An ANT Invasion!

Have you ever seen one ant in your house and then, all of a sudden, there are hundreds of them.

I was just reading Dr. Daniel Amen’s book, “Magnificent Mind At Any Age”, and he spoke of Automatic Negative Thoughts, thoughts that come into your mind unconsciously and send you into a tailspin.  He calls them ANTs.

And much like those pesky insects, when you have one ANT (Automatic Negative Thought) many seem to follow.  Why?

He explains that your physiology actually changes every time you have a thought. 

His brain imaging studies have demonstrated that your brain releases a certain set of chemicals each and every time you have a thought.

Positive thoughts produce chemicals that make you feel good.

Negative thoughts discharge chemicals that make you feel bad. 

One of his studies showed harmful thoughts actually deactivated both a woman’s cerebellum, the back bottom part of the brain that plays an important role in your physical coordination as well as her left temporal lobe, which when disengaged makes you more likely to get irritated.

Talk about how your thoughts create your entire reality.

He mentions 9 different Automatic Negative Thoughts, they are…

1)  Always or never thinking:  Overgeneralizing a situation.  These thoughts usually begin with words like, always, never, everyone or every time.

2)  Focusing on the negative: Preoccupying your attention on what is going wrong in a situation and ignoring everything that could be construed as positive.

3)  Fortune-telling:  Predicting the outcome of an experience or situation as the worst possible and as impossible to overcome.

4)  Mind Reading:  Arbitrarily believing you know what another person thinks, even though they have not told you.

5)  Thinking with Your Feelings:  Believing your negative feelings without ever questioning them.

6)  Guilt Beatings:  Thinking with words like should, must, ought, or have to that produce feelings of guilt.

7)  Labeling:  Attaching a negative label to yourself or others.

8)  Personalization:  Allowing innocuous thoughts to take on a personal meaning.

9)  Blame:  Blaming others for the problems in your life.

So what can we do?  We have one negative thought and all of a sudden there’s an entire army of negative thoughts traipsing through our mind.

As many of you know, on my path to being my own Wingman, I’ve become passionate about finding strategies to wipe those negative thoughts out and turn them around. 

Thankfully, Dr. Amen gives them as well.  He credits Byron Katie with developing a technique to help us question our negative thoughts and actually turn them around.

Katie calls it “The Work” and says we must question our negative thoughts and then turn them around.  She offers these four questions:

1)  Is it true?
      Say you are in a disagreement with your child or your parent and you feel he/she’s         not listening to you. The thought may get exaggerated to… He never listens to me!

      Well, it certainly feels true at that moment!

2)  Can I absolutely know that it’s true?

      Well, not exactly. 

      It’s certainly not entirely true; he listens to me sometimes, just not this time.

3)  How do I react when I believe that thought?

      I get defensive, irritable and “pissy” towards him. 

      I’ll start saying stuff I don’t believe just to make a point. 
      I become someone I don’t even like.

4)  Who would I be without the thought?

     Or how would I feel if I didn’t have the thought?

      I feel like I’d be my normal positive thinking self, the me I love when I’m 

      appreciating things, when I’m seeing solutions instead of problems, when I’m 

      seeing what’s going right in the situation and building from there.

The turnarounds…

·         My son always listens to me.  Hmmm. Not sure that’s exactly true.

·         I never listen to my son.  Ohhhh noooo, I don’t think I want to go there.

·         It’s great my son and I get together and talk, even though at times we  

          may disagree and get upset with each other.  This one I like!

Questioning my negative thoughts and turning them around is certainly one way to practice seeing who I am, and more importantly, who I want to be.

Being as we are human, ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts will always have potential to run amuck through our minds.  It’s best to have a plan, an ANTeater, so to speak.

Best of luck with your practice.

Thanks for letting me be your wingman today.

In Appreciation,

Michael

Welcoming a New Year.

I always love the beginning of a new year. A fresh start. A clean slate. 
A time to think about how I want the next period of my life to unfold. 
And if I’ve learned anything since launching BeYourOwnWingman.com, it’s that it pays to think about what you want to bring into your life. 
You want a better paying job, a healthier body, a more loving relationship…
it all starts with your thoughts.


I know you’ve heard this before but I can’t emphasize it enough. 
Positive thoughts bring positive results. 
Find something to be happy about so you can get some momentum going in your favor.  Yes, it really is that simple.

The problem is, if you’re anything like me, sometimes you get distracted. 
Your mind wonders into the darker places of your past and inertia keeps you there. 
And your new year ends up being a lot like your old year.

I can help you change that.  I can help you start bringing more positives into your life, and at the same time you can help me do the same.  Because when we do things together we create a better synergy.

But it will take some practice.  The good news is I’m really good at coming up with fun practices to help myself and others.  Like years ago when I coached my daughter’s soccer team and had them playing kickball without using their hands. The girls were having so much fun they didn’t even realize how much they were improving their footwork.

If you can stick with me, if you can keep your discipline rolling, if you can have a little consistency and join me in my practices, I believe together, we will bring more positive energy into our lives and those around us.  It’s been working for me really well, and I look forward to it continuing.

So let’s begin today. 

Please join me (spiritually only, as I will be hanging in sweats all day) for what has become one of my favorite days…Vision Board Day, the day in which I begin to deliberately think about what I want this new chapter in my life to look like, and therefore become.
 
Why? 
Because a vision board is a tool (I use a poster board) to help clarify and maintain focus for what you want to have happen in your life this year. The idea behind it is to identify your vision, give it clarity and keep your attention on your intentions throughout the year.

I’ve done a vision board the past two years and, looking back at both posters, I’m amazed at the results. I see pictures of my desires and count how many have come true. This is one practice I now look forward to doing every year. 

Here’s how we do it in my house.  It’s like Arts and Crafts, Wingman style.

1) We consciously envision our desires and cut out pictures and text from magazines that represent them.  They can be as concrete as a picture of your favorite car or as intangible as a better, more loving relationship. 
2) We now attach them to poster board in any way we choose. Some people may have 2 or 3 pictures, some may just use one or two words, others may fill the poster completely.  This is your vision board. Do it how you like.
3) Post or place your vision board where you will see it every day.
4) Relax and let it unfold.

Now that’s what I call a great start to the New Year.

Thanks for allowing me to be your Wingman today.
In Appreciation,
Michael