One Good Thing

Reframing your day

Journal: 20 November, 2024, morning.

May I tell you some good things this morning? I begin now.

-A dear friend had major surgery and came through it exceedingly well.

-I found two boxes of Keurig decaf coffee in the back of the highest cabinet shelf (I’d forgotten they were there).

-Tom cleaned ALL the ceiling fan blades (bless him).

-I’m reading a favorite book again and it’s just as good as the first time.

-The new dog at the neighbors has mostly stopped barking when Henri and I take our early morning walks—he recognizes us!

-I apparently have an endless supply of spider lilies in the topsoil we bought.

The back story: I used to begin workshops on the first day with the request to #tellmeonegoodthing. And I did it every morning of the workshop. Goofy? Silly? Waste of time? They thought so.

People hated that. But I wore them down. 😁

It was a simple way to change mental gears, leave one mode of thinking and enter another one, of necessity force their thinking and thoughts in an entirely different direction, one of creativity (since the workshops were being held to create complex project plans for which nothing prior existed as a reference).

And if you don’t think thinking of one good thing qualified as being creative, you should have witnessed how difficult this was for them to do. They were stumped! Doing this was akin to stopping the QE2 and turning it around. It was WORK.

We do not routinely go around thinking of good things. We just don’t. And I don’t think we realize we do this, that we focus almost exclusively on the negatives in our lives.

Does beginning your day thinking of one good thing change any of the circumstances you are in? No. It does not. But it might change *you*, just a tiny bit. The five dollar word for this is reframing, and the power in being able to reframe is tremendous. It truly is.

I think reframing is hope’s kissing cousin.

So, friends, will you tell me one good thing?

#journalingalife