I’m more of a Price Is Right or a Wheel Of Fortune kind of guy. These two game shows would be my choice to watch if given a choice. Price Is Right reminds me of being home sick from school and knowing exactly what I would be watching at ten o’clock. The rest of the day would be spent trying to avoid the many soap operas, but ten o’clock was always spoken for. This is like grade school me. The Price Is Right is one of those shows any age can get into. It’s a great game show!
I’ve also liked Wheel Of Fortune. It reminds me of sitting at home with my family. My dad always has been so quick at guessing the puzzles. I really think he should have tried out for it or whatever the process is to get on the show. My mission, because I can be slightly competitive, was to try and beat him. I eventually got pretty good, but man could he guess those puzzles fast!
Another game show, one I watched some but not as much as the other two was Let’s Make A Deal. A game of chance and trading up for hopefully the better prize. There always was a dud prize standing somewhere in the way. But where? That was the game of chance. You didn’t know where it was, whether the prizes where hidden under a box or behind a door. You had no idea what waited behind the door. It truly was a game of chance, but was full of the mind game. Are you sure you want that prize, or you could take one of the other two boxes and possibly improve your winnings. You could also lose. It was a gamble…kind of. Hard to gamble with what you can’t see. A game of chance, but a fun game.
The game of life, especially when related to our mental health, is a game of Let’s Make A Deal. We have choices. These choices are hidden behind three doors. We are not sure what is behind each door, but we must continuously open these doors as we travel through our life journey. Some doors hold great prizes and some doors are duds. What door do you choose? I’ll go with door number two!
Unlike the game show. We do have some control of what is behind each door. This goes along with having a positive mentality or a negative one. These mentalities don’t tell us what is behind each door, but it does give us an idea of what direction each door may take. The prizes in the Game Of Life are unknown, but each prize can be influenced by us.
We work so hard at working our minds out of the negative aspects of mental health and mental illness. Our goal is to reach a positive place and stay there as long as we can. The ups and the downs continuously happen. We don’t always know what direction each up and down is going to take us, but we do have an ability to influence each door.
I wish the influence part was as easy to do as it is to type it out. Dictating whether you land in the positive or the negative is very hard. I’m still not completely convinced it can happen, but this is where I’m trying to get my mind to wander too.
I do know it all takes hard work. I talk about re-wiring our minds often. This is not an overnight process. We are re-wiring pathways which have been a certain way for so long. Typically, when we are re-wiring we are making new pathways away from the negative rut we have been in for however long. This re-wiring out of the negative into the positive takes time. And it takes a ton of work.
We have to put the work into it. Whatever that work may be. Currently, I am working hard at positive reflections of myself. My mind loves the negative, but I’m working on making some lasting positive pathways in my life. My reflections center around remembering good times. Positive times in my life. Remembering times where I felt best about myself. Allowing myself to remember those feelings and how it made me feel mentally.
I’ve also been telling myself when the negative creeps in that I deserve the positive stuff in life. One of my big negatives is I have a hard time allowing myself to enjoy the moment. I’ve basically wired myself into thinking I don’t deserve to enjoy the moment and let go of the worry that surrounds it. When these thoughts of doubt creep in, I tell myself (sometimes out loud) I don’t deserve to be this way. I deserve to feel good. I have done nothing to receive this negative and nagging images I have of myself. I am working on pushing the positive thoughts of myself, when the negative stuff pops up. Let’s just say I have been doing a lot of talking with myself.
I never really realized, or allowed myself to recognize it, but my mind really plays well in the negative. Until I started really pushing the positive agenda with myself, I never really realized how rooted in the negative thoughts of myself I was. Years and years of being one way and now trying to force myself out of it.
Again, the change to the positive doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work to change the negative ways and thoughts about ourselves. We have to put the work in. By putting the work in, we can begin to dictate, at least the mood, of what lies behind the closed doors in front of us.
We open these doors daily. We leave one room and go into another. We have choices. We don’t necessarily know what is behind each door, but we can get to a point where we have a sense of what is behind each doors. At least we gain the sense of the mood waiting behind each door.
When we are stuck in the negative and our brains are constantly throwing doubt and worry at us. Chances are, until we try and change things, some negative style prize is waiting behind each door. This isn’t a perfect idea as it’s not always this way. The positive and the negative comes and goes sometimes outside of our control.
We need to train our brains. Generic phrase yes. I also don’t have a perfect solution as we all are different, but it is true. We need to find the method that works best for us. Works best for me. Works best for you.
Right now for me, the positive reflections and talking more positive and encouragingly to myself is working for me. I feel more positive pathways taking hold in my life. After being wired to the negative for so long, I remain to be skeptical, I’m human after all, but I also have to allow myself to believe what I am doing is what I need to do to better me. To better and strengthen myself and my mental health.
I do find that the doors I open are beginning to have more positive geared prizes behind them. It’s not a perfect equation, but it isn’t just negative crap anymore. The positive, with what I am doing for myself, is growing. I can begin to predict the mood that is behind each door and it is a really cool feeling.
Yes, sometimes my spidey-senses aren’t correct and there will still be a negatively geared feeling behind the door I select. The best part is, I now realize the options of doors to pick does not end. I jump through a negative door and I know my chances, of a positive door, are growing with the work I put in. The positive begins to outweigh the negative. I still have choices, but I am doing what I need to do to raise the odds of the positive prize. It’s getting to a point I can almost predict it.
Noble of me to be so confident. That is not my goal here. What I am saying is the positive work you put into to yourself and to your brain will yield more positive influenced doors and prizes on the other side. The negative is never gone, but it doesn’t have to be the dominant force in the equation.
The more we work at the positive side, the more the positive doors will pop-up for us to choose. We land and live in the positive and we already know, mostly, what type of feeling is behind the door. We don’t know exactly what is behind the door, but we can tell it has a positive hue to it.
The negative will always creep in, but with the work we put in, we can make the positive doors way outnumber the negative doors. This is basically the idea of being able to predict what is behind the doors. Our brains re-wire to a more positive wiring and the pathways, even when blocked by several closed doors, tend to lead us down a more positive road each selection we make. Positive…positive…postive!
Let’s be more positive with ourselves. We deserve it. We have convinced ourselves for so long that the negative is the norm, but it isn’t. We have the power and the ability to change our lives and our minds into a more positive mindset, therefore a more positive outlook and life. Doors remain closed, but we can walk up and kick them in and not hesitate to walk through the door we chose, because we don’t know what exactly is there, but we know there is a super high chance it will be positive.
We got this! You got this! I got this! It is OK to not be OK…but skies the limit after admitting you may not be OK. We get to grow from there!
Let’s keep walking this journey together.
Have a great day!
Jason
Hot off the press!! I have started a website which combines my blogs, podcasts, and other methods of dealing with our mental health and provide inspiration and hope. It is meant to be a relaxing place to stop by and refuel. So far, it is basic, but I have ideas to make it grow into something much bigger. Please check it out!
Jason Kehl’s Basement Of Jams: Rocking Mental Health
Feel free to jump over to Facebook and join the group I’ve started:
Jason Kehl’s Basement Of Jams: Rocking Mental Health
www.facebook.com/groups/rockingmentalhealth
This group is meant to focus on an “everybody in” type of focus. I share my music and also this blog there amongst other things. The music I share is instrumental (I am not a singer). I try and attach a positive message to each tune. I also encourage others to share their hobbies or anything that they like to do that makes them happy. Or share anything that is working for them. A place where we can get away from things for a while. A group approach to improving each others mental health!
I’ve also started a podcast in hopes that my desire to spread mental health awareness can reach more people.
Jason Kehl’s Basement Of Jams: Rocking Mental Health
https://rockingmentalhealth.buzzsprout.com/
Also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon Music, and Pandora
Please check it out and feel free to share it as well.
Rocking Mental Health: The Blog- Let's Walk Together 