The Walk of Life

Even prior to COVID, many of us led very hectic lives and often felt pulled in many different directions. Respected therapist Carol Vivyan shared her perspective on this a while back and it remains relevant today: When we are walking along the footpath, we tend to look just ahead of us most of the time, with occasional glances behind us and far ahead. We look behind as we need to know of anything approaching from behind or to see where we have come from, and look far ahead to make sure we are heading in the right direction to get to where we want to go. Most of the time though, we need to know where we are putting our feet.

If we were constantly looking behind us, then we would be walking into obstacles or tripping over. If we were constantly focused on the far distance, we would slip and trip over obstacles beneath us. (It can be fun to act this out!)

So it is with life. Sometimes we are so focused on our past, that we neglect the present, and wonder why we keep falling flat on our faces. Or perhaps we are so attentive to anticipating dangers up ahead, that again, we trip and stumble our way through life.

Our Mind as Amazon

When we visit an online store, we tend to know what we are looking for. We know our shopping cartbudget, the item we want, the colour, the size, how quickly we need it, and so on. There may be hundreds of items advertised on the page, but we do not put every item we see into our shopping basket and buy them all. That would be crazy.

However, we do tend to buy into each thought in our mind’s online shop front, especially those thoughts that fit with the thinking habits we’ve got into. If only we could treat them the same way as the online store! Do I need to buy this thought, right now? Can I afford it? Is it going to be helpful? Is it really true?

Mindfulness Monday with Jonathan Fisher, MD

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise comes to us from Jonathan Fisher, MD, a clinical cardiologist. This week Dr. Fisher leads a mindfulness exercise targeting feelings of anger, fear, confusion, guilt, and restlessness.

Feel Good Friday – Clint Hurdle

Former Colorrado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle began sending daily notes of inspiration more than 10 years ago. They were a simple, small way of checking in with his staff to discuss leadership ideas, to offer support. He and his colleagues would share a “One up and one down,”something good from the week as well as something tough. Hurdle never planned to be an important voice to friends and acquaintances near and far amid a global pandemic. Yet what used to be informal group text messages have turned into much more — every morning, his Daily Encouragement emails go out to some 5,000 eager recipients. Today we encourage you to consider how what you feel are small acts of kindness you are alreay doing are having far reaching positive effects. Read more at https://apnews.com/20bc34bab3cfec813e1f5eb88ed1143e

Shifting Gears

We are often reminded that our response and adjustment to COIVD-19 is a marathon, not a sprint. This started for the US in January and we now find ourselves six month in with no definitive end in site. It times it can feel like an uphill battle. Sometimes life can feel like we’re struggling to drive or cycle up a long and steep hill, in top gear. The motor just can’t get us there. It works really hard, but it’s impossible to get up that steep hill in top gear. We need to change down a gear or two. Changing down gives the motor more torq, and is much better able to drive those wheels up that hill, albeit a bit slower. It can be like that with life sometimes. We try to struggle on in top gear, expecting so much of ourselves, of others, of life itself. Sometimes we need to change down a gear. Slow it down, reduce the struggle. Carry on, but in a lower gear.

Mindfulness Mondays – Mindfulness for Difficult Emotions

Every Monday, the Daily Dose is dedicated to starting your week right with a brief guided mindfulness exercise. This week’s exercise once again comes to us from Dr. Philip Fizur of Cooper Behavioral Medicine. This week he invites us to consider turning toward, and not away from, difficult emotions and provides a skillful approach to doing so.

Google Earth

We are still very much in the thick of COVID-19 and, knowing this, it may be useful to remember there is more to any given situation than the implications of this virus. Respected therapist Carol Vivyan reminds us that sometimes it’s useful to see the bigger picture. When something is distressing us, we’re so close to it, involved with it, part of it – it’s really hard to stand back from what’s happening. It’s a bit like Google Earth – we see the close up view but everything else is hidden from us. “We can’t see the wood for the trees”. We can zoom out our perspective, and see the bigger picture. Some might describe it as like having a helicopter view – as the helicopter takes off, getting higher and higher, it sees a bigger picture, and is less involved with the detail at ground level.

Train of Thought

Right now, it is easy to get caught up on many worried thoughts about our health, our jobs, and the impact of the pandemic on our many plans. But sometimes we get caught up in those thoughts and they take us to places we do not need to go. We can liken this to the experience of standing on a train planform. Standing on the station platform, sometimes we are advised to stand back as an express train will be passing through at speed. We hear and feel it approaching, thundering through as it buffets us with a strong blast of wind. We don’t attempt to jump on the express train and let it take us to destinations we don’t want to go to. In the same way, we can learn to notice the thoughts and feelings coming, and instead of jumping on that thought train, we can learn to stand on the platform, let it pass, and wait for the right train that will take us to where we want to go.

Feel Good Friday – Pro cyclist in Italy uses his bike to deliver medicine

Italian professional cyclist Davide Martinelli has been using his bike to collect medicine at pharmacies to be delivered to residents in Rovato, near Brescia, Northern Italy. There are no fans lining the road. No teammates providing support. And no race to win. Mr. Martinelli has achieved a moral victory, though, by using his bike to help deliver medicine to elderly residents of his hometown during the coronavirus pandemic. Be inspired to use the talents you have always had in new ways today to do good! You can read the full story here

The River

COVID-19 was first observed in the United States on January 20, 2020, triggering the series of events that led us to where we are today, some five months later. Getting to where we are now has taken persistence, and persistence is what is needed to see this through. In today’s Daily Dose, a message from news anchor Jim Watkins, reminding us what perseverance can do.