This past weekend we spent in Boston attending our eldest daughter’s graduation from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. We have had quite the month of May with moving, spending a week in California (work and play), and 2 graduations 200 miles apart and 3 days apart. It’s been a lot—like a huge sprint, so it didn’t surprise me when I was out to dinner in Boston Friday night and I got a phone call that there was a gas leak in our apartment! I know, right?

The Reader’s Digest version of this story is that my son was home at the time and started to not feel well. This quickly escalated to PSEG arriving, confirming the leak, and shutting off our gas. Liam had done all the right things and even with the gas turned off, I asked him to keep all the windows open. As you can imagine, my mind went to a million different places—none of them good—yet the crisis was averted, right? Why was my mind still perseverating?

What negative thought is your mind perseverating on right now? Why does our mind do this to us? Why doesn’t it fixate on the best and most amazing possibilities? I don’t have a definitive answer for you, but I can tell you what I did at 11 pm Friday night as my mind tried to wonder—I began to refute all that my mind was trying to tell me. My best counter point was this: the most qualified person on the planet to turn your gas off correctly just did so. Today, I am encouraging you to challenge your negative thoughts. Just because our mind thinks something doesn’t make it so, true, or even more likely to happen. You’re smart—really smart, so don’t let your mind have free rein.

Let’s GO! WE GOT THIS!
Beth Fitzgerald