Have you ever tried when you are feeling really cold to think of a warm fire to warm up?
or ever heard someone say when you are scared “Think happy thoughts!”?
If you believe the things you say, then, you are what you think you are!
If you think you are warm, your mind can trick your body into relaxing into the warmth.
If you are focusing on happy and peaceful things, your mind convinces your body that you are safe and the fear can melt away.
There have been times in my life when I had to convince myself of things that I didn’t feel to be true.
I was sitting on the floor of the laundry room, sobbing on the phone with my good friend, she told me words that gave me life in that excruciating season.
“You are stronger than you think you are,” she told me.
In that moment, these words became a mantra, a daily, sometimes hourly phrase that pushed me into believing I could survive something that I thought might end me.
She told me, “All you have to do is the next right thing.”
All I had to do was breathe, hug my children, eat food, nurse the baby, or even sleep; just do the next right thing in front of me, whatever that might be.
“The next right thing” became a reminder to be in the present moment. This phrase helped me walk out of the past and not shrink away from what was to come.
I not only survived that season in my life, but I learned how to manage hard things, and how to love the people around me despite what life was throwing at me. I couldn’t quit.
Recently, I was taking a photography business class, and it felt like a college class. I had to learn new computer software and business processes I had never done before.
The coach reminded me, “I can do hard things.”
Life can be really hard sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get through it.
I have to remind MYSELF that I haven’t come this far to only come this far!
I will probably fail many times before I succeed, and that’s okay because then I learn.
I can do things that are not comfortable and may even hurt a whole lot, but on the other side of the pain is an experience and a different me I have never been before.
I have set my mind to be strong, doing the next right thing even when it’s hard.
So, do the hard thing.
Start now. Live your days with tenacity because “you really can do hard things.” and you never get this time back.
You are as strong as you think you are!
