (and who, by the way, was inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame in 2004).  After graduating from Wheeling Central High School, John worked as a delivery boy earning $2.65 an hour.   His dad, who lived in California, had offered to help him find a job in the steel industry out there and taking his dad up on an offer, John traveled to California with some buddies.  Shortly after arriving, he began work at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, making very good money as a hydrotester (made sure the welds were tight on the huge pipes the company made).  According to John, “Then one day some pipes came off the assembly line and hit me in the back.  Next thing I knew, I was on disability, walking with a cane, popping painkillers.  Manual labor was out of the question. What was I going to do with my life now?”

Can you relate?  Ever asked yourself, “What am I going to do with my life now?”  Any of us who have dealt with a curveball have probably uttered those words or had that thought.  And how we respond to that question makes all the difference in our lives. John Corbett responded by attending acting classes at Cerritos Community College.  He found that he had a passion for acting.  He was good at it.  He found joy in it.  As he says, “I’m the least likely guy to end up in several hit TV series, let alone star in a Hollywood movie.  Me, a blue-collar kid from West Virginia.”

 We can all be like John and hit the rare curveball out of the park if we take the right approach to the “pitch.”  It is our response to the curveball (and I am sure there will be many that cross our path) that makes all the difference in the world.  We:

• Cannot walk away from the curveball.
• Need to accept “the pitch,” make adjustments, and move on.
• Need to approach it with a calm and open mind.
• Need to take control of our emotions.
• Should view the curveball as an opportunity and use it as a teachable moment; learn from it.
• Have to find the joy in the unexpected; look for the positive.
• Can laugh and look for the humor in the situation.
• Need to take time to clear our mind and open our heart; take a deep breath and calm down.
• Have to keep moving and in a forward direction.
• Must adopt a ‘this too shall pass’ perspective.
• Need to approach the curveball as a challenge rather than as a burden.  
• Can make a list of options for what to do.
• Should try to gain perspective on what happened and keep things in perspective (this is but one pitch in our life).
• We must not personalize the situation.
• Can ask questions to gain information that will help us move forward.
• Can smile.

Curveballs.  Something we would rather not come our way, but more than likely, we will all deal with our share of them.  Remember, it is our choice how we deal or react or respond to the curveballs.   And, how we react determines what happens to us.  We can choose to allow the curveball to paralyze us.  We can hole up somewhere and do absolutely nothing.  We can choose to allow the curveball to get us down, blanketing us in negative emotions (sadness, anger, fear, etc.) turning us into unhappy people.  Or, we can choose to make the best of the curveball, finding the positive in it, and moving onward and upward.

As Brian Tracy (motivational speaker and self-development author) tells us, “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”  Our response will define our quality of life (paralyzed and immobilized; negative and unhappy, or positive and making the best of everything).   We need to not let what happens to us dictate our response.  We can learn to deal positively and productively with the curveballs in our life just as John Corbett did!

QUIETING THE NEGATIVE CHATTER IN OUR MIND

“A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies,  the one you feed.” (A Tale of Two Wolves, Cherokee Proverb)

 Do you ever find yourself in conflict with as American author Stephen King calls it “…a voice from the attic of my mind” (from an excerpted college newspaper column, king’s garbage truck, in Hearts in Suspension, page 222) or the chatter in your mind?  Does your chatter have a good and bad side?  A positive and negative side?  An optimistic (cheery) and a pessimistic (gloomy) side?

In the story above, this inner voice or the chatter in our mind is depicted as two wolves.  Which wolf, which inner voice, do you find yourself feeding?  Fueling?  Is it the positive, cheery one or the negative, gloomy one?  Does the situation you find yourself in determine which one you feed and choose to give strength to?

  Personally, no matter the situation, I try to feed my good wolf.  I try to do what is necessary to give it strength to get me through the challenging, tough, and rough moments in my life.  I have found it to be more productive in the long run to be positive and optimistic no matter what.  But what if the bad wolf is the stronger one, the one who seems to control responses and reactions?   When the bad wolf seems to be getting in the way of dealing productively with a situation, then we need to diminish its strength and quiet it which may allow the good wolf to gain control.

Some things we can do to tame the bad wolf and quiet that negative chatter are:

LIMIT THE ATTENTION GIVEN THE NEGATIVE CHATTER.  Avoid allowing the negative chatter to dominate thoughts.  Any emotions we are feeling need to be dealt with; however, we must not dwell on any of the emotional lows (anger, fear, sadness, frustration, sorrow).  If we give the emotional lows all the attention, they will overtake everything.  Instead, we need to acknowledge them but move on to understanding and using positive chatter – hope, belief, solution – to help us move to what can and will be.

STOP IDENTIFYING WITH THE NEGATIVE CHATTER.   We need to avoid defining ourselves based on the negative chatter.  American industrialist Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”   If we tell ourselves enough times that we can’t or shouldn’t or don’t deserve or… then we won’t be able to or won’t get whatever we are striving for.  We shouldn’t be afraid to question why we think that way.

REFRAME THE NEGATIVE CHATTER.  Sometimes just tweaking what the “bad wolf” is telling us may help allow what the “good wolf” is saying to come to the forefront.  Think about it?  Which statement gives you more hope?  ‘I’m having a bad day.’  or ‘I’m having a bad moment today.’  The second statement is an example of a “good wolf” thought – in the 24 hours I am given today, these five minutes are not good ones.  There is a huge difference in our perception when we put the chatter in a workable context.

REPLACE THE NEGATIVE CHATTER WITH A BETTER, MORE POSITIVE THOUGHT.  Most often, the things that we think are just the way it has to be is just an assumption that at some point we decided to agree with.  First, we must stop agreeing!  Replace ‘There is no way I can learn that new computer program’ with ‘I may not be the best at it and it may take me some time, but I am willing to give a try at that new computer program.’  Stop feeding the negative chatter with time and attention.  If we stop feeding the negative chatter and start feeding a more positive belief/thought, the old one will die and the new one will blossom and flourish!  We need to follow the advice of Aristotle (ancient Greek philosopher and scientist), “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”  We can substitute positive in place of excellence in his advice.  Make being positive your habit.

GET RID OF THE NEGATIVE “TAPE” PLAYING IN YOUR HEAD.  Those constant negative thoughts, negative beliefs really take a toll on us.  Avoid judging and labeling stuff as bad or not worthy or not capable.  These beliefs truly limit us and hold us back.  Create a list of things to do (I really want to learn that new computer program).  Next, create a list of reasons what is preventing those things from happening (I’m too old to learn something new; I don’t have the time to learn the new computer program; Computer stuff is too hard).  While some things on your list may be accurate, what things aren’t?  It is the inaccurate (the negative) beliefs that need to be changed?

WORK TOWARD A CALMER SELF.  When we are relaxed and calm, there seems to be less negative chatter and we seem to have more control over our thoughts.  When we worry and are stressed, we lose control over the chatter and the worst of thoughts have a way of gaining a foothold.  So it behooves us to remain calm, cool, and collected and to stay in the present as much as possible.  Do whatever it takes to stay relaxed.  Meditate.  (Meditation is a great way to quiet the fear-based negative chatter in our minds.)  Practice deep breathing.  Employ visualization techniques.  Color. (Pick up one of the adult coloring books and let your inner child help you calm down.)  Say a mantra.

“We are what we think,” taught Buddha (ascetic and sage).   So, why not think and be positive?  Feed the positive.  Starve the negative. Remember, the more we focus on the positive, on hope and possibilities, the more likely our actions will reflect that.   Conversely, the more we focus on the negative, on our fears and frustrations, we are more likely to find more of which to be fearful or frustrated about.  Make it a goal to quiet the negative chatter; starve it and allow the positive chatter to blossom and grow.  Live with thoughts of hope and a positive tomorrow!!

FEED YOUR IMAGINATION

A television commercial for Jiff Peanut Butter serves as the inspiration for this article.  A young boy asks his mother for a peanut butter sandwich and one for his friend, Charlie.   (Turns out Charlie is his imaginary friend.)  When the mother puts the sandwiches on the table, a bite has been taken out of Charlie’s.  The young child excitedly says, “Look, mom, Charlie took a bite!”  (The camera pans to the mother who is chewing something…)  The tag line for the commercial is “Feed your imagination.”

Imagination is the action or ability to create new ideas or to have concepts of objects that are not present in real life.  When we use our imagination, we challenge our brain to be creative, innovative, resourceful, and ingenious.  And, when we are creative, innovative, resourceful, or ingenious we are able to better deal with challenging situations, issues, problems – anything in which we find ourselves in need of coming up with something different to resolve a dilemma we may be having.  (And, don’t we feel that unwanted or unexpected change often presents us with dilemmas we need to resolve and for which our usual problem solving methods may not work?)

 Often when we are in the midst of an unwanted or unexpected change we may also be sad, angry, depressed, or frustrated and the last thing we want to be is creative or imaginative.  So, what are some things we can do to feed our imagination that will help us move beyond our emotional response to what is going on and move to a positive resolution of what we are facing?

Spend time with creative people. Have a friend who is creative?  Spend some time talking and brainstorming possibilities.  Visit a craft fair.  During a recent visit to a craft fair, I found myself talking with many of the artisans about their creativity.  One in particular, who turned old pot lids into snowman faces, was a wealth of information on how to get the creative juices flowing.  Play with a child.  Children are naturally unconventional thinkers and can come up with some pretty wild and imaginative takes on things.

Be curious about stuff.  Children are not only unconventional thinkers but they are very imaginative because of their curiosity.  Activate your inquisitive side and seek to know more about something.  Learn and experience new and different things.  Ask questions.  Wonder more.

 

Read. Watch. Listen.  Read books and began to wonder or imagine what is going on, what will happen next or what would have happened if only…    Watch movies especially the special effects in some action films.  Your imagination may just take hold as you try to figure how they came up with the idea for certain effects.   Watching a movie in black and white can trigger the mind to wonder about colors, symbolism, and hidden meanings.  Listen to music (classical music is a great means to feed the imagination), an inspirational speaker, a speech (TED talks are great for this).

Experience the arts.  Create art or visit a gallery or an exhibit.  Play an instrument or attend a concert.   Dance or take dance lessons.  Act or attend a play. Sing or attend a concert.

Participate in a workshop, conference, seminar, or other educational event.  Anytime you can feed your brain new and different ideas or thoughts, the likelihood of your imagination getting fired up is pretty good.

 

Daydream. Daydreaming is meditation for the creative side of our brain.  When we daydream, we create a series of pleasant thoughts that distract our attention from what is currently going on.  Daydreaming is the wishful creation of our imagination.

Relax.  Rest yourself and your mind.  A body and mind that is stress free and rested is better able to learn and more likely to be creative.

Experience something new and different.  When we do or learn something new, we develop connections in our brain and these connections help grow both our intellectual and our creative sides.  So, meet new people, travel to a new place, listen to a different genre of music or read a book by an author new to you.  Eat a new food.  Be adventuresome.

Practice seeing things differently.  Look at common things with a new perspective.  (Think of the crafter who created snowman faces with pot lids.)   That different perspective may trigger different ideas which may feed your imagination.

When we are dealing with unexpected or unwanted change and we are having trouble moving forward, imagine where you want to be or what you want to be in the changed environment.  If we use our imagination (and feed it when it needs fueled) then the possibilities of our world become limitless.  As the Anglo-Irish playwright and 1925 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature George Bernard Shaw said, “Imagination is the beginning of creation.  You imagine what you desire. You will what you imagine.  And at last you create what you will.”

FINDING BALANCE

We are one week into the New Year of 2018.  Are you trying to catch up after a few weeks busy with events, parties, performances, shopping, and time with friends and families?  Did all the coming and going make you feel off balance?  Changes to one’s regular routine can do that. In fact, any change can make us feel out of sync.  Anything can throw us off balance – a change in someone’s schedule, an illness in the family, an appliance breaking down, a flat tire.  Daily life occurrences can create slight shifts for us.  So, just think what may happen when the “floor falls out from under us” if a major or seismic change should enter our lives.  Being off balance in some areas of our lives might be an understatement at that point.  If all our energy is focused on dealing with the change, it’s easy to find ourselves out of sync or off balance and pulled away from the important aspects of our life. This can lead to frustration and stress.

Balance relates to having stability in one’s life; of equalizing who we are and what we do; of aligning what we must do with what we want to do or enjoy doing.  When our lives are balanced then all the various elements of our life are in the right amount and proportion.  We are more likely to be calm, relaxed, have peace of mind, take things in stride, and feel happy.  The late American writer and theologian Thomas Merton said, “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”

To help you regain balance in your life so your 2018 can be calmer, more relaxed, and less stressed, try incorporating a few of these tips into your life:

Set priorities.  Align what you do with your values then prioritize what you do in line with those values. This is especially important in times of change when things can be topsy turvy.  Establish boundaries and limits.  These define how you take charge of your time and space, and help keep you aligned with your values.  It is okay to let go of some things, especially those not totally in line with your values.

Renew or reroute your purpose in life.  Ask yourself whether the change has affected who you are or where you are going.  Take some time to re-examine what truly matters to you.  If your purpose in life hasn’t really been altered by the change, give yourself time to accept the change then continue to move forward with your life.  If you feel the change has changed your life’s purpose or direction, then use the changed environment as a springboard to reroute your direction.

Be flexible.  Adopt the philosophy that anything can happen at any time.  If this is your mindset, when the unexpected happens, it is less likely to throw you way off balance.  Maintain perspective. When stuff happens, roll with it.  There are some things over which you have no control.  You can only control your response to stuff.

Empower yourself to think positive.  A positive attitude helps you to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to avoid worry and negative thinking. With a positive attitude, you see the bright side of life, become optimistic and expect the best to happen.  And, that positive attitude will help bring balance back into your life.

Put your “touchstones” to use.  Your friends – your touchstones – can be invaluable in helping you regain balance.  Ask them for help and allow yourself to be helped.  Allow them to challenge as well as celebrate you.

Simplify your life.  Drop activities that sap your time or energy.  Minimize the amount of time you spend on activities that you don’t really like, that don’t really bring you happiness or satisfaction, or that you do just because others around you are doing.

Take care of yourself.  You are no good to anyone, especially yourself, if you are unhealthy.  Get sufficient rest, exercise, and eat properly.  Apply healthy habits to your daily life; create daily routines.  Find ways to relax, minimize bad stress, and relieve tension.  Make sure to carve out some “me time” each day.

Take it one day at a time.   Don’t impose a time limit on yourself and feel that your balance needs to be “back” right away.  Give yourself time.  While the change may have happened in an instant, the recovery from it may take time.  Give yourself whatever time is needed. As long as you are continuing to move forward (and don’t let the change get you stuck), it doesn’t matter if you take 10 steps forward and three steps back. The net result is still forward movement.  So, take things one day at a time.  Before too long, the scales of your life will be back in balance.

A balanced life means the various elements of your life are in the right amount and proportion.  Living a balanced life means making choices.  Those choices should be based on your values and what is truly important to you.  Jennifer Pastiloff, writer and yoga teacher, said:  “Life is a balance between what we can control and what we can’t.”  No matter what throws us off balance – our choice to have too many activities in a day or something out of our control, like a major or seismic change – we all can choose to restore balance to our lives.  While there is no single formula for maintaining balance in our lives, just deciding to do so and implementing some of the tips offered here will most certainly go a long way in restoring the balance in your life.

SELF-RENEWAL IN THE NEW YEAR

As I write this article, we are seven days away from 2018 and a new year.  Each new year brings with it a time for renewal.  Renewal is rejuvenation, revitalization, an awakening, or a recharging.  In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author Stephen Covey lists “principles of balanced self-renewal” as the seventh habit.  Balanced self-renewal involves attention to all four dimensions of our being: physical, spiritual, social/emotional, and mental.

According to Covey, the physical dimension involves caring for our physical body – eating the right foods, getting enough rest and relaxation, and exercising on a regular basis.  The spiritual dimension encompasses our center and our commitment to our value system.  The social/emotional dimension includes our feelings about self and others as well as our interactions and relationships with others.  And, the mental dimension involves keeping our mind sharp by reading, writing, organizing, planning and thinking.

 In this post, I would like to concentrate on the thinking aspect of our mental dimension and on the need to develop new attitudes for self-renewal.   As mental health counselor and author Deborah Day says, “Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling.”  Think about it.  We often create a list of resolutions for a new year – things we want to do differently or things we want to accomplish in the new year.  Achieving those resolutions must first start with thinking differently.  As Albert Einstein (German born American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and Nobel Prize winner for Physics in 1921) said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

For self-renewal to be successful, we need to open ourselves to new ways of thinking.  But, how do we do this?

We have to work on overcoming self-limiting thoughts.  These consist of the chatter in our heads that tells us that we can’t or we won’t or we shouldn’t.  The more the chatter revolves around these thoughts, the more we believe them and before we know it, those thoughts become our mindset.  Our mindset consists of beliefs and beliefs are thoughts that are repeated over and over for a period of time that determine how we respond to situations.   And the longer we think that something can or can’t happen, the more we believe that thought and the more we act accordingly.  So, our mindset is very powerful.  It can control us.  And, if our mindset is full of self-limiting thoughts, it can limit us from new ways of thinking.

We need to challenge the mindset that may be preventing us from thinking in new ways.  If negative thoughts (I could never do…, I don’t think I can do this…, I’m not as good as….) dominate our mindset, we need to look at what action can be taken to eliminate the negative?  Can we try to focus on the positive?  Is the negative a learned, an ingrained behavior?  If so, we can unlearn it.  Change the ‘I could never and the ‘I don’t think’ to words of encouragement.  Don’t feed the cycle of negativity.

Being open to brainstorming  (when ideas are spontaneously generated in response to a problem, issue, or situation) will also help us develop new ways of thinking.  Brainstorming helps us think beyond our same old thought patterns.  Productive brainstorming will generate a lot of different ideas especially off-the-wall or out-of-left-field ideas.   Don’t even think about whether the idea will work or solve the issue – just get any ideas and thoughts out. After the ‘mind dump’ of ideas, sort and categorize them and then begin to look for ones that will work what you facing

One of my favorite ways to develop a new way of thinking or looking at something is through  kaleidoscopic thinking. Take all the pieces for the situation (write out the pieces on index cards) and play with arranging them in different configurations.  Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Ernest L. Arbuckle professor of business at Harvard Business School and director and chair of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative)  says, “Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.” The notion of forming new patterns from existing information or resources is so simple, yet something we might not normally consider doing.   Remember, if we want the end result to be different, our actions and decisions must also be different. However, the difference may come about by doing something as simple as tweaking what we already have.

 

Putting on a critical thinking cap will also help us look at things differently and begin to think differently about what we are seeing or facing. When one thinks critically, the situation is analytically evaluated.  This helps with bringing out different points of view related to the situation.  Challenge and analyze what the motivation for doing something is, what thought processes are being used in the decision making, and what conclusions are being derived.  Use reflection throughout the analysis.  Ask: Could I be wrong? What assumptions am I making?  Are the assumptions correct? Are there other explanations?  Other perspectives? Other viewpoints? Seek out evidence to support ideas, beliefs, and conclusions.

Sometimes something as simple as gaining a fresh perspective helps us think differently about something.  Visit someone or someplace to experience something different from the norm. This may provide new ideas or a way of taking the ‘kaleidoscopic piece’ of one’s life and helping with the rearrangement. Talk to someone who has a totally different point of view on the issue or situation. (Think of the story of the blind men and the elephant. Depending on what part of the elephant was touched, the perspective on what the elephant was like, differed. Look at the pieces of the situation in this manner to help gain other perspectives.)  Don’t overlook asking a child for his/her perspective on something.  Children are naturally unconventional thinkers. When trying to think differently, a young child’s take on an issue (presented to them in a way they would understand) might provide a spark of creativity that provides just what is needed for us to think in a new way.

Self-renewal is important for us to stay on top of our game, to be highly effective in all we do, and to achieve any resolutions we may have for the New Year.  As we begin this new year, do practice balanced self-renewal.  Pay attention to all four dimensions of being: physical, spiritual, social/emotional, and mental.  And, in particular, pay attention to the mental dimension and be open to new ways of thinking.  Only by doing so will be able to do things differently and give ourselves the potential to achieve our goals and dreams.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!