Garbage Therapy

Why wait? It was 6:45am and still dark. If I leave now, I thought to myself, I could catch the sunrise. And so I did. Continuing on the "theme" of a post from last week, it was time for "Garbage Therapy."

So what exactly is garbage therapy? Therapy meant to clear the mind of crap. It's really very simple. It doesn't involve much analysis - maybe none at all. On the physical side, it means doing something to elevate endorphins which increases "positivity" and decreases... well... negativity. Mentally, it involves causing the brain to reframe a thought and consequential feeling. Depending upon who you read in the literature, thoughts cause feelings OR feelings cause thoughts. Putting the debating society aside for now, Nike says it best - Just Do It. And so I did. Except...

I hadn't checked the weather forecast. And I was going for a run - which is why I was setting out to begin with. Rain and dark skies clouded my vision of that perfect sunrise. Isn't life just like that sometimes? You have a spontaneous thought, take action on it - and if conditions are not "perfect", you feel like the fly who just hit your windshield. Splat. A great idea turned into crap. Or was that "garbage mind" talking?

Determine to achieve today's running goal, I decided to take my garbage thinking and put it in the garbage "outbox" and come up with an empowering context for the circumstances I found myself in.

Once I did that, I started thinking creatively. I thought about how I could write about this. I then applauded myself for sticking to my running schedule - regardless of the circumstances - hey, it wasn't lightening! I noticed how no one on the running path smiled at each other or said hello and vowed the next time I was out I would say hello to everyone - and notice the impact of that. I then came to the conclusion that having a "lose" mind invigorated my thinking - versus having a tight grip on "the way things should be" and getting pissed off or feeling frustrated. And ... I achieved my goal - increasing my time on the running path by 10%.