I was part of a virtual conference hosted by Canadian Small Business Women on the weekend. I hosted 2 breakout sessions where I spoke about Silencing the Peanut Gallery: how to go from being your worst critic to your biggest cheerleader. The title’s a mouthful, but I like it 😉
I shared the following picture with attendees as an example of the importance of watching what we say to ourselves and others because it affects us on a physical level as well as an emotional level:
Look at how pretty the water that was played Mozart’s Symphony and John Lennon’s Imagine look! Taping the words love, peace and thank you had similar affects. Prayer transformed the water, and the words I will kill you clearly didn’t have a positive effect!
I was inspired to share this picture in a blog post because I think that we need to be reminded in these times that protecting ourselves goes far beyond wearing face masks and gloves when out in public. We have to be mindful of what we’re surrounding ourselves with on many levels. Considering we’re 60% water, and the effects of water being exposed to positivity and negativity illustrated above, we need to find a way to surround ourselves with as many positive things as possible.
This doesn’t mean that we’re living in a Pollyanna world where real-world realities don’t exist. It means that we aren’t spending too much of our time focusing on the things that are not within our control. I’m constantly reminding myself that worry is simply negative goal-setting, so I might as well focus my energy in a more useful way.
While I understand the need for masks and gloves when out in public to protect the spread of the virus, I think that we need to ensure that we protect ourselves mentally and emotionally as well. Experiencing unexpected change can be challenging at the best of times and we’re going through something totally new.
Empathy and kindness and patience are needed in these times, both among ourselves and to ourselves. There isn’t a guide to navigate through this. We’re all trying to figure it out as we go.
Bruce Lipton compared what we’re experiencing to the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. This is the cocoon phase. I look forward to seeing the beauty of the butterfly!