POSITIVE SELF-TALK
 

WHAT DO I FIND WHEN I SQUEEZE MY MIND?

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When I was born, my memory banks were empty.  Over the next twenty years, I accumulated the storm of thoughts that blows through my mind.  I didn’t choose most of those thoughts; I inherited them from my parents and culture.  The good thoughts are a blessing that lasts a lifetime.  The bad ones are a curse that haunts me until I die.  What I have inside my mind determines the outcome of my life.  I need to know what’s inside, and if it’s bad, I need to change it.

When I squeeze a lemon, I get lemon juice because that is what’s inside.  When the pressures of life squeeze me, the contents of my mind come out for everyone to see.  If anger and hostility come out, it’s because that is what’s inside.  If love and courage come out, it’s because that is what I put there.

I am careful about what I allow inside my mind.  When I put in good things, my thoughts bring me joy.  When I put in toxic waste, my thoughts become an irritating presence I must endure.  What do I find when I squeeze my mind?  I discover the thoughts that I have been putting there.
 

Everything that God creates is beautiful, and that's why I love beauty so much.  It's the closest I can come to actually touching God.  It's like God and I are living on opposite sides of a two way mirror.  One his side, he touches things and makes them beautiful.  On my side, I touch the same thing and experience his beauty.

I make a major effort to fill my mind with beautiful things, and that's why I've got butterflies on my mind.

When I squeeze my mind, I get butterflies.

If I got to live my life over again, I would still go sailing.

In our later years, we all look back at what we have done with our lives.  When we go into rewind, we tend to remember the good times and forget the bad.

When I rolled my van in New Zealand and broke two legs, fractured five ribs, and punctured one lung, pain and suffering became my new and constant companions.  I got to know them personally in a way that I had never known before.

In spite of all that pain and misery, I can't recall with any degree of intensity what it was like to go through that experience.  I can remember that I was uncomfortable and that it took six months to learn to walk again, but I don't feel the pain any longer.  It's been erased from my mind.

Contrast that with my cruising memories.  When I go into rewind, I can instantly visualize and relive my eleven year voyage around the world.  I can see myself hiking in the jungles of Nuku Hiva.  I can see the Pyramids of Giza and the Temples of Luxor.  I can see myself driving in the sand dunes of Arabia,  I can see the Israeli Navy gunboat circling around Exit Only as we wait for permission to land in Israel.  I can see the crew of Exit Only exploring Nabatean Petra.  I can see myself standing among the Orangutans of Borneo.  I can see the humpback whales jumping in front of our boat off Fraser Island in Australia.  I can see fjordland of New Zealand majestically surrounding me on all sides.  I can see Mount Cook, the Franz Josef Glacier, and the Canterbury plains.  I can see the Australian outback as well as the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  I can see Chinatown in Singapore and Buddhist temples in Thailand.

These and a thousand other positive adventures come welling up in my mind when I go into rewind and observe a not-so-instant-replay of my life.

That's why it's so important to live my dreams.  That's why I would still go sailing.  When I look back over my life, I want tons of positive memories to overwhelm my mind and to remind me that life is truly good.