As a Shits Creek Tour Guide, the first and most important step you can take to finding real mental and emotional wellness is to find, and then fix, the common denominator to all of the problems and anxiety in your life.
Only once you have determined this common denominator can you make meaningful life changing progress in your mental and emotional wellbeing and happiness.
The best way to determine this common denominator to take a blank sheet of paper and set up three columns. Example:
Denominator Problem Person/Situation Problem
Me Mother-in-Law Doesn’t like me
Me Partner Takes after her/his mother/father
Me Boss Is a dropkick
The list goes on and on, and if you haven’t worked out that you’re the common dominator by now, you do have a serious problem.
When we realise that we are the Common Denominator in all of the problems and anxiety in our individual lives, and accept this is the case, only then can we do something constructive in taking steps to making positive life changes in our individual lives.
If we take some time to reflect on unsatisfactory situations that have happened and continue to happen in our lives, we realise there really is a repeat response on our part.
This response has been programmed into our subconscious minds from a very early age. Sadly, we continue to replay this response every time, unless we recognise this and start to take positive steps in changing the response.
There are no easy answers, or shortcuts to find the right solution to your own personal happiness but as a Tour Guide, I can assure you that you will not find it on social media or dancing to someone else’s tune.
You can only find the answers to your personal happiness within you and only you, it’s an inside job. As a Tour Guide, I say these words over and over like a stuck record: ‘Our minds respond to the words we say and the pictures we make. Change the words, change the pictures, change your life.’
I can guarantee you that shit will continue to happen in our lives; it’s how we respond that makes the difference.
When we have a heightened level of awareness of the person we want to be and feel, this determines and changes our individual outcomes to the situation.
Between action and reaction there is a gap and this gap is a pause where we choose our response. With a heightened awareness of the outcomes we want in our lives, will come the choice that best suit our desired outcome and more importantly our values.
As I wrote in an earlier column for Big Rigs titled, ‘A truckie’s best 3 Rs to recite before turning the key‘, as owner-drivers and small fleet operators we need to remind ourselves every time we step into a truck: I Recognise what an amazing job I do; I Respect myself for the dedicated individual I am; I deserve to be Remunerated in a manner that makes me and my business safe and viable.
It’s only when we take control of how we want our lives to be will there be the outcomes you seek in you mental, emotional and physical wellness.
As the festive season approaches and you are thinking about what you give your loved ones for Christmas, you might consider some of the wisdom from Esther and Jerry Hicks book ‘Ask and it is Given’.
‘The greatest gift that you could give to another is your own happiness, for when you are in a state of joy, happiness, or appreciation, you are fully connected to the stream of pure, positive source Energy that is truly who you are. And when you are in that state of connection, anything, or anyone that you are holding as your object of attention benefits from your attention.”
Wishing you the very best for you, your families and loved ones for the festive season and a healthy and prosperous 2024.
- Former truckie Graham Cotter is a certified hypnotherapist, rapid transformational therapist, life coach, mindfulness facilitator and a radical remission teacher/coach and can be reached via his website, kissbusiness.com.au.
A good start in our lives to improve our mental well being is to sack every transport inspector for their anti social behavior .
I was having a chat with one a few months ago at a highway weighbridge station and I educated him on something he didn’t know which is quite a lot for many of them ,so he gave me his middle finger .