February 14, 2025 POSITIVE DEFENSIVE LIVING!
"You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” - Joyce Meyer
DON’T MISS OUT!
Access my new Free E-book on “The Phenomenal Joy of Parenting” available here.
Listen to this meditation on audio:
Today I want to share with you a simple technique that has helped me prepare for many life situations before they arose. My hope is that it might help you prepare, in advance, for some of the things that might be coming your way in life. As you know, life sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. Just when we think it's going to zig, it zags and vice versa. Some of us make attempts to prepare for many of life's possible contingencies, usually with mixed success, which is normal. Others of us, barely attempt to prepare for even the obviously important things i.e. career choices, giving ample pre-thought about how to establish and enjoy happy, trusting relationships, how to succeed in raising joyful, well-adjusted children, or even how we will spend our retirement days. The more pre-thought we give to things like the aforementioned items, the fewer surprises or setbacks we will experience as those challenges present themselves. Navigating life, with all of its surprises and sometimes downright hurtful events, is a lot like the lessons I learned in a required defensive driving course I took while in the Air Force. Defensive driving involved using our imaginations to pre-plan for events that might possibly happen; for example, if we were driving on a narrow mountain road with only one lane in each direction and we were asked things like "What would you do to avoid a head-on collision, if an oncoming vehicle swerved into your lane?" A question like that forced us to pre-play possible scenarios in our minds; was there a sheer drop that would prevent us from pulling to the right to avoid the vehicle? Was there a mountain that would prevent us pulling to the right? Or was there enough space on the edge to our right to allow us to pull over and avoid a head-on collision? In this way, we were forced to pre-plan what we might do if an emergency situation suddenly arose. By pre-thinking in this way, we would be less likely to panic because we had already played the scenario in our heads. Building a good life is very similar. Each one of us has the ability to use our imagination to establish possible "scenarios"of how we might handle a potential question in an upcoming job interview, or how we might handle a delicate question from one of our children. Using our positive imaginations to pre-play and thus pre-prepare for possible events we might encounter, will go a long way toward helping us calmly and competently handle some of the challenges that life may send our way. Here's a good sample question to set the stage for your possible responses to a situation: "how might I best respond if this situation arises?" This situation being the event you are trying to anticipate and be ready for. I invite you to give this pre-play technique a try. You may be surprised at how effective it is. I would enjoy receiving your thoughts on this concept whether you have or have not used it. Thank you!
© 2025 Detroit Flanagan
All rights reserved
