Hope, Joy, and Love

I feel like I have lost my cheerleader voice.  The voice that shouts encouragement to others, keeps the team running, and is full of motivational sayings and posters is just not there right now.  It has been replaced with a tired, unsure voice.  A voice that has shouted and shouted but is now hoarse.  A voice that doesn't know what lies ahead and doesn't have any answers for anything beyond the next minute.  I have begun to feel a little like Eeyore.  It is SO easy to get down...and stay down...and try to bring others down.  Why is it so hard to lift ourselves up?

I had seen someone post a quote from Chris Voss the other day.  He is a former hostage negotiator and business consultant originally from Iowa.  He said:

"...you have something in the middle of your brain called the amygdala. Many people [think of it as] my caveman brain. The amygdala is wired to be 75 percent negative. So your survival mode is wired to always overreact negatively to everything you’re faced with until you learn the difference between survival and success. We’re not wired for success as human beings, we’re wired to survive ..."

Survival mode?  Used to be something we joked about, but it is real and we are all living in the middle of it.  But it doesn't have to be like that.  We don't have to stay negative.  It may be easy to choose this "caveman" way or we can choose success.  Success for me right now is happiness.  It is bigger than just trying to survive.  It is about finding happiness and looking at situations and pausing.  I can complain...I can get down and out...or I can look for happiness.

There is another change to what we have to do?  Ok...how can this be good for me?

Students are not performing as I hoped?  Ok, now what should I do to help them get it?

They said WHAT?  Should I jump into the pond of pessimism or should I stay on the shore?

Christmas is a season of hope, joy, and love and boy do we need all three right now...in abundance.  If we think only about surviving and begin to see negative in everything (even those things that are set forth with positive intentions), we are going to miss out on a lot of great things.  We may miss an opportunity for big change.  We may miss an opportunity for a connection with a student.  We may miss the opportunity to see hope, joy and love in action.

May you be embraced by hope, joy and love right now.  And may you take the time to spread a little of it too.