Put "Thanks" Back in Thanksgiving



It's the day before Thanksgiving. A cold rainy day. A good day for contemplation. But, instead of eagerly awaiting tomorrows festivities with family and thankfulness, I sit here at my favorite coffee house feeling anxious about other things. Many things. Too many things. It is easy to let the uncertainties of life erode your feelings of well being. It's also easy to let your "certainties" get at you too. Sometimes its difficult to feel thankful for those things that you have, when you are too busy being anxious about what you don't have, can't do or want to change. Grounding yourself can help you to be in this moment, so you can let go of all of the things that prevent you from being thankful and enjoying your time with your loved ones and yourself. There are many grounding methods, but here is a simple one that only takes a couple seconds and you can do anytime, anywhere:
  1. Take a deep breath.
  2. Straighten your posture (spine straight, shoulders back & down).
  3. Tense every muscle in your body for a three count, then relax.
  4. Smile. 
  5. Fill your mind with things you are grateful for.
That exercise along with avoiding political conversations may save your holiday experience... or maybe not... I suppose that it all depends on you!

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

BTW: Thank YOU for reading my blog post.

All the best,
~Craig



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Uncomfortable Situation

Image
  Funny pic (and movie) about a not so funny situation… In training as in Life, it’s better to treat people with dignity and respect. However… What does that look like in the moment? Being that I’m teaching a Women’s Assault Prevention and Response Workshop this weekend - it’s probably a good time to talk about… Uncomfortable Situations Let’s talk about training at the academy for a minute… We run open co-ed classes at the local academy. What does that mean? Men and women train together, but we don’t stop there. People of different skill levels, backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations, careers, religious beliefs, political affiliations, ages, injuries, pre-existing conditions, life experience, training expectations etc. etc. train together! We ALL work together! Overall, I think it’s better this way. Of course sometimes there’s static, you know, conflicts, and misunderstanding. When something happens, most of the time it’s just that, a misunderstanding… Sometimes people ...
Read more

What'd You Say?!

Image
  You ever have a conversation with someone who really lifted your spirits? How about having a conversation with someone who’s a real downer?! We spend a lot of time talking to people. Matter of fact, talking is one of the most under rated and under trained aspects of protecting yourself. It’s much better if you can talk your way out of a bad situation, rather than having to resort to some form of physicality. This is why we spend so much time on sharing effective communication frameworks in the PeaceWalker course. But All of that Aside… When we think about communicating, we often just think about talking to other people. We forget how we talk to ourselves! You may have heard it called, “Self talk.” All day long we talk to ourselves. We carry on an inner dialogue in our heads that only we can hear. Unfortunately, this means it's very easy to be hard on ourselves. There's something about privacy which makes it easy to say the things you would never say out loud to another living...
Read more

Cracks in Your Foundation?!

Image
  Last night we had one of our weekly coaching calls for the PeaceWalker Evolution Course. What a great call! Rob and Jenn, a couple of the Level II - Momentum folks (people who graduated from Evolution last year and came back for the second Level.), were tasked to run the meeting as part of their training. I must say, they did a stand up job! The topic of discussion was building an Unshakable Foundation. WTH is that!? It’s basically the way you live. Your habits. What you do in your day to day life. How do you train your… Body  - Your physical health Mind  - What you’re filling your head with Mouth  - How you’re communicating Heart  - How you foster your relationships Why?! Without a solid foundation it’s difficult to remain balanced. When you are not balanced, it more difficult to stay calm, cool, and collected, (especially) under pressure. As I often say,  “You can’t hide crazy.” (It eventually comes out!) Regardless… You don’t have to be in the PeaceWal...
Read more