Another Posiblog

In honor of positive affirmations and some song I just heard on the radio by some group, here is a list of things I can do:

I can blog about stuff that has at least 5-10 people coming back to read more..,

I can maintain friendships for many years with numerous different people from numerous different backgrounds and numerous points of view often different than my own....

I can finally learn when to use lie and lay (and sometimes avoid saying it wrong too!).....

I can work in a high stress work environment for a decade....

I can break up fights and make enemies friends...

I can do the "hard" level of Sudoku....

I can solve logic puzzles...

I can get unmotivated children to learn...

I can develop a strategy to find equivalent fractions for adding and subtracting that works for my students on my own....

I can figure out how to find E.R.A for a pitcher without looking up an equation for it...

I can play two Christmas songs on the piano....

I can give you the starting shortstops for the Cleveland Indians dating back 23 seasons....

I can also do that with starting QBs for the Cleveland Browns....

I can give you the starting lineups for every pro Cleveland sports team (except the Gladiators but I could give you two of the starters)....

I can raise a happy daughter despite a health disorder and learning disability...

I can amaze a woman so much that she can't resist proposing to me....

I can grow grass where there once was an obsessed gardener's garden.....

I can help fix up a house in one summer....

I can apologize....

I can see two sides to a story or problem...

I can figure out how many miles my car got from the last tank of gas....

I can do math in my head...

I can honor my grandmother at her funeral....

I can stand by my wife after a horrible tragedy....

I can get a room full of unruly children to be "ruly".....

I can raise test scores....

I can impress parents enough to invite me to their son's high school graduation...

I can feel the pride that goes with seeing a former student get their diploma...

I can earn a Master's Degree....

I can back up people's claims that I am smart...

I can relate to people....

I can learn to say "Heck No!" to that 10th shot (or so) of Jim Beam....and then never do another one again....

I can be an advisor to friends and colleagues....

I can be patient....

I can change a diaper....

I can fix boo boo's with a kiss....

I can potty train a kid....

I can get a kid to take nasty medicine easily twice a day...

I can change for a woman who makes me better....

I can learn from my mistakes....

I can keep book at my softball games...

I can start a softball team....

I can play shortstop for a team that wins a championship (maybe could would fit better there)....

Believe it or not, I can hit inside the park home runs....yes with an s......

I can swallow my pride and hit singles even though "chicks dig the long ball."....

I can act like I know what a 42 cork ball is (That one's for you Chris).....

I can make it to the championship in fantasy football....

I can help make a couch that is too big fit through a hallway that is too skinny and then in an elevator that is too small in order to get it to the 7th floor of my brother's family's apartment.....

I can start and run several football and basketball pools of varying types and levels of seriousness....

I can hang out with the nerds and jocks....

I can organize weekly tackle football games for those of us not athletic enough to make the team.....

I can compete in intra-murals or city league sports....

I can make people laugh....

I can text message with the best of them....

I can maintain a discussion on existentialism and ethics with a graduate philosophy student...

I can impress two of the most intelligent people I know...(Charles and Kathryn- FIVE college degrees between them)

I can hit a three to the roar of a middle school crowd even though the over-competitive security guards never passed me the ball...

I can earn my nickname: Silent Storm. I may not say alot on the court but when I shoot: I make it rain....

I can earn my "Ghetto Card" (Thanks Joiner)....

I can hustle my way through a Spades game....

I can look good in certain pants my wife picks out...

I can score over 9000 points in "pop pies"...

I can appreciate numerous genres of music and entertainment...

I can read numerous topics with sincere interest...

I can keep 10 year olds on the edge of their seat in suspense by just reading them a book....

I can begin a line of 5 or more people who make a pilgrimage to Columbus to attend The Ohio State University....

I can initiate at least one year of Phantom Band....

I can coordinate a trip to Las Vegas with 13 guys from all across the country for a mutual friend.....

I can draft a fantasy football team....

I can write a 20 page paper on my philosophy of education in one night and ace it...

I can teach my child to say her "please" and "thanks yous" as well as her "sorrys"....

I can carry on a tradition of tire throwing to a new generation of 85...

I can contribute to the common good...

I can do much more....

(For the Record: The song I referred to is called "Handlebars" by a group called Flobots.)

Positive Affirmations

Recently I learned something new about our behavior and feelings. I hope it is going to change the way I view things or think of things. The power of thought is much more powerful than I anticipated. In a round about sort of way I may have already known this but never acknowledged it. Now, it is time to address it and use it for good and not evil.

I was aware of the chemicals and hormones racing through our bodies all the time. These chemicals dictate how we feel and react to things. They play a major role if not THE role in our perception of reality. These are the things that make me feel there is no God or a puppeteer like God. Today is not that kind of blog post though. These chemicals can be triggered by the thoughts we create in our heads. Therefore, we can control our feelings to a certain degree through our thoughts. I don't mean to be so cut and dry and make this out to be an easy task. This is obviously easier said then done or our whole world would be quite different and the need for counselors and therapists would be much smaller.

Throughout my life I was fortunate to have two parents who made it a point to compliment me and avoid too much negativity. Of course, I still had to find a problem with that as I progressed through adolescence. My poor parents couldn't win. They managed to avoid being those overbearing, negative parents killing their kids confidence and self-esteem and did everything they could to build it up and I STILL complained about their parenting. My issues were that I would have a false sense of accomplishment and so I made it a point to cut myself down and ignore and positive remarks they gave me. To this day I have a hard time taking compliments even though I cherish every little one and starve for them. I usually find ways to rationalize how the compliment is not true or too positive. I can't just leave well enough alone and say thank you. Also, I am so afraid of getting insulted or criticized that I try to cut myself down first to avoid any criticism from someone else. I figured if I got the first punch in, the others would not get a chance.

So decades of creating these negative thoughts in my brain have hard wired it to the point that I automatically have these negative feelings about much of what I do. Any time I do something, I naturally react negatively towards it. Therefore, I feel bad about myself and lack confidence much of the time.

I have never had major panic attacks but from what I have heard and learned, they are pretty much adrenaline rushes. Chemically, they are the same as a rush of excitement. The difference is the feeling attached to it or the context of the adrenaline rush. Many times panic attacks or anxiety attacks or general feelings of fear or even sadness can be induced by thoughts. You see something happen and you react to it or think about it. These reactions or thoughts in the brain produce the chemicals that create that "attack" or the feelings of fear, sadness and so on.

With that in mind, you can control your feelings. I have been doing this by thinking negative thoughts about myself on purpose leading to low self-esteem and lack of confidence or general feelings of fear and sadness. What I should be doing is forcing positive thoughts in my head. I need to get to the point of making this routine. These positive thoughts will produce the chemicals that create happiness and confidence. The adrenaline rush would then have a more positive context to it and feel more like a roller coaster than a panic attack.

But let me tell you this won't be easy. The logical, left brain dominated self that am I will analyze things to a point of pure negative and not allow those positive chemicals to flow. The Huey Karma will have its way with me. The hard wired brain that is my head will be a tough one to plow through.

For now, I am going to try to recite positive attributes I consider myself to have each morning. I am going to use my dad's technique of pounding my heart and saying, "Today's gonna be a good day." Hopefully, this will foster a more general sense of confidence and self-esteem. I highly recommend you to join me.

Like Guy Smiley on the old SNL skits......."and dawgonit, people like me!"