18. TODAY’S LESSON.

There are times when my head is so full of thought I have a difficult time sleeping.  I reflect on the day, the decisions, the difficult moments; and I imagine editing them like the AP English teacher I had senior year in high school.  That woman LOVED her marking pen.  [She’d write “trite” in the margin here.]

I’m a negative self-talker, so I don’t have any difficulty deciding what I’ve done wrong and what could have gone better.  Crossing out mistakes, anticipating the errors in advance of making them, inserting moments to collect my thoughts before blurting out what I was actually thinking, unhearing words that hurt my feelings.  I could go on all night and in truth, I have many times.  I suffered from insomnia for years, but then I learned my lesson.

Try this one out and see if it helps you.

When I catch myself slipping into an endless edit, I take a deep, slow breath in through my nose and out through my mouth.  I remind myself it’s not possible for me to do work in the past, nor can I work in the future.  I can only work now, in this moment.   So I assign myself a little homework I call “today’s lesson.” 

I stop the edit process by extracting the value of the day’s hardships and challenges.  I imagine downloading all of those tough experiences on a jump drive and labeling the file with the lessons it contains.

“Blurted out a thought carelessly” gets labeled, “think before speaking”

“Felt helpless witnessing a friend feel pain I couldn’t relieve” gets labeled, “I help by being present for my friend when he is in pain”

Extractor #4 is “What important lessons am I learning because of this experience?”  When we stop to consider what we’re learning, we don’t need to edit, or regret, or fix because we can see value in the lesson.

So, what are YOU learning because of this experience?  How will you label today’s lesson?