And it’s very easy for our brains to do this. We’ll, re we think, or we believe something to be true, we believe it, and yet we don’t have all the proof, we don’t have all the facts necessarily. And also the way our brains have been kind of created and formed and developed over millions and millions of years is that when our brains interpret some sort of uncertainty, it will automatically perceive danger or something negative. Our brains in a way are kind of, you know, from our ancestors as a probably a survival mechanism, kind of our brains were programmed to think negatively, to think the worst, to think that there’s danger, to think that there might be something bad that’s happening so that our senses would be heightened and we would be able to protect ourselves from danger and harm and stay alive and continue the human race, right?

Like that is really our brain’s. Number one responsibility is to keep us alive, to perceive fear and danger so that we can be protected or that we can protect ourselves and continue living thank you brains. That our brains do that for us, that they keep us alive, that they’re always scanning for danger and harm to protect us. However, here we are today, and we’re living in a world, and especially in our country where we live, we’re not faced with all sorts of dangers and harms constantly at every single turn. Now, that’s not to say that we don’t live in a broken world where, you know, there aren’t dangers and harms that we need to be aware of. But what we need to do is we need to start practicing training our brains to not necessarily always go to the worst case scenario, to the worst situation possible.

Why? Because that robs us so often of our peace and our joy, and it can really affect our relationships and our interpersonal communication with other people. And so that’s what I wanna dive into today. And I wanna just share with you, there’s, there’s kind of different ways that we assume the worst case scenarios. A lot of times it has to do with just legitimate fear and physical situations that we assume that somebody might be in danger or that we might be in danger, and our brain kind of freaks out about that. And then there are times that we assume things about other people. We might assume that other people are thinking bad thoughts about us, or we assume that people don’t like us, things like that. And when we make those assumptions without having actual proof or having all of the facts, it can really affect not only how we think and feel, but also how we act and how we show up.

And so I’m gonna just give you some scenarios, some basic scenarios you can probably identify with a lot of these things. These are situations in my own life where I’ve assumed the worst. And, you know, so here we go. Here, one of ’em that has happened to me many times, I’ve got seven kids. So, you know, over the years we’ve been in situations where a child gets lost in a store, we can’t find that child for a few minutes. And every time in the past I’ve lost a child, literally within the first 10 to 15 seconds, my brain will go into total freak out mode where I instantly assume that my child has been abducted, kidnapped, something terrible is happening to them, and my brain will completely spin out. Now, of course, my brain is doing that because it knows that, okay, I can’t, my child is not with me at this moment.

They are perceived to be lost, and my brain is trying to send these signals of danger, danger, something’s wrong. You need to go into a mode of trying to find this child. And that’s great. I’m glad that my brain does it. But over the past many years, and with having the children that I have, it hasn’t always served me to instantly within the first 10, 15, 30 seconds, assume the absolute worst case scenario in those, in those situations. And of course, I’m very grateful to say this, even though I’ve, you know, misplaced my children a number of times in different stores, in different situations, we’ve always found them, they’ve always been okay, and nothing bad has gone wrong, all right? And so the, the, the freak out and the panicking and the imagining of the worst case scenarios, and those, those initial moments actually didn’t serve me the best that they could have.

Not only did it send me into a panic like fight or flight mode where my nervous system was completely shocked in that moment, and then I was reacting from that place, rather, I, in looking back at those moments, I wish that I could have handled them more calmly, more a assertively more focused, and not had to go into that panic mode so quickly. Okay? So a couple other situations where, you know, my mind has instantly gone to worst case scenarios, assuming the worst you know, maybe it’s, there’s been times that I’ve called my teenagers and they don’t answer the phone immediately or they don’t respond right away. And instantly my mind goes to this place. If something has happened to them, they’ve gotten in a car accident or something bad has happened to them. And instantly, I’ve noticed over the years when my brain instantly assumes the worst, my imagination grabs hold of it and it actually plays out these worst case scenarios.

Again, totally affecting my nervous system, putting me into a panic mode. And I actually don’t know, I don’t have all the facts. I don’t know if something bad has happened, I’m just assuming it because there’s a little bit of uncertainty there. And then if I allow my imagination to run with it, it will always just play out these worst case scenarios that always affect me in a very negative way. Now, I don’t know if you can relate to this one. I’ve had this situation many times, but I’ll just give you this one example where I remember a couple years ago I was starting to get these series of headaches and just kind of out of the blue, like, why am I getting these headaches? And I start, I get on the computer like I’m not usually somebody that gets headaches a lot. And so I got on the computer and started researching why am I suddenly getting headaches?

And then I instantly read something and I start assuming that I have a brain tumor, and by the time I make it, make an appointment to go to the doctor and get things checked out, I’m completely convinced that I have, you know, brain tumors that I’m gonna die. That, like the worst case scenario is playing out in my mind. And that has happened to me so many times with self-diagnosing things. You know, something shows up, you see a, you know, something on your skin or whatever, and it instantly, your brain goes to the worst case scenario, whether it’s for you, your kids, all of that. And a lot of times the computer, the internet don’t help us, right? We type in something and all of the, the worst possibilities come up and we start reading about it, and we just start to believe that that’s the truth without actually having the proof of it.

Another situation that my kids, this is one that my kids, we’ve, we’ve dealt with a number of times where my children lose something, something that’s valuable to them, maybe like they have their tablet or their device or something, they lose it, they can’t find it, and instantly they’ll come to me and they’ll say, mom, somebody stole my tablet, or somebody stole my toy, or somebody stole something. And I’ve had to talk them through that a little bit. And yes, is it possible that somebody stole something that was theirs and now they can’t find it? Sure, it is possible, but time and time again, whenever my kids lose something, it’s usually because they’ve misplaced it, they’ve put it somewhere, they’ve forgotten it. I can’t think of a single time where somebody’s actually stolen something from us, but it’s just funny how their brains, and even sometimes we as adults, we, we lose our purse or we lose our keys or we lose something and we sometimes think, oh my gosh, did somebody steal it?

Did somebody take this? What happened to this? And we go to that worst case scenario. Some social ones have to do with scenarios like this. Let’s say we text a friend, this has happened to me a number of times. I text a friend, she doesn’t respond, A couple hours go by, not a big deal, right? You’re like, okay, not a big deal, but maybe a day or two goes by and she still hasn’t responded. And then all of a sudden we start assuming, is she mad at me? Did I do something to upset her? Is, you know, why hasn’t she responded? And for me this has been a situation where a number of times if somebody doesn’t respond, I, I instantly have gone to that worst case scenario of they don’t like me. I’ve heard I’ve done something to upset them. And now our relationship has some sort of problem that I’m making up in my mind.

There’s situations all the time where maybe I know that this has happened to me too, where my boss like at, at one of my previous jobs, I would get an email from my boss saying, Hey, Larissa when you have a moment, can you come down and, and I need to talk to you about something? And I’ll get an email like that and instantly think, oh my gosh, have I done something wrong? Did I mess up? And maybe an hour will go by before I have a chance to go and meet with him. And that whole time, I’m just assuming the worst case scenario. Of course whenever this has happened to me, I go and I meet with a person like 99% of the time they want to ask me a question or get my advice on something, or they have an idea that they wanna run past me.

Like it’s always 99% of the time I’m really positive. And I will leave those meetings thinking to myself, Larissa, why did you just assume the worst? Why? Why does your brain always go there? And now I kind of understand, right? I understand how our brains are, how they’ve developed over the years, and how our brain is always scanning for danger. And how in those moments of uncertainty, it’s very easy for our brain to just perceive that something has gone wrong. Something negative has happened. I don’t know about you. Also, there’s one more scenario I wanna run past you. And it’s this, A lot of times, you know, we might be in a public situation or you know, we’re with a group of people, maybe there’s people we don’t know very well, but somebody looks at us a certain way and maybe we perceive like maybe we perceive that they’re looking at us with a frown or a scowl or something, and we instantly just assume that they’re thinking something bad about us.

I’ve worked with teenagers over the years and it’s funny because when I was teaching, I would have kids come to me and they would be really sad or down and I would say something, you know, like, what’s going on? How are you doing? What’s the matter? And they would say something to the effect of, I think so-and-so hates me like a friend or a peer at school. And I’ll say, well, why did you, why do you think that? And they’ll say, well, I don’t know. They, you know, I said hi to ’em today. They didn’t really respond or their body language or whatever happens to be. And I’m like, well, did they actually tell you that they’re mad at you? Did they actually do something? And a lot of times nothing happens. They just perceive based on somebody’s body language that somebody’s mad at them.

And so, and I do this too, I can think of a number of situations. One in particular, this happened years ago when I had a whole group of little children and we were at mass one day, we were sitting in the back, my kids were making noises and I had the baby and he was crying and, and things like that. And this elderly woman, every time the kids would make some noise, she would kind of turn around and look at us. And she maybe did this two or three times during mass. Now, of course, I was already at this moment feeling pretty self-conscious and I was worried that my kids and their noise was being distracting to others. And, and we also, you know, we get really sensitive in those moments, but every time she was looking at me, I was perceiving that, assuming that she was annoyed or frustrated with my children, and it was making me feel worse.

And I just really wanted to just grab all my kids and run out of mass as quickly as we could. But once mass was over, I was putting the coats on the children and getting them ready to leave, this elderly woman walked up to me. And literally, because my brain had assumed that she was mad, I was preparing myself for her to say something that was gonna be very hurtful. Like, you should take your kids out when they’re making these types of noises. Or You shouldn’t bring your kids to mass. Or, you know, things like that where my brain was already so sensitive, but she actually walked up to me and had this beautiful look in her eyes. I kind of had eyes filled with tears and she smiled at me and she said, I just wanna tell you how great of a job you’re doing and you’re an amazing mom, and it’s a blessing to have your children here at Mass.

And I had six children, I have six children, and I can remember when they were little. And when I hear your kids at Mass, it brings me so much joy because it helps me to remember those memories. And I gave her a big hug and I was like, thank you so much. And she left. And again, I remember thinking to myself, why did I just assume the worst about this woman? Why was I just assuming that she was thinking bad things about me and my family, when in reality she was thinking the complete opposite? I also had a situation, this was a number of years ago at work where a coworker came into my office and she started to talk to me about some pretty heavy things going on in her life. And I was listening to her and I was talking to her. Then I gave her some advice and she got really quiet after I said something to her, she got really quiet.

And then a couple moments later, she looked at her watch and she said, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta go. And she left. And at that moment, instantly because she got quiet and then she left, we didn’t really, we weren’t able to finish our conversation. I thought, oh my gosh, did I say something that upset her? And did I hurt her feelings? Now this happened on a Friday, and so throughout the entire weekend I was assuming that I had hurt her feelings, that I had said something that had upset her. And it bothered me the whole weekend. I had a sick, like, like a sick nu like not in my stomach the whole weekend. I felt terrible. And then I came into work on Monday, she wasn’t there, she was sick or something. So I didn’t get to talk to her. Finally, on Tuesday, I had been agonizing about this all weekend for three to four days, just wondering and replaying the conversation and replaying what I had said to her and wondering if she could have taken it outta context in any way.

And she came into my office that Tuesday and she said, Larissa, I need to talk to you. And I was like, I need to talk to you too. And I start like, I just say, I’m just so sorry. Did I offend you? Did I upset you in any way? Because I feel terrible. I wanna, you know, and I started apologizing and she looked at me and said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, the other day when we were having that conversation, I just hope I didn’t say something that hurts you. And she looked at me, she said, no, in fact, that’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you today. She said, you, what you said to me on Friday was so incredibly helpful and it really made me think about things. It helped me to look at my circumstance and my situation from a different perspective, and it helped me so much.

In fact, she said right after I left, I went home. I was thinking about things and praying about what you said, and it completely changed everything for me. It helped me to come out of this funk that I was in, and it helped me to feel so much better. And I just couldn’t wait to see you today to tell you how thankful I was for what you said to me. And again, I found myself in this situation where I was like, what? Why did I put myself through all that agony for the entire weekend ? Because my brain just assumed the worst, simply because I picked up on her body language, she got a little quiet and then she left, and then my mind went to the worst case scenario. And of course, now that I’ve been learning these life coaching tools and the model and how to manage my mind a little bit, this has been a big area where I’ve really been intentionally working because I know how my brain works.

I know that in most cases it’s going to instantly go if there’s, if there’s some uncertainty or if I don’t know all the facts, very likely it’s gonna instantly go to, it’s gonna want to go to the worst case scenario. And this is where our power lies. If you can identify with this, if you’re like, yeah, I do that too, first of all, just know that we’re in the majority, most human beings do this. And especially if we were kind of programmed as children, like if our parents did this or if we had a parent that oftentimes went to the worst case scenario, it’s very likely that we have that programming in there along with our brains that have been created to scan for fear and danger over many millennia. And so here we are. So what do we do about this? Because so often, assuming things robs us of our peace.

And a lot of times when we just go to the worst case scenario, it’s just like we’re assuming the worst, but it’s just not true. Remember, assuming is when we believe or think something and we don’t have proof for it, and then our imagination will spin out. We’ll go to the worst case scenarios. It affects us more than we realize, and yet we have power over it. When we learn that we actually can have power over our thoughts, that our, our thoughts don’t control us, we can control our thoughts, this is where we can step in with our prefrontal cortex and we can intentionally stop this habit cycle of worst case scenarios and thinking the worst in a lot of cases, particularly when it comes to situations where we have these moments where we assume the worst. When it comes to fear, there’s actually a term for that and it’s called catastrophizing.

And it’s where we don’t have all the information, but our brain just goes to catastrophic moments that we play out in our brains. And the thing is, even though it may not actually be true or reality, our brain and our imagination can be so powerful that it creates a response in our nervous system that feels as though the situation really did happen in that way. And honestly, this is not helpful for us. And on top of that, when we’re in social situations where we just assume that people might be thinking bad thoughts about us, it doesn’t help us at all either. Again, we don’t have all the facts, we don’t necessarily know what other people are thinking, but maybe we read their body language or we perceive something and we automatically tell ourselves a story where we start to believe that somebody doesn’t like us or somebody’s having bad thoughts about us, or somebody’s believing something about us that may or may not be true.

But did you catch those words? They may or may not be true. And oftentimes, and I know this from experience for myself, the majority of the time that I assume that somebody’s thinking something negative about me or thinking bad things, or I’m presuming the worst, most of the time I’m actually proven wrong when I actually go searching for the actual truth or the information, most of the time my assumptions are wrong. And yet I’ve allowed those thoughts to spin outta control and to think the worst. And this is where it really affects our relationships for so many years. And a lot of times even I think a lot of this has had to do with even my own insecurities, my own negative self-talk, that oftentimes when I think negative things about myself, I will automatically assume that other people are thinking those same things about me.

And then my brain worries about it. I can get worked up about it and all of those things. And so what can we do to stop this? Because again, my sister’s in Christ, we actually have power over our thoughts. But one of the first things that we have to do is we have to actually realize in the moment what we’re doing. And this is really one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast because I wanted to bring this to our awareness because a lot of times when we assume things about people, when we go to the worst case scenarios, our brain is almost doing it on autopilot. Like it’s even part of our subconsciousness that is doing it. Why? Because it’s done for so long, it becomes a habit and we just, it just becomes what we do without really thinking about it.

And so this is where we wanna actually have some awareness and realize, okay, is this something that I struggle with? Do I tend to do this a lot? If the answer is yes, wonderful, you’ve acknowledged it, you’ve brought it to your consciousness, you’ve elevated that reality where you’re like, okay, I am aware I do this quite a bit, or I do this from time to time, this is something I struggle with. It’s assuming it’s thinking or believing something without actually having the proof. And then we wanna look and say, how is this affecting my life in a negative way? What if I didn’t actually have to go to all the worst case scenarios? And this is the really cool thing, you guys, our brain is so powerful and our imagination is so powerful that we can actually put it to work for us in a way that serves us better.

So we think that because of the programming that’s happened, that we just always have to go to the worst case scenario. But with a little bit of work, with a little bit of effort, we can actually start to reprogram our brains to go to the best case scenario. Because honestly, if we don’t actually have the proof, then the worst case scenario or the best case scenario, they’re both options. And if you start to practice training your brain to go to the best case scenario or to a better option, that is certainly better than the worst case scenario, then you, if you do that enough times, when you start practicing that intentionally, then guess what? Your brain’s gonna go, oh, so this is an option. I can think this and it seems to actually work better for us. We feel better when we think these better thoughts.

And if you, again, if you do it enough times, it’s reprogramming your brain and then your brain will start to do that as more of the habit. And so then when you find yourself in a moment of uncertainty, if you’ve practiced and reprogrammed your brain to think of the better case scenarios or the best case scenario, your brain will start doing that even at a subconscious level, it will just start doing that more automatically. Now, it’s not necessarily gonna do it in all situations, but what we really wanna do is call to mind, okay, I’m in a situation where I maybe don’t have all the facts, I don’t have all the information, and I’m just not gonna allow my brain to go to the worst case scenario. I’m gonna allow my brain to go looking for the truth or the facts. And in the meantime, until I have all of those facts, until I know exactly what has happened, I’m gonna think of a better case scenario.

So for example, this weekend my, we were at a basketball game, we were at a basketball tournament and my teenagers were there, and then there was this break. And we were with the little kids, the younger kids had the tournament and we were sitting in the gym and all of a sudden I realized that my three older boys and their friends and all of their buddies that they were hanging out with were not in the gym. And I said to one of my kids, where did the older boys go? And somebody said, oh, I think they went to go get something to eat or went to get some lunch somewhere. And I was a little bit bothered by the fact that they didn’t tell us that they were going somewhere, but I was like, okay, that’s fine. And I start calling them and I start calling each of their phones and nobody answers.

And I start texting them. And again, nobody answers. And instantly I caught my brain wanting to go to the worst case scenario. What if they got into a car? What if they’re in a car wreck? Why are no, why is nobody answering their phones? But at this moment, I saw what I was doing, I could feel the panic start to rise up. And I was like, no, Larissa, you don’t have all the facts. They’re probably fine. Calm down. So I calmed my nervous system down and I thought to myself, okay, well what’s the best case scenario? Maybe they’re out doing something, they have their phones on silent, whatever. So fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes goes by. I tried calling them again, still no answer. But again, I was like, I’m not gonna go to the worst case scenario. I’m not gonna think about the worst things that have happened.

I don’t know exactly where they are, and I don’t like that feeling of not not knowing, but I’m not gonna go to the worst case scenario. I started having conversations with people around me and I remember saying a little prayer like, okay, got it. You know, please protect them wherever they are. And then sure enough, a few minutes later, they come walking back into the gym and one of them runs over to me and says, mom, I just saw that you called my phone. And I said, yes, where have you been? And they said, oh, we were outside. We were just outside playing basketball on the outside court and we all set our phones down, we didn’t have our phones on us while we were playing basketball. And I was like, oh, of course. Okay, that totally makes sense. And again, I remember in that moment just taking a deep breath and again, thanking God, thank you, God, they’re okay.

But I was so grateful that I hadn’t worked myself up into a total panic because a lot of times just things like this happen, people don’t always have their cell phones with them. And when it comes to scenarios where, you know, I found myself now maybe I’ll text a girlfriend of mine and I’ll send a message, Hey, I’m thinking about you, hope you’re doing well. And if they don’t respond back right away, or even maybe a day or two goes by, what I’ve started to work on is instead of going to the worst case scenario, I’ve started practicing retraining my brain and thinking the best case scenario. I bet she’s just really busy. I’m sure she has a lot going on. There’s times that I don’t always respond to people because I have a lot going on. It’s very easy to overlook messages. And instead of going to the worst case scenario, I give her the benefit of the doubt and I trust that we have a good friendship.

And maybe if I don’t hear from her after a couple days, maybe I’ll reach out to her again, just say, Hey, is everything okay? Just wanna let you know I’m thinking about you and praying for you. And of course, every time I’ve done this, she’s gotten back and said something to the, the, to the extent of, oh my gosh, yes, I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to your last message. I’m doing well. I’m just really busy. I have a lot going on. Thank you for your prayers. I love you, and you know, all of that. And this is the thing that I’ve come to learn to practice when we’re very intentional about giving people the benefit of the doubt and thinking the best of people and assuming the best. Not only does it take a little bit of practice and intentionality, but it actually just feels better.

It feels good, and it can feel fun. It feels generous, it feels loving to think the best about people. And this is the thing that I’ve started to really understand is that when we think the best, best thoughts, when we think the best things about people and we focus on the best, we usually get the best out of people. And so of course, we don’t always know the facts, we don’t always know the circumstances in people’s lives, but when we just think the best of them, we usually get the best and we feel better because I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna spend days of my life assuming that people are mad at me or thinking that people are thinking bad things about me if I don’t know that for sure. And that’s kind of where I’ve gotten to this point in my life, is that for so many years I just always assumed that people were thinking bad things about me if I didn’t know for sure.

And now I’ve just stopped doing that because it just, it’s exhausting. It robs us of our joy. And again, we’re not giving those people the benefit of the doubt for many years. And again, I think a lot of this went back to maybe my own insecurities or my own, you know, the way I used to speak to myself quite negatively in the past before learning all of these tools and learning how to manage my mind better. But because I was thinking oftentimes negative things about myself, I was just projecting that onto other people and assuming that others were thinking those same things about me. And the funny thing is, is that as I’ve started to really work on that, and as I’ve started practicing greater levels of self-love and building my own self up and interrupting the negative self-talk patterns that I used to have, and, and really taking captive my thoughts about myself, I’ve also started to notice that I’m not just assuming that others are having negative thoughts about me.

And that’s a powerful gift. And I think it’s the reason why it’s so important to be doing this work to the mindset work and the thought work, particularly around the negative self-talk. Because when we work on this for ourselves and believe the best in ourselves and see the good things that we have to offer, we feel better about ourselves, we show up differently, and it just helps us to stop assuming that others are thinking bad things about us. For many years when I would walk into circumstances or situations, events or like social events with people that I didn’t know very well, that weren’t necessarily my closest friends, I would oftentimes, you know, be filled with anxieties or insecurities or, you know, be worried about what people might think of me. And so I would just kind of automatically assume that maybe people were having negative thoughts about me.

Like if people didn’t instantly smile at me or if I didn’t perceive that they were very friendly, I would just assume that they were probably thinking that they didn’t like me for some reason. And this is what’s crazy, when we go into a situation and we don’t know all the facts or details, and we just assume that someone doesn’t like us, then, and we play this out, so I’m gonna play it out for you, like as if we were doing a model on this. If I have a thought that a person doesn’t like me, and then instantly it makes me feel insecure or you know, unliked in some way, how do I end up acting? How do I show up? Well, a lot of times in those moments when I feel that someone doesn’t like me and I feel insecure, I will instantly close up, I’ll turn inward, I’ll withdraw from that person, I’ll put some walls up and I’ll start, my mind will start spinning into what this person might be thinking about me.

So again, way more assumptions than I start to think, well, this person probably doesn’t like this about me or this about me. And all of a sudden, within a few moments, I can get to the result of actually believing that that person doesn’t like me and I don’t really like them, right? Because if you perceive that someone doesn’t like you, you are not gonna really like them back. And then you’re not gonna act very friendly or open or joyful around them. We’re gonna, we’re gonna put up those walls, right? And so we can see an assumption like that, just assuming that someone doesn’t like us and we play it out in the model and we see how it makes us feel, and then how we act and how we might mirror what we’re perceiving. It just doesn’t help us in those situations. It doesn’t help us when we’re already feeling a little insecure or we’re feeling maybe a little bit nervous or in a, so in a social situation that we feel uncomfortable.

So one of the things that I’ve started to do, and I’ve really begun practicing this, is just again, going to the best case scenario. If I’m gonna assume something, if I don’t have all the facts, I don’t have to just assume the worst. I can put my imagination to work for me in assuming the best so I can walk into a room of people that maybe I don’t know. And if I just practice thinking, Hey, I bet all of these people if they got to know me, they’d probably like me. Or maybe all of these people do like me in the same way that I like them as far as I know, like I don’t think bad thoughts about them. And so I’m just gonna believe that unless I know 100%, like unless someone has walked up to me and said, Larissa, I don’t like you, or You’ve made me upset, or you’ve done something to hurt me, I’m going to assume I’m gonna think the best case scenario that they do like me, that they want to get to know me better, that they’re thinking good thoughts about me.

Because again, if we put that thought into the model and we think, you know what? I bet this person likes me. And then we feel liked, we feel good. That thought makes me feel good. When I think that somebody likes me, and when somebody likes me and I feel good about that and I feel good about them, I’m gonna show up so much more friendly and open. I’m gonna be more outgoing, I’m gonna talk to them, I’m gonna smile and I’m gonna be more genuine and sincere. And you know what? That’s going to lead to a result of me liking them and them liking me. Why? Because we’re gonna be friendly to each other, and I’m gonna go outta my way to be friendly to someone who I believe likes me. And so if I have this option of believing that someone doesn’t like me or that they do like me, it always serves me to my advantage to believe that they do like me, to give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re a person that probably is just like me, who has some insecurities, but that they wanna be friendly and that they wanna make new friends or meet new people, and that they’re thinking the best.

Again, when we believe the best in people, we see the good in them, and we project that we’re gonna get it back, that’s what’s gonna come back to us. And I know in my life that I just, life is short and I don’t wanna just live my life anymore. Just always thinking the worst. None of us, like none of us, want people to assume the worst about us. And so why do we do this to others? Let’s practice, put into practice thinking the best of people. Now, a lot of times we as women, we think that we’re pretty good at reading body language. And yet so often, again, this is where we can go wrong, this is where we can perceive something that’s not necessarily true. Somebody might just be having a bad day. Somebody might be sad or somebody might be going through something.

It doesn’t mean that they don’t like us or that they’re thinking bad things about us just because they might be a little quiet or reserved or not smiling. Let’s think the best. Let’s put our brain to practice for us. Let’s assume the best case scenarios and start practicing this and start reprogramming our minds. Because when we think the best, when we think that most situations are probably like our kids are gonna be safe, we’re safe, things are okay, something bad has not gone wrong. When we start working on this every single day, we go through it. It really does change things. We stop panicking so much. We have less anxiety, we have greater amounts of peace. We find ourselves more joyful, more friendly, more present, more open. Again, when we’re thinking about the worst case scenarios, oftentimes we’re projecting into the future even something that hasn’t even yet happened.

And so when we stay in this present moment, when we think the best, when we look for the best in ourselves and in others, and in situations, we think better, we think more clearly, we’re more present, more, we’re more aware, and we always, always will get better results in our lives, better moments of connection, deeper experiences of conversations and relationships. And it’s just better, it’s more fun. And it opens ourselves up to the possibilities, to the very good possibilities of what can be. And so my sister’s in Christ, this isn’t easy. This takes practice. It takes us taking control of our minds, not letting it just spin out in catastrophe and worst case scenarios. We have to reel it back in and say, no, I’m choosing at this moment because I don’t have all the facts. I’m gonna choose to think of a better case scenario at this moment, and I’m gonna put my imagination to use for that.

It’s gonna always, always serve us better in those situations. And then when we do find ourselves getting all of the facts or really discovering what happens, then we can address that situation in that moment once we have all of the information. But until we do so, it will always serve us to think the best. And my sisters in Christ, this is what we do in Masters. We’re putting our mind and our thoughts to use in an intentional way that serves us more powerfully and helps us to clear our minds of the clutter that distracts us from being able to hear the Holy Spirit and to be able to really live the best lives that we can live. And if this is something that you wanna work on in your life, if you want help, if you want these tools and resources, and if you wanna be surrounded and supported by other Catholic women and Catholic moms that are doing all of this together, then I wanna invite you to come and join us in Masters. Come give it a try for a couple months. I promise you the things that you will learn will stay with you for the rest of your life and will help you

To have a better, more joyful, peaceful life if you put these things into practice. I wanna invite you, join us in Masters. We would love to have you there. And remember, Mama, we are not made for comfort. We are made for greatness, and I hope you have a great week. God bless.