repentance from a negative nancy.

this week has been blah. see previous post and note my sour mood stringing the day together. last night, i vowed that today i'd start over a little bit, that i wouldn't wait until next week to get over myself. and then this morning happened. you know, that thing that happens sometimes in the morning? yeah, it happened this morning: i woke up.

i recommitted myself at work when i realized half the people i was occupying the same space with seemed happier than i was - and each one of them had a big excuse to not be. they just weren't using it.

so... i stumbled upon this.

(watch it. please. it might just change your life. or even just your day.)

powerful.

powerful.

really, those last few minutes blew me away. reverse the formula, be positive in the present and gain the happiness advantage.

i had to watch it three times to pick up the specifics because he talks so darn fast! but there at the end when he starts spewing off those things that are scientifically backed to reverse the formula? this is what does it.

1. 3 new gratefuls every day. writing down three new things you're grateful for every day for 21 days retrains your brain to scan the world for the positive instead of the negative - which is how most people are conditioned. thinking a little about "one slice" research (the brief scanning or first impressions our brains get and how they affect us and the way we treat others), the fact that this one little practice can change our "scanning" so much is incredible.

2. journaling about a positive experience you've had within the last 24 hours allows your brain to re-live it. which basically means adding one positive experience to your day. who's brain doesn't want that? (especially with what that positivity can do for your brain's learning centers...)

3. exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. i knew i loved exercise. i knew it.

4. meditation lets your brain heal from the cultural ADHD we've created by constantly mutli-tasking. funny, i was watching this while eating my lunch, taking notes, texting and listening to music. no wonder i had to watch it three times.... anyway, the practice of meditation allows your brain time to focus. something we all need to relearn in this world.

5. last, random or conscious acts of kindness also help retrain your brain for positivity. he described sending a positive, praising, or thanking email to someone in your social support network upon opening your email inbox. i love that idea. so much. i currently have 10 emails that are marked as unread so i remember to reply with these types of messages. so often, they are the ones that get put off the longest. if i did one a day upon opening my email, think of the positivity that would spread!

not that productivity is everything, but the statistic he throws out at the end is profound: your brain is 31% more productive while happy than while negative, neutral, or stressed. happier is more productive than neutral.

these practices seem pretty life changing to me. especially if really applied to all areas of work in my life.

(also, on a side note, the word neutral is odd. i took me about seven times to figure out the correct spelling.)

so. he says happier is more productive. more efficient.

what do i say?

one, two, three, GO.

i think i just found an experiment worth writing about.

5 excerpts from one of THOSE days.

my pajama pants are stained with chocolate. again. i don't think i've ever had an endangered species bar without getting little melting flakes all over what i'm wearing. consequently, a lot of my clothes have small (barely noticeable.. i think) brown chocolate stains.

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i got home from work today ready for lunch. i couldn't really catch a break at work because the last couple hours were busy. consequently a late lunch and a starving me. not starving - i ate two nutballs on the way home. once home, in pajamas and jewelry off, i sat and stared at the fridge for a full ten minutes before deciding nothing sounded good and i had too little energy to do anything with the (seemingly) random assortment of refrigerated items (i planned a menu before shopping...really). okay, move to the cupboards. crackers? nope. chips. chips.... and cheese. nachos was the only thing that sounded edible this afternoon. hopefully my nutritious appetite will be back for dinner (in addition to my motivation to cook...).

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this morning at work, after seeing the results of her test a woman burst into tears. burst. literally. luckily, they were happy tears and she wasn't in need of consolation. that's a tremendously good thing because the crying caught me off guard this time and i think all i said was something like oh... congratulations! you can... have a seat in the lobby for a minute if you need to. and that's about as empathetic as i get today.

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a truck twice the size of my apartment was tailing me really close on the way home from work. it was the long on-ramp and there was a car in front of me. i couldn't speed up and it literally looked like he was trying to shish kabob me with the spikes on the front end of his obviously-trying-to-prove-something vehicle. i tapped my breaks a couple times. and he got closer. and i got angry. right before another lane opened up he switched lanes and gunned it, passing me in the wrong lane. the only problem? the car in front of me had switched lanes, too. he didn't seem to mind that there wasn't enough room for a mini cooper to pass me coming from the wrong way, like he was. if i hadn't of slammed on my brakes i'd be roadkill. a victim of his effort to prove something to society with a truck big enough for two families to live in. don't worry. i laid on my horn for a full 30 seconds until he was too far away to hear.

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reviewing today's to-do list: dishes, clean the bathroom, make dinner and lunches and dinner to-go for tomorrow, the gym for an hour.... the thing that's not on the list is a nap. and that's exactly what is going to happen. one more square of my rhino bar smothered with natural peanut butter and i'm hitting the sack. maybe tonight i'll clear this slate and write my gratitude post i'd planned for today. but first i need to go wake up on the other side of the bed.

the IN club

the temperature has finally started dropping in abilene. a couple weeks ago, i saw for the first time a ten-day forecast of temperatures all lower than 95 degrees.  today, it looked cooler outside, mostly overcast.  so in the afternoon i pulled on my running shorts and a t-shirt and headed out for a two-mile loop around campus. thirty seconds outside my car and i was back inside, shivering. no two-mile loop. a trip to the gym instead. my car's thermometer (which is always off) said it was 57 degrees.  it may be chronically off, but 57 is a definite a change from the typical 107 it reads on most afternoons.

finally, finally it's starting to feel like fall.

tonight, on a quick trip to the grocery store, i wore a jacket, a scarf and a beanie.  i remembered how completely i love weather that lets me wear five layers and thirteen colors at once.  you can't do that in shorts and t-shirt weather. it's just not possible.

tonight, i cooked butternut squash and this morning we ate the last of the pumpkin muffins.  i've cooked three different kinds of squash in the last three weeks.  fall food. warm, comfy and steaming.

i feel like i've finally been accepted to the in club. you know, that club of people who live in places of this world where the leaves are turning colors and stuff. for weeks, i've suffered facebook cover pictures of people playing in leaves, blog posts boasting of being able to wear scarves again. recipes for soups soups soups and pumpkin everything. and for weeks all i had was 107 degree weather with no possibility of soup that hadn't been thoroughly chilled.

but now.
now, i'm finally
in.

now come on, abilene. let's keep this up.