Some time ago, I made up a remedy for unhelpful thoughts, called the Equal Time Rule.
If you have time for the equal time rule today, here it is:
The Equal Time Rule. To be fair, why not balance out the time spent on negative thoughts with positive thoughts? For example, if you spend a certain amount of time worrying or catastrophizing about something that then turns out okay, consider spending that much time feeling good about the outcome. Or, if you are focusing on a negative, critical person and worrying about how they might affect you, try to give equal time and power to a positive, supportive person.
Last night, at my 45th high school reunion, I gave equal time to:
- talking to supportive people,
- going out on a boat in the harbor near the reunion site,
- eating yummy food, and
- singing and dancing to old familiar songs.
It took me equal amounts of time to snap each one of these equal photos — before, during and after the reunion:
According to my equal time rule, people should give equal time to feeling good, after a concerning situation turns out well. Because I like to give equal time to giving advice AND to listening to my own advice, I shall now use the equal time rule to:
- spend a full six months feeling good about how well the reunion turned out AND
- spend a full friggin’ TEN MONTHS feeling good about how healthy I am, because I danced as long as anybody else did at that reunion last night.
I shall now give equal time to a song I sang last night at the reunion (which I did not sing equal in quality as I did in this YouTube video, when I sang the same song six months ago):
However, somebody at the reunion last night gave me a LOT of equal and supportive time telling me how great I sounded, singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
I hope you give equal time today to taking good care of yourself and interacting with supportive people.
Equal-time thanks to everybody who helped me create this timely post and to you — of course! — for spending equal time reading and (I hope!) commenting.
