You Can Control More Than You Think

I recently spoke with Lisa Wimberger, who was struck by lightning when she was a teenager and suffered grand mal seizures for 15 years. They were found to be stress induced and could come on at any moment, literally stopping her heart and rendering her unable to get out of bed for the next 24 hours. As Lisa attempted to cope with and understand this terrible affliction, she began to notice that there was a split second before the seizure came on when she was aware of it. What if, Lisa wondered, she could train herself to stop it right at that moment? She had already been deeply engaged with the study of neuroscience, and she thought it might be possible through linking non sleep deep rest (achieved through meditation) with a rehearsal of an alternate path to seizure.

She practiced for months, never knowing for sure that the practice would work. Then, one day she was driving and felt that seizure trigger point start to build. The rehearsal script she had practiced kicked into action. Amazingly, Lisa was ultimately able to guide herself to interrupt the seizure. In the years since, she has created a trademarked meditation process called Neurosculpting based on the method she used to rid herself of seizures. She has helped countless people create new autonomic responses and achieved remarkable results, including helping quadriplegics move limbs and heroin addicts stop cold turkey.

As I spoke with Lisa, I kept coming back to the wonder of just how much of life is in our control. As adults, we are the one in charge of what we do next. We decide how our emotions show up externally in a particular scenario. When I survived a severe car accident in 2018, it snapped me out of an existence on autopilot and forced me to think about what I wanted out of life. Not what other people expected, but what I genuinely wanted. It was the turning point where I was able to choose a different path for my story.

It doesn’t take a lightning strike or a car accident to wake up to our lives: we have the power to make different choices at any moment of any day. In fact, I taped a sign with “1440” (the number of minutes in a day) on the back door of my house. That means every time my kids or I exit, we see that sign and are reminded of the immense possibility that exists each day. I hope you consider that to be freeing. We have so much opportunity to create, rewrite, and pivot if desired. But it requires stopping at an intersection and making the choice that you want something to be different. How will you use even one of your 1440 minutes today differently than you did yesterday? The power is fully in your hands.

Try it yourself:

• Remind yourself what can be done in 60 seconds. A few days ago, my kids and I did an exercise to see just how much really could be accomplished in what seems like a short amount of time. I set a timer for one minute, and everyone committed to a different activity. You’d be amazed at how fast the kitchen was cleaned. My son dropped to the floor and did 30 sit-ups. One of my daughters cleaned out 90% of the junk drawer. We got a lot accomplished AND we were all laughing by the end. Life is supposed to be fun.

• Reframe something ordinary and make it extraordinary. For example, I bring gummy bears with me while I’m climbing mountains. Somewhere along the way, I started telling myself the red ones were “Superbears” that had special powers to make me feel stronger and more powerful. Word got out to my climbing partners, and now people ask if they can have a Superbear while we’re out on the mountain. This simple reframing has an effect of making people feel like they’re getting something special.

• Flip your perspective by challenging how you respond to annoyances. There is a traffic light near my house that always seems to be red when I arrive. Over time I stopped even getting my hopes up that it would ever be green and I could glide right through. I found myself resenting it and feeling disappointed every time I had to stop the car. This is a tiny thing that, if not checked, could be the first step in a negative thought pattern. One day as I was sitting at the light, I realized that I was letting a freaking traffic light put me in a bad mood. I thought about how I could change my attitude. The answer I came up with was gratitude. Now, I have to say (out loud) ten things I’m grateful for whenever I hit that red light. I kid you not, I actually now get disappointed when the light is green and I don’t get to do my rapid fire gratitude list.

• Get a little creative. I have been working more than I would like to lately, which usually means my self care is the first thing to go (I know, I know… it never makes sense to drain the cup that fills all the others. It sometimes just feels like it’s the only way to get through). Exercise was one of the things I had been sacrificing. As fitness is such a core piece of my life, I knew something had to change in the way in the emphasis I was placing on “what had to be done.” Since I (unfortunately) don’t have the ability to add more hours to the day, I knew that I had to start layering activities to be more efficient. When I had a phone call for work, I would pop in headphones and walk while speaking with the person. If I had to take notes, I would stop briefly and jot something down on my phone to remember for later. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Does 30 minutes of interrupted walking beat 0 minutes? All day every day. If there’s something you think you don’t have time for, challenge yourself to look for unconventional places where it could fit.