monster_book-openA client of mine, who works as a personal/life coach and I were having a chat the other day and I told him that something a person had said to me had really put me off.

He asked: “Why are you spending so much time and energy focusing on what he said, rather than focusing on what you have to do?”

I really had no other answer so I said, “You’re right.”

I believe that we need to deal with the things people say that bother us.  We even need to deal with the things we say that bother us.

So, yesterday, I initiated my own personal “no negativity” policy.  When I was asked about my classes today (chemistry, yuck), I said, “great”.

Am I lying?  No.  I think in time I will actually feel like what I am saying.  A study I read a while ago found claims that the simple act of smiling at yourself in the mirror, or in general, can lift your mood.  Physiology triggered psychology.

Now, I’m not saying that I still don’t get those nasty, niggling, negative thoughts that make me feel like I won’t get to where I want to go.  I still get them, but now I’ve found a way to manage them.

Enter the Monster Book.  Mine actually has wee monsters on the cover of it but the premise is this — find a place to right down the negative thoughts and get them out of your head.  Then, close the book.

Haven’t you ever seen those fairy tale movies that start when the “book opens”?  (There’s a scene of a book opening and out come castles and birds and butterflies — and monsters.)  But, at the end of the story, when the book is closed, the monster is enclosed within.

It’s empowering to be able to close the (proverbial) book.  When you open it to let the monsters in, you also let the other, previously trapped, monsters out for that moment.  So do it.  Let the monsters do their little monster dance for that little while that you’re pencilling today’s monster thoughts in.

Then close the book.

And open another — I’m currently reading Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins.