Here’s a Daily Practice, Securing Your Peace of Mind…and Your Future

How Can Something This Simple Work?

….Because It Does..

If you Pick Up the Tool and Make it a Practice

Desperately Seeking Relief

Some years ago after no less than 30 plus years of daily performance anxiety in my profession with a good dose of low-level depression called dysthymia, I had reached a mental and emotional dead end in my life. Finally, in utter desperation, I called an acquaintance I knew: a no-nonsense, hard-nosed lawyer that didn’t suffer fools. He answered my desperate phone call on the second ring. As I vomited out my utter desperation, anger and fear, he waited until I gulped in a deep breath to continue my tyraid: “Do you want to continue to rant or do you want some advice?” He said. You can do either. No problem. I’m listening and I’m not going anywhere.” “ OK, OK.” I sputtered. “ What is your advice?!”

He began to speak methodically and clearly. “

Guidance from a Rapier-Smart Lawyer

“I want you to do one thing starting tomorrow morning. Take out a sheet of paper and list six things that you are thankful for.” Read the list to yourself. The more lists the better but start with one. You can use the same list of things but it’s better to add new things daily. Keep it simple. Do this for two weeks; then do it daily as a practice.” This is called a gratitude list. “Jesus Christ! Give me a break, councilor! You’re supposed to be rapier-smart.” “ Ben, do you want my advice or not?” He said calmly. “I can give you a tool that I found works for me..and others. I like things that work. I don’t mess with things that don’t. But you have to pick up the tool.” Slowly, but methodically, I just did what my friend said. The next morning I began to think of just three things for which I was thankful: my children, my wife and my job. That’s where I started. I tried to keep away from things I resented or that gave me reason to bitch. By the end of the week I had a decent list of about ten things. The next week I started again, adding to my original list. I went over these lists daily, discovering that I was looking for good things I could add to my list, like memories of times spent with my now adult children, or friends who had been kind to me; even warm words of encouragement from each divorced parent of my dysfunctional family in the plains of Oklahoma. I even listed my thanks for the view of the curvature of the earth when the sun rose over those Oklahoma vistas when I was young. As I thought of my past and how I had come to the place I was now, I slowly began to see just how lucky I had been. I don’t know that I would have thought that way had I not practiced daily with that gratitude list. After a month it was as if my gratitude and attitude had soared like a glider on air currents. I found it difficult to be negative as if I were inoculated against negative people, places and things. Now, I don’t mean this like a Pollyanna-kind of thing. Let me give you an example of what I mean. When I was in my early thirties I was a sales executive for an international wine company: Vice President of National Accounts. Now this job involved extensive travel by airliner, or in some cases-“puddle jumpers-” to corporate headquarters all over the country and internationally. Only one problem: I was scared to death of flying! If the plane wing even tipped a foot I knew we were going to die! Well, that was too bad because I had to make a living so I just went with it. Within two years I was so used to flying I rarely even noticed if the plane was in the air or on the ground. I had become immune to the fear. By the time I left that career I was flying as copilot into the cinder cone of Mount St. Helens in a six-seat King Air turbo jet on the way to our vineyards on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. This worked because of constant exposure that developed into a practice. Heck, it’s not much different than learning how to ride a bicycle, or lift weights, or practice clunking out 2,000 words a day to become a writer Stephen King style. Gratitude is a practice.

John Nash was Right

Remember the movie: A Beautiful Mind? It’s the story of John Nash, the academic genius of mathematics who suffered from schizophrenia for over 20 years. As he left the ceremony, receiving the Nobel Prize for Economics in Oslo, Norway, he was asked if he still had delusions-seeing people and things that weren’t actually there. “ I still see things that are not there. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind. I choose not to indulge certain appetites.’ How does this apply to gratitude? Here’s how: I am now so used to being grateful (no more lists) at least a few times daily that I am inoculated from negative thinking and fear. I don’t indulge in the appetites of negativity. Yes, they are there and yes, I can deal with those issues. But I’m too occupied with gratitude. I approach my challenges with a much more serene view. Neither my wife-nor anyone else- can figure it out, except my lawyer friend and many others who believe this stuff works. All I know is that daily gratitude sets the stage for my life. After that the other stuff is…just ”the other stuff.”

Try It: Here’s How

Let me say now that at 71 years old I have been around. I didn’t live in a hut and, as I said, I was “running scared” most of my life. I was racked by fear, indecision, anxiety and depression until I stopped running long enough to grab for that slim reed of hope my lawyer friend was offering. You can do the same. Just sit down and shake off the jitters just for a few minutes. Think of one thing for which you are grateful, even your breath, for starters. Then try for one more thing. And another. Review the list daily, adding to it. When you get in a bind, refer to it. This one act can be a small but growing launch pad for your future. Just pick up that tool. See if it works. It does for many of us.