When I was 17 years old my grandfather bought me my first car for £550. It was a white 1977 Ford Escort Mark II. I still remember the number plate. Unfortunately, my first car didn’t last very long; a few weeks before leaving for university it had an argument with a dry-stone wall and lost. I was following a friend on a country road near Ripon in North Yorkshire and took a corner too quickly. The car ramped onto a grass bank, hit a dry-stone wall and skidded 100 meters along the country road on its left side with me dangling horizontally, parallel to the road, up in the driver’s seat. It must have been quite a scene in the rear-view mirror of my friend whom I had been trying to follow!
I grew up in the UK which drives on the left (so the driver’s seat is on the right) and I now live in Dubai which drives on the right (so the driver’s seat is on the left). I frequently travel between countries that drive on either the left or right so it takes me a moment to work out which side of the car I should be walking towards. Despite my dry-stone wall experience happening well over 30 years ago, whenever I approach a car this is still my reference point as to which side of the car I should walk. As crazy as it may sound, I momentarily see myself suspended horizontally in the air as my Escort Mark II grinds to a halt, Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 playing on the stereo.
This memory is branded into my unconscious, reappearing whenever triggered – and of course I have no control over the process. We all have life experiences which are stored as memories. Some are good, some not so good. Our unconscious mind generally tries to repress traumatic memories to protect us however, in general we have little control over which memories the unconscious mind presents to our conscious mind.
What we do have control over is for how long we hold on to any given memory or thought. The average human has 60,000 thoughts per day, that’s approximately one thought every two seconds - the vast majority of which we are never consciously aware of. When we have a negative thought, how long we hold on to it for is within our power. If we ruminate over something stressful without action it is likely we will only become more stressed. If you have a deadline to meet and never take action, the deadline only moves closer and the stress levels increase every time you think about it.
A more productive approach would be to treat the negative or stressful thought as notification that action is required. This creation of awareness is the only real value negative and stressful thoughts give us. They do not empower us or make us feel good but they do alert us to the need for action.
The message for this week’s blog is simple and relevant for us all. The next time you have a negative thought or find yourself focused on something stressful, ask yourself what you need to do to remedy the situation. If the answer is in your control, take action. If it’s not in your control, stop dwelling on something you can’t impact and start focusing on things that you can!
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