Walking Across the Lawn

I used to be somebody that complained a lot. Now, if you would have asked me, I would have said, I don't complain a lot. I'm just a realist. But I complained about everything in life, and I didn't realize how much that was actually impacting my mindset on a daily basis until I started working on that part of me. And then I heard this quote recently, complaining and negative thinking. Think of it this way. So if you walk across your front lawn every day to get to your car, let's say you have a sidewalk, but you choose not to take it, you walk across the lawn to get to your car, and you walk that path every single day.

What happens to your lawn? It eventually gets worn down, and you've actually created a path. You've actually created a trail in your lawn that gets you straight to your car. And that is exactly what happens in our brains with complaining and negativity, especially when we speak it out loud. It's even more impactful when we speak it, because we can hear our thoughts out loud then. And then it actually transfers the information back into our brain in another way through our hearing sense. So when you complain and you have negative thoughts, you're actually creating neural pathways, neural trails in your brain that make you then think more negatively and complain.

So you're actually making the problem worse by complaining. And so I found myself recently in a place of complaining a lot. I was just complaining about the heat outside. I'm complaining that my business isn't where I want it to be. I'm just. I was complaining about a lot of things, and it started to kind of perpetually become a thing. So over the course of a few days, it became much easier to complain and much easier to focus on the negative. Now, I don't consider myself a negative person anymore because I've done a lot of work in this area.

But there's something to be said for catching it early, because I recognize that today when I heard about that pathway in the brain, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that's what I've done the past several days. I've actually created a new pathway in my brain that fosters negativity and continues this going. So I am nipping that in the b*** right now because I don't want to create more neural pathways in my brain that lead toward negativity and, you know, just poor thought processes. I want to have positive thoughts and gratitude.

Did you know that you can't actually think about something negative when you're grateful? At the same time, like your brain actually can't do those two things at the same time. So if you can maintain a posture of gratitude, it's really hard to be negative. So one of the things I started doing when I've caught myself in this because, you know, I have reason to be complaining right now. There are some reasons, there's some valid reasons for this, but one of the things I've started doing is I start immediately speaking out loud.

Things I'm grateful for. It might be as simple as I'm grateful for my dog. I'm grateful that I have this bottle of water to drink, because it's very refreshing. It might be as simple as I'm thankful that I have this soft blanket. I'm thankful that I woke up today. Like, we're talking really basic things that I'm grateful for, but I start speaking them out loud because I want my brain to start hearing some gratitude so that the negativity in those patterns gets shifted away and my brain can focus on the gratefulness.

So I want you to try that activity. If you struggle with negativity, know that this is something you can change. Because I spent like 36 years of my life that way. And now that I've worked on this, I don't think I'm a negative person anymore and I think I can still slip into it. But I have these tricks that work for me. So I would love to hear what your tricks are and what works to get you out of a negative, complaining thought pattern and just know that it is something you can change and grow. Thanks for tuning in with me today.

God bless.