Recap of Day 1 of Mental Diet in 2019 Amazing Stories!

Yesterday was my first day of my “Mental Diet”. As a refresher, the rules are this: I’m not allowed to wallow in a negative/underserving thought for longer than 2 minutes, and if I do, no matter what day of the challenge I’m on, I have to start ALL OVER.

I expected to have the most troubles with positive thinking at work, but what ACTUALLY happened was that I ran into two moments after work which almost caused me to not even make it through the first day. The two moments were a trip to the Dollar Tree and Kickboxing class.

Dollar Tree (and positive thinking solution): I picked the dude with the slowest line and no sense of urgency to scan items whatsoever. He did call another cashier for backup, and she did offer to take me first over to her line since I was next in line. But I already had all of my things on the belt and figured he’d be wrapping things up with the lady in front of me rather quickly. I quickly found out those were incorrect assumptions , which is when the annoyance and negative thinking TRIED to set in. What actually happened: The 3 customers who were behind me and who went over to the other lady’s line all checked out and were out the door before my dude was finished with the lady in front of me. That is when I had to do a massive effort to stop the negative thinking.

So, I told myself the following statements:
“I have a better job with a higher pay rate and more benefits than a Dollar Tree cashier. I don’t have it that bad.”
“This dude probably has to deal with the “best of the best” each and every shift. I only have to deal with my boss and coworkers. I don’t have to deal with whoever just happens to walk through my door.”
“The lady in front of me is talking about either a sick family member or friend who is in hospice care and isn’t doing so well. I don’t have any close loved ones sick and/or in hospice care.”
“I don’t actually have to be anywhere any time soon. There’s no need for me to be in a rush to leave.”

And those were the thought-stopping statements that kept me alive in my first day of my Mental Diet until…

Kickboxing class. I walked into class and saw that it was going to be one of the largest/busiest classes I’ve taken in a long time. Almost every bag was going to have a person on it. The annoyance that crept in was “oh crap I’m going to be surrounded by people so I’m going to have to slow hella down and watch all of my kicks so I don’t accidentally kick someone. I have a long body and take up more kicking space than the average person. Slowing down will also negate the quality of my workout.” So the statements that I had to use to get through this moment was:

“Look at all of these new faces I’ve never seen before. Its exciting to see all of these people I don’t know.”
“I don’t actually need a super intense workout each and every time I come here.”
“How often is it usually this busy? Rarely! What are the chances that it will be this busy when you come again tomorrow? Slim!”
“You’re here! Which means you’re A) not injured or sick B) taking a moment out of your day to take care of your physical health and C) surrounding yourself with real, live people (and a lot of them!) instead of going home to your apartment where it can get lonely.

Hopefully today can be another successful day in the Mental Diet. I find that when my brain is bored, its default state of thinking is a negative one. So, I’m trying to keep it attentive with all the things.

Oh, I also realized that I’m pretty much unable to watch the news for the next 10 days.

Last updated February 26, 2019