There are two kinds of people in the world....

There are two kinds of people in the world.  Person A believes that life is happening to them.  And person B believes that everything they think, feel, say and do has everything to do with how their life unfolds.  

Think about that for a second.  

How do you interpret the world around you?  If you relate to person A, you might find yourself feeling helpless, frustrated and victimized by what you perceive as unfortunate luck.  

But if you relate more to person B, you might feel like your life has hope and vision and you tend to feel inspired and excited by what’s next.
  
I’ve been working as a therapist for 23 years.  It fascinates me to dive deep into human motivation, behavior and perception.  So much of how we experience the world is shaped by how we perceive what’s happening and there are simple shifts we can make to reframe our perspective and help create a more enjoyable, positive life for ourselves.

Take for example, reactivity.  When something negative or uncomfortable happens, we react.  But there’s a big difference between reactivity and response.  

I tell my clients, you’re allowed to have a volcano-like reaction inside yourself.  It’s normal to feel strong emotions when something upsets us! But, there are specific skills and strategies we can learn to pause, create impulse control and carefully choose how we respond to the situation.  

An explosive reaction doesn’t have to create an explosive response. 
 
What helps us slow this down?  Self-care.

When our tanks are full our coping increases.  Period.

Think about it. When you’re not sleeping well and you’re eating junk or drinking too much and you’re not exercising or taking good care of yourself, you have zero reserve.  You hit a stressor and the wheels fall off!

But if your resilience is high and your self-care game is strong, you hit that same stressor and you have the bandwidth to pause and think carefully about how you want to respond to the situation. 
 
There is a formula that helps us thrive in our lives.  It’s like a recipe for living well.

After working with thousands of clients over the years I’ve narrowed it down to a few key components.  Self-care, the skill of reframing our perception, gratitude practice and mindfulness.
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This week I challenge you to explore your perspective.  Are you person A or person B? Do you feel like the world is happening to you - or do you feel that everything you think, feel, say and do impacts how things unfold?