1000 New Ones Every Day

Oh, the irony. Last week I wrote about comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides and how dangerous it is to compare ourselves in that way. It's often referred to as "compare and despair" because it usually doesn't make us feel good.

Well. Sure enough, I was reminded of my own advice. Again.

This morning I was in a meeting I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be. It’s a group of women I admire and respect, and therefore, I want them to like me and respect me back. So OF COURSE I started comparing myself to them and OF COURSE I came up short. I ran through the typical litany of “compare and despair” thinking. Like… I don’t belong here; I’m not as ______ they are. I’m not doing as well as they are, so I must be doing something wrong.

Blah, blah, blahdy blahdy blah.

I’ve heard it all before. And that’s what was remarkable about today.

I stopped and noticed that I was thinking the same damn things I always think when I meet with professional peers. It doesn't seem to matter who the group is, I almost always find ways to compare and criticize myself. But all of a sudden, I remembered the statistic I heard when I was listening to the audiobook, Range.

Scientists estimate that humans have 70,000-ish thoughts per day.

Out of that, ONLY about 1000 thoughts are new and distinct.

That’s a lot of garbage thinking that gets regurgitated daily if we aren’t paying attention. And most of the time we’re not — we’re running on autopilot.

Which means we have SO MUCH POTENTIAL to think something new. To create something new.

And that’s what got me excited today. I paused. I stopped my brain from going down the rabbit hole it has been down countless times before. I broke an unproductive neural pathway today.

Hell. Yeah. That’s a big deal.

I circumvented an entire day of “I wonder if I should be doing it this way,” and instead, I got to work. By stopping that set of thoughts, I created much more space to be productive.

So much angst and suffering avoided.

And speaking of angst and suffering…

As you may or may not know, my mission is to reduce suffering in the world.

One way I fulfill that mission is by facilitating a process I learned this summer called RIM (regenerating images in memory). It’s a game-changer. Well, actually, a life-changer. Here’s how a recent client described it:

"I didn't know what was going to happen in my RIM session with Paige. I didn't know at all what we were going to do, and I had no expectations. But WOW! Stuff came up that I didn't even know was there. What a powerful, healing experience! A whole new perspective of my past and of my life has been unlocked. Thank you so much, Paige!"